Alan E. Bell, digital rights management veteran who as onetime engineer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center helped broker the format-war compromise that led to the successful 1997 introduction of the DVD, died Monday in Cambodia from injuries sustained in a…
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motorcycle accident while on a business trip. At the time of his death, Bell ran his Los Angeles-based consulting company and was on the board of WR Films Entertainment Group. Previously, Bell was chief technology officer at Paramount Pictures and executive vice president-technology at Warner. Bell held dozens of patents, including a September 2006 Warner application that bore his name (see 0609070159) for a “multilayer dual optical disk” that would bridge the warring HD DVD and Blu-ray formats, much as the dual-format players from LG and Samsung were designed to do. Bell was active on many standards bodies, including that of the Advanced Access Content System, which is the backbone of the Blu-ray format’s content protection platform. A memorial service is planned for Bell.