Non-current Projects

Digital Television

Digital Audio Visual Council

Further info: DAVIC website

Inexpensive hard disk storage, digital broadcasts and broadband network connections give consumers the power to view progammes when and how they want and enable new forms of media content and delivery.

The myTV project is developing new services, open standards and consumer platforms to help deliver this vision.

Further info: myTV website

VALIDATE is led by Andrew Oliphant. It aims for an end-to-end trial of digital terrestrial television.

Further info: VALIDATE web pages on BBC Research

Digital Radio

Eureka 147

Further info: Eureka 147 web pages on BBC Research

Networks

ATMAN

Further info: ATMAN website

The AURORA project is led by INA in Paris and the BBC contribution and research within the project is led by Mike Croll. The aim of this project is to develop archival restoration systems for film and television programmes which can be applied automatically when television programmes are recovered from the archives.

Further info: AURORA website

The SAMBA (System for Advanced Mobile Broadband Applications) project is led by Portugal Telecom and the BBC contribution is being led by John Zubrzycki. SAMBA is developing a Mobile Broadband System (MBS) to bring high capacity communications to mobile users using a wireless network. The BBC is researching the suitability of the MBS concept for application to outside broadcasts and electronic news gathering.

Further info: SAMBA web pages on BBC Research

Studios

The ASSAVID project is an EC 5th Framework project developing tools for ‘Automatic Segmentation and Semantic Annotation of Sports Video’. The project aims to develop the means for supporting the work of sports production and cataloguing.

Further info: The ASSAVID website in no longer available.

ATLANTIC is led by Dick Storey and aims to develop methods for mixing, editing and switching the MPEG-coded bit-stream and assembling an optimised multi-programme digital television service.

Further info: ATLANTIC web pages on BBC Research

The ORBIT project is a pilot to show how inexpensive IT equipment can replace many of the facilities currently requiring relatively expensive specialised production apparatus.

Further info: ORBIT web pages on BBC Research

The MetaVision project is an EC 5th Framework project developing a production system which captures additional image information at the camera to assist in post-production. The BBC’s role is primarily concerned with capturing depth information and looking at how it can be applied to help tasks such as integrating real and virtual objects.

Further info: MetaVision website

ORIGAMI is an EC 5th Framework project which is developing new tools to allow the creation of high-quality scenes incorporating both real and virtual objects. This will enable operations such as lighting changes and camera moves to be carried out in post production, and allows the generation of effects such as the casting of shadows between real and virtual objects. Another aim is to provide visual feedback to actors in a chroma-key environment, so that they can easily relate to the position of virtual objects.

Further info: ORIGAMI website

PROMETHEUS is a project in the DTI’s LINK programme, which is developing tools for 3D content production and display. It builds upon work in Virtual Production, developing tools to allow the representation of actors as 3D models, so that the whole production process can take place in 3D. MPEG-4 will be used to represent the whole scene, and an autostereoscopic display system is being developed.

Further info: PROMETHEUS web pages on BBC Research

Multimedia

The aim of the MEDUSA project is to study the many problems that will face consumers in the move from stereo to multichannel sound and to devise solutions to them.

Further info: Eureka website and in the BBC R&D Annual Review 2000-2001.