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OUTLINE
As we continue towards our goal of developing
3-Screens technology to make content available on televisions,
mobile terminals and PCs, we have to devise new broadcasting
techniques that can adapt to changes in the viewing environment
and respond rapidly to the viewer's needs by facilitating
collaboration between viewers and broadcasters and among viewers
themselves. In view of these requirements, our research is
aimed at the creation of useful and universal services through
the development of interfaces that can easily used by anyone,
including children and the elderly, technology to support
viewer communities, security technology to provide a safe
and secure information platform, and technology for increasing
viewer satisfaction.
2.1 Advances in digital broadcasting
The switch-over from analog to digital terrestrial television
is scheduled to be completed by 24 July 2011. To ensure a
smooth transition, we verified that our compensators for on-air
relays are up to the task and that our interference elimination
techniques can be used in domestic receiver equipment. We
have also developed a device for equalizing multipath delays
that exceed the guard interval and a folding rectangular loop
antenna for One-Seg reception that can be incorporated into
small hand-held terminals.
We have developed a system for using part of the One-Seg channel
of digital terrestrial broadcasting for transmitting earthquake
early warnings that can be immediately displayed on receiver
terminals and have contributed to ministerial ordinances and
standards at the Association of Radio Industries and Businesses
(ARIB).
For future wideband content services such as Super Hi-Vision,
we made a prototype modem that supports the 1024QAM carrier
modulation format as well as the ISDB-T signal formats used
in current terrestrial digital broadcasting systems and performed
transmission tests using horizontal and vertical (dual) polarization.
For Super Hi-Vision broadcasting, we continued working on
the satellite onboard components for our engineering test
mission to enable satellite broadcasting systems to operate
in the 21-GHz band. These components include a system for
verifying the characteristics of radio propagation in the
21-GHz band, which is susceptible to rain attenuation.
2.2 Techniques for linking broadcasting and communications
networks
We have developed a broadcast service, called AdapTV, that
combines TV broadcasts and data delivered via communications
networks in ways that adapt to the viewing environment so
that programs can be presented in a diversity of ways that
can better meet viewers' requirements. We have also produced
prototype applications that run in this environment. We are
studying broadcast security with the aim of providing safe
and secure broadcast services that protect not only the copyrights
of broadcast materials but also the personal information of
users that take part in cooperative activities involving broadcasting
and communication services. For this purpose, we have been
researching techniques such as encryption and authentication,
P2P content management, and digital watermarking, and we have
studied ways of implementing enhanced data broadcasts.
We have proposed a search-driven viewing style and made progress
in developing recommendation techniques that use metadata
about broadcast content as a means of enabling users to search
for content related to what they are currently watching.
To provide greater opportunities for Internet users to interact
with TV broadcasts, we have studied a system that provides
communities (public spaces) where people can discuss broadcast
programs, thereby strengthening the relationships between
viewers and broadcasters and among viewers.
2.3 User-friendly broadcast services
For people with visual impairments, we have been studying
barrier-free information technology, technology to support
the production of audio descriptions, and technology for conveying
non-verbal information such as pictures and graphics by employing
the sense of touch. We are continuing with research into barrier-free
information technology for digital broadcasting, audio description
supports, tactile presentation of non-verbal information,
haptic feedback for discerning three-dimensional shapes, and
computer-generated sign language.
With regard to closed captioning using speech recognition,
we worked on improving the recognition of spontaneous speech
in news programs and constructed an automatic transcription
system for news programs that automatically collects training
data and searches through programs.
We have researched sound production techniques for use in
programs targeting elderly viewers who may find it hard to
understand dialogue and narrations when there is background
noise in the broadcast and have studied speech rate conversion
techniques that make it easier for elderly and disabled viewers
to grasp spoken information.
For foreign viewers with a rudimentary understanding of Japanese,
we have analyzed the factors that affect ease of comprehension
by performing tests in which news reports about earthquakes
were manually simplified into plain expressions describing
weather and natural disasters.
To objectively analyze the psychological effects that programs
have on viewers, we continued with our research into techniques
for inferring the psychological state of viewers based on
their mental activity and gaze.
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