[real-eyes] digital radio broadcasting in HD
- From: "Duyahn Walker" <themusicman1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:26:20 -0500
>
>> accessible radios press release source: harris corporation npr,
>> harris
>> corporation and towson university launch global effort to make radio
>> accessible to hearing and sight impaired tuesday january 8, 12:00 pm et
>> first over-the-air transmission from special ces station las vegas,
>> jan. 8
>> /prnewswire-firstcall/ -- (lvcc s227) -- npr, harris corporation and
>> towson university today announced a new initiative to make radio more
>> accessible to the hundreds of millions of hearing and visually impaired
>> people around the world. at a press conference at the consumer
>> electronics
>> show in las vegas, the three organizations announced the global
>> accessible
>> radio technology initiative and provided the first live demonstration of
>> the accessible radio technology. the group also announced a new research
>> center for developing future technologies on the campus of towson
>> university near baltimore, md. additional plans call for the
>> establishment of an international consortium of equipment manufacturers,
>> broadcasters and other organizations to help foster broad adoption of the
>> initiative. the initiative will be spearheaded by the three founding
>> organizations and will leverage cutting-edge hd radio(tm) technology to
>> enable hearing-impaired people to "see" live radio content on specially
>> equipped receivers by applying television closed-captioning processes to
>> radio broadcasts. the technology also will provide audio cues and voice
>> prompts, as well as advanced radio reading services, for those visually
>> impaired and blind. "digital radio technology makes it possible -- for
>> the
>> first time -- to serve the sensory impaired," says mike starling, vice
>> president and chief technology officer of npr. "beyond developing the
>> technology, this initiative will ensure the accessibility of these radio
>> services at minimal costs." during the press conference, the
>> organizations
>> showcased the first over- the-air transmission of the accessible radio
>> technology using a signal from wx3npr, a special temporary station
>> authorized by the fcc for the live broadcast. attendees at the press
>> conference watched the text transcript of the npr flagship morning news
>> magazine "morning edition" on the hd radio receiver's viewing screen,
>> which is what a hearing-impaired listener will see using the
>> technology.
>> additionally, the demonstration carried a digital radio reading service
>> that will assist the visually impaired with daily readings of current
>> books, newspapers and magazines. following the demonstration, the
>> participating organizations unveiled details for the international center
>> for accessible radio technology (icart), which will be headquartered at
>> towson university in towson, md. towson will house the primary
>> administrative and academic research office for the initiative, with
>> npr
>> labs in washington, dc, providing technology rd and software
>> development,
>> and harris corporation supplying transmission and research support at
>> its
>> radio broadcast technology center in cincinnati, ohio. members of the
>> global initiative went on to detail plans to further study and
>> understand
>> the challenges faced by the sensory-impaired population in accessing
>> radio
>> broadcasts, and develop methodologies to address those issues through
>> cutting-edge technologies. to ensure that the effort represents the
>> widest
>> range of participants and fosters the broadest possible adoption,
>> organizers said they will work to bring together policymakers,
>> broadcasters, transmission equipment companies and receiver
>> manufacturers
>> from around the world. presently, the initiative has more than a dozen
>> members, representing virtually every aspect of the "microphone to
>> loudspeaker" chain: broadcasters, network content providers,
>> infrastructure
>> and transmission equipment companies, and receiver manufacturers. in
>> addition to founding members npr, harris and towson university,
>> supporting
>> organizations include ibiquity digital corporation, elphi, nds,
>> radiosophy, helen keller institute, carl and ruth shapiro family national
>> center for accessible media at wgbh(ncam), northern virginia resource
>> center
>> for deaf and hard of hearing persons, and the g3ict, an advocacy
>> initiative of the united nations global alliance for ict and
>> development.
>> npr, harris and towson will jointly determine strategic direction of the
>> organization, with assistance from the initiative's full membership. npr
>> will provide much of the content, harris will provide much of the
>> transmission- related technologies, and towson will provide research
>> into
>> the needs of the sensory-disabled population and will house the primary
>> icart facility on its campus. "we're working very closely with radio
>> stations around the world to ensure they have the right technical
>> infrastructure in place for this initiative," said howard lance,
>> chairman, president and chief executive officer of harris corporation.
>> "the
>> new hd radio transmission systems we're installing are tailor-made for
>> this effort, as their digital capabilities will make it relatively easy
>> for stations to transmit live textual transcripts to hd radio
>> receivers."
>> "there is tremendous need for accessible radio for sensory-impaired
>> people,
>> including the deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, visually impaired, print
>> impaired, deaf/blind, and mobility impaired," said dr. ellyn sheffield,
>> assistant professor of psychology at towson and co-director of icart.
>> "there is no question this initiative will have a profound impact on
>> the
>> quality of millions of people's lives. finally, sensory-disabled
>> individuals will have access to all radio programming, as well as
>> radio
>> emergency alerts and vital disaster recovery information." hd radio
>> enables station operators to split their broadcasts up into multiple
>> channels, providing several cd-quality channels for their audiences.
>> through
>> this accessible radio initiative, a small amount of the total data
>> capacity will be used to carry textual data that will be shown live on
>> a
>> screen on new versions of hd radio receivers, essentially providing a
>> closed- captioning transcript of live broadcasts for the deaf.
>> initially,
>> the closed- captioning text will be created by live,
>> court-reporting-type
>> captioners at individual stations and networks. ultimately, the
>> initiative
>> is hoping to leverage advanced speech-to-text translation software
>> applications that one day allow expansion of captioning across the radio
>> dial. specially equipped hd radio receivers are in development with
>> several features to provide the visually impaired audience with better
>> access to broadcasts, such as audio prompts that notify which direction
>> the
>> tuner is going, what channel the radio is on, and larger,
>> easier-to-read
>> text on the radios. more than 1,500 radio stations are currently
>> broadcasting in hd radio in the united states. over half of the
>> cpb-qualified stations have been awarded hd radio conversion grants by
>> the
>> corporation for public broadcasting. according to current estimates, by
>> 2010, all 825 public radio stations should be broadcasting digitally.
>> more
>> information on the initiative can be found at www.i-cart.net.
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