BBC Research Department
Encyclopedia
Function
It has responsibility for researching and developing advanced and emerging media technologies for the benefit of the corporation, and wider UK and European media industries, and is also the technical design authority for a number of major technical infrastructure transformation projects for the UK broadcasting industry.Structure
BBC R&D is part of the wider BBC Future Media, and is led by Matthew Postgate, Controller Research & Development. In 2011 the North Lab will begin its move into SalfordCity of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...
MediaCityUK along with several other departments of the BBC.
History
The department as it stands today was formed in 1993 from the merger of the BBC Designs Department and the BBC Research Department. From 2006 to 2008 it was known as Research and Innovation but has since reverted to its original name. BBC Research & Development has made major contributions to broadcast technology, carrying out original research in many areas, and developing items like the peak programme meterPeak programme meter
A peak programme meter is an instrument used in professional audio for indicating the level of an audio signal.There are many different kinds of PPM. They fall into broad categories:...
(PPM) which became the basis for many world standards.
Innovations
It has also been involved in many well known consumer technologies such as teletextTeletext
Teletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
, DAB
Digital audio broadcasting
Digital Audio Broadcasting is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in Europe. As of 2006, approximately 1,000 stations worldwide broadcast in the DAB format....
, NICAM
NICAM
Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks...
and Freeview. It was at the forefront of development of FM radio
FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
, stereo FM, and RDS
Radio Data System
Radio Data System, or RDS, is a communications protocol standard for embedding small amounts of digital information in conventional FM radio broadcasts. RDS standardises several types of information transmitted, including time, station identification and programme information.Radio Broadcast Data...
. These innovations have led to Queen's Awards for Innovation
Queen's Awards for Enterprise
The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation or sustainable development. They are the highest official UK awards for British businesses...
in 1969, 1974, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1998, and 2001.
Closure of Kingswood Warren and move to London
In early 2010 the department had approximately 135 staff based at three locations: White City, Kingswood Warren in Kingswood, Surrey, and the R&D (North Lab) at the BBC's Manchester offices at New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. In early 2010 the Kingswood Warren site was vacated and the bulk of the department relocated to Centre House, in White City, London
White City, London
White City is a district in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, to the north of Shepherd's Bush. Today, White City is home to the BBC Television Centre and BBC White City, and Loftus Road stadium, the home of football club Queens Park Rangers FC....
co-locating with the main campus of the BBC in London.
Future projects
BBC R&D engineers and researchers are currently active on approximately 50 projects, including 7 active national and international collaborative research efforts.See also
- A-weightingA-weightingA Weighting curve is a graph of a set of factors, that are used to 'weight' measured values of a variable according to their importance in relation to some outcome. The most commonly known example is frequency weighting in sound level measurement where a specific set of weighting curves known as A,...
- CEEFAXCeefaxCeefax is the BBC's teletext information service transmitted via the analogue signal, started in 1974 and will run until April 2012 for Pages from Ceefax, while the actual interactive service will run until 24 October 2012, in-line with the digital switchover.-History:During the late 60s, engineer...
- Dirac (codec)Dirac (codec)Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac...
- Equal-loudness contourEqual-loudness contourAn equal-loudness contour is a measure of sound pressure , over the frequency spectrum, for which a listener perceives a constant loudness when presented with pure steady tones. The unit of measurement for loudness levels is the phon, and is arrived at by reference to equal-loudness contours...
- ITU-R 468 noise weightingITU-R 468 noise weightingITU-R 468 is a standard relating to noise measurement, widely used when measuring noise in audio systems. The standard defines a weighting filter curve, together with a quasi-peak rectifier having special characteristics as defined by specified tone-burst tests...
- NICAMNICAMNear Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks...
- Peak programme meterPeak programme meterA peak programme meter is an instrument used in professional audio for indicating the level of an audio signal.There are many different kinds of PPM. They fall into broad categories:...
- Sound-in-SyncsSound-in-SyncsSound-in-Syncs is a method of multiplexing sound and video signals into a channel designed to carry video, in which data representing the sound is inserted into the line synchronising pulse of an analogue television waveform. This is used on point-to-point links within broadcasting networks,...
- VERA videotape formatVERA videotape formatVision electronic recording apparatus was an early analog recording videotape format developed from 1952 by the BBC under project manager Dr Peter Axon....
- KamaeliaKamaeliaKamaelia is a free software/open source Python-based systems-development tool and concurrency framework produced by BBC Research.Kamaelia applications are produced by linking independent components together. These components communicate entirely through "inboxes" and "outboxes" largely removing...
(concurrency framework/set of concurrency friendly components) - Backstage.bbc.co.ukBackstage.bbc.co.ukbackstage.bbc.co.uk is the brand name of the BBC's developer network which operated between May 2005 and December 2010.-Purpose:...
External links
Video clips
- History of the department and interviews with the staff
- Talk by Matthew Postgate in Manchester in November 2009 at TEDxTED (conference)TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....