Shunsuke Iwamura joined Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) in 2010 and has been engaged in the research of efficient video coding systems for Super Hi-Vision, a UHDTV system, at NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories (STRL) since 2011.

He has researched improvements in coding technologies based on the HEVC international video coding standard (ISO/IEC 23008-2| Rec. ITU-T H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding) adopted in 4K/8K satellite broadcasting launched in 2018 in Japan, and he has researched and developed new coding systems using super-resolution techniques.

Since 2016, he has been engaged in international standardization at ISO/IEC and has contributed to the standardization of coding guidelines in high dynamic range (HDR) and wide color gamut video such as by analyzing coding characteristics particularly in Hybrid Log-Gamma (HLG), which is one format of the HDR standard. Simultaneously with this work, he proposed techniques for improving the HEVC and explained the need for a new video coding standard. He also led subjective evaluation experiments at standardization meetings and contributed to the launch of standardization activities for Versatile Video Coding (VVC), a next-generation video coding standard.

In VVC standardization activities, he proposed technology improvements and specifications, and by leveraging his knowledge in the coding of high dynamic range and wide color gamut video, he worked on the specification and management of experimental conditions applicable to high dynamic range and wide color gamut video as vice-chairperson of a technology study group. The VVC was standardized as ISO/IEC 23090-3| Rec. ITU-T H.266 in 2020 as video coding supporting high dynamic range and wide color gamut video in a native manner. Looking to the future, high dynamic range and wide color gamut video is expected to be the mainstream video format and the high coding performance of VVC is expected to play a major role in the development of next-generation broadcasting systems and web video distribution.

As described above, we believe that his remarkable contributions to the field of video coding make him worthy of receiving this prestigious award. We expect him to play an even more active role in this field in the years to come.