Stephan Heimbecher (born 1967) has been working at Sky Deutschland (formerly Premiere) since July 2002. As Director Innovations & Standards in Technology, his post involves representing Sky on national and international committees, technical work with major Hollywood studios plus technical innovation management tasks within Sky Deutschland. The electrical engineering graduate began his career as research associate at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik (IRT) where he worked on audio coding. Since 1997 he has dedicated his work at IRT to the standardisation of Digital TV before joining Top5 MediaConnection in 2001 (a company of the former KirchGruppe) as manager within the consulting department. At Sky Stephan Heimbecher has significantly been involved in the launch of some technical innovations including Sky+ (PVR), Sky HD and Sky 3D. Since 2011 his major focus is on Ultra HD and Stephan Heimbecher serves as chairman of a respective working group and member of the board of the German TV Platform in that regard. On European level he is co-chair of FAME (Forum for Advanced Media in Europe). Stephan Heimbecher is also member of the Steering Committees of the Innovation Center for Immersive Imaging Technologies (3IT). His international activities include participation in the Ultra HD Forum. In 2016/17 he was leading the Broadcast Group of the UHD Alliance.