About

Manuel Briand is a Principal Media Streaming Engineer at Disney and the holder of 36 granted US patents in audio, video, and streaming technology. He holds a PhD in DSP and Computer Science from Grenoble INP.

Manuel Briand is a Principal Media Streaming Engineer at Disney, where he leads video quality and quality of experience across every screen. Over 23 years, from Ericsson Stockholm (ITU-T G.719) to DTS (DTS:X for ATSC 3.0), AT&T (the 2016 DIRECTV 4K/HDR/Atmos launch) and Disney, he has architected audio, video, and broadcast & streaming systems end to end, holds 36 granted US patents, and builds machine-learning tools for media quality. Today he designs the content-aware ABR stacks behind Disney+, including the new 9:16 vertical video format.

Manuel Briand is a Principal Media Streaming Engineer at Disney, responsible for video quality and quality of experience across every screen. He holds a PhD in DSP and Computer Science from Grenoble INP, an MSc from the University of Rennes 1, and an engineering degree from ENSSAT in Lannion, and is the inventor on 36 granted US patents spanning audio coding, streaming, and broadcast technology.

His 23-year career runs the full media stack. At Ericsson Stockholm (2007–2011) he contributed to the ITU-T G.719 codec and earned a CTO Award; at DTS in Calabasas (2011–2015) he worked on DTS:X for ATSC 3.0 and earned a second CTO Award; at AT&T (2015–2021) he architected the 2016 DIRECTV 4K/HDR/Atmos launch and the multi-tenant AT&T TV platform of 2018. At Disney since 2021 he has led the Dialogue Clarity Engine and accessible audio renderer, and a patented automated video-quality flow (US 12,236,979). He designs the content-aware ABR stacks for every Disney+ format, from 4K HDR and IMAX to the new vertical video, and invented a way to adapt cinematic sound to the 9:16 crop (in development, patent pending).

He builds machine-learning tools for media quality: language identification for dubs and subtitles, objective dialogue-intelligibility scoring with Fraunhofer, and automated video QC. He speaks on dialogue clarity, streaming quality, and AI automation, next at the AES Show in Nashville, Tennessee, on Nov 1, 2026.