Charles Poynton is a specialist in the physics, mathematics, and engineering of digital color imaging systems. As a free lance contractor between 1995 and 2005, he worked on digital video, HDTV, and digital cinema (D-cinema); prior to that, he worked at Sun Microsystems, where he helped implement and standardize colour management systems. A Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Poynton was awarded the Society's prestigious David Sarnoff Gold Medal for his work to integrate video technology with computing and communications. In February 2003, Poynton's second book Digital Video and HDTV Algorithms and Interfaces was the 3,339-th most popular item at Amazon.com.