The BBC is a large broadcasting organisation producing radio and television programmes in a number of studio centres of varying size throughout the United Kingdom. In addition, it operates one of the most popular web sites in Europe. BBC Research is a world-leading centre for media production and broadcasting technology, providing the BBC with a competitive advantage through technology development and expertise. It has a staff of about 100 engineers, mathematicians and scientists, and a range of specialist resources including a TV studio, video editing suites for both standard and high definition TV, and computer-based image processing facilities. Research staff maintains close contacts with programme makers, to gather user requirements for projects and test prototypes. BBC Research contributes to the setting of international standards, and has played key roles in groups such as MPEG, the Pro-MPEG Forum, TV-Anytime, the EBU and DVB. The BBC has either led or contributed to many successful EC-funded projects. Recent projects include MetaVision, ORIGAMI, Share it!, ASSAVID, SAMBITS, MOTIVATE, MATRIS, PRESTO, and PRESTOSPACE.

Relevant research activities of BBC

BBC Research has an excellent track record of work concerned with the application of virtual reality techniques to TV production. This began with its participation in the RACE project MONA LISA, which demonstrated the first live virtual studio and vision-based camera tracking system at International Broadcasting Convention'94. Some image manipulation hardware that the BBC developed in this project went on to be commercialised and become one of the world’s most widely-used 2D virtual set systems, winning an International Broadcasting Award in 1996 for the Video R&D Achievement of the year. Other developments that have been commercialised include the free-d camera tracking system, which won an RTS Technical Innovation award in 1998. Some of our recent work includes a project on Automated Coverage which developed technologies to capture appropriate content from a scene by detecting and responding to events in the real world. A typical application would be the automatic tracking of player positions in a tennis match and the control of a robotic camera head to keep the players framed correctly in shot. Another recent project was Piero, a system for generating virtual views of sporting events and adding 'tied-to-pitch' graphics, which won the International Broadcasting Convention Innovation Award 2006.