Max Leonard

I joined BBC R&D in September 2009 after completing an MEng degree at York in Electronic Engineering with Music Technology Systems, leaving behind an original plan to be a sound engineer in the increasingly unstable climate of the recording industry. In hindsight, I couldn't have made a better choice.

The trainee scheme runs over two years, giving each trainee three eight month rotations working in different areas of the large body of research conducted by the department. This gives an unrivalled opportunity to experience areas of work that you might not have otherwise considered, or had the chance to previously look at.

My first eight months were with the Automated Production team in the South Laboratory working on Click Ingex: a highly flexible tapeless production system that uses off the shelf IT hardware and an open source code base to do the job of expensive specialist broadcast gear. While working on this project, a lot of time was spent in the field, using Ingex at Pinewood Studios, Broadcasting House and outside broadcasts on a plethora of different productions and demonstrations. As well as the hands on use of the Ingex hardware, I also spent time on development of the software itself, adding new HD encoding and file wrapping functionality.

After completing my first project, I was set to work on Click My-eDirector, a collaborative project between the BBC and a host of European academic institutions and broadcasters aimed at giving the audiences a more personalised viewing experience by serving up content specific to their interests. The BBC's commitment to this project included the development of real time segmentation algorithms for separating foreground objects, such as athletes, from background to aid other image processing techniques being developed by the project partners. As well as development of image processing algorithms, my other task was to aid in the collection of footage for the main trails for the eDirector system. Using my knowledge of Ingex gained on my previous placement, I worked on the recording of the Aviva Athletics GP at Crystal Palace, capturing 12 isolated video feeds to be used as test material for the My-eDirector system trials.

In addition to core project work, there have also been ample opportunities to get involved with a whole variety of different work. In my first year alone, I've rigged a television studio with a massive 3D audio system, built a digital art installation and spent a day testing experimental video capture technology on the UK's tallest roller coaster.

My third and final placement will be spent in the soon to be completed North Lab at MediaCity in Salford. The completion of MediaCity will make Salford a primary centre of production for the BBC, with BBC Sport, Childrens and 5Live all making their home there alongside R&D North. This new proximity to the BBC’s production base along with world class facilities afforded by the brand new lab will provide an exciting new space for the groundbreaking work done here in the department.

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