RISE August-September 2011 - University of Salford

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RISE Magazine The BBC audio research partnership ‘Did you hear that?’ ‘Can you hear me?’ ‘Listen to this!’ Phrases common in everyday life, we take our audio perceptions and soundscape in our lives for granted and we expect the best. When we watch a film or listen to music or sit in front of the TV we expect the audio quality and technologies to be the best they can. Here at Salford University, in partnership with the BBC, Professor Yiu Lam and colleagues are working on ground breaking acoustic research to provide the best for the future. The concept of the BBC Audio Research Partnership (ARP) began when the BBC R&D identified the importance of advancing audio delivery to match the fast pace of media developments over multiple broadcasting platforms. It was recognised that such advancement could only be achieved through synergy developed in a network of excellence involving leading researchers in this field. In a sequence of visits and internal evaluations, the BBC identified the top five universities that matched their strategic needs. Among the five universities, two were identified as primary partners. Salford, with its leading presence in acoustics and audio research through its Acoustics Research Centre was recognised as a key primary partner. Along with University of Surrey, Queen Mary University London, University of Southampton, and York University, a partnership was formed to map the research expertise at these universities to the BBC’s strategic plans in audio R&D with Salford concentrating on Acoustics and Spatial Audio. In July this year the Partnership was launched in the newly opened BBC building in the MediaCityUK to an audience of guests from a wide cross-section of the creative, media and broadcasting industry and academic institutes. Professor Lam said: “The vision of the ARP is to drive internationally leading research, training, and commercialisation of audio and acoustics applied to broadcast; forming a pipeline of innovation for the BBC and its partners. The University of Salford is ideally placed to deliver this thanks to the world class research, staff and facilities in the Acoustics Research Centre (ARC) allied with extensive central support services for bidding and commercialisation”. The creation of MediaCityUK and the close proximity of the Salford University building to BBC will offer many benefits to the Audio Research Partnership. As part of an ambitious development plan the University has taken 103,000 square feet over 4 floors in the heart of MediaCityUK next door to the BBC. The building is designed as a state of the art Salford and its partners will develop formative and internationally leading research in audio and accoustics facility for teaching, research and enterprise activity centred on media and digital futures. A key aim of the building is to create both physical and virtual collaborative spaces to foster and facilitate research with external organizations. The collaborative research activities between the BBC and the Acoustics Research Centre under the ARP will be a substantial part of this. Facilities within the MediaCityUK building include TV studios, radio studios, edit suites, animation, 3D modelling and audio post production suites, a mobile and ubiquitous computing lab, and a ‘The Egg’ offering an environment where prototypes and interactive technologies developed as part of the Audio Research Partnership can be assessed and showcased. The Acoustics Research Centre (ARC) at Salford has over 35 years track record of high quality research in acoustics. Yiu continued: ARC is the only sizable UK university group in audio acoustics that undertakes specialist research, dedicated graduate and postgraduate training, and provides commercial services to industry. The synergy between research, teaching, and commercial works has enabled the Centre to establish its leadership in building, environmental, and audio acoustics research. It is backed up by a wide range of state-of-the-art acoustics facilities. The ARC has an extensive portfolio of projects that map onto the key research themes designated by the BBC, with tremendous synergy between areas of excellence within the ARC and the strategic aims of BBC Audio and Acoustics research. The ARC facilities will be key contributors to Audio Research Partnership research projects, ensuring the world class facilities at its disposal are utilised to full impact for the BBC and its partners. This exciting opportunity for Salford and its partners will enable them to develop transformative and internationally leading research in audio and acoustics that create real impacts applied to broadcast. The vision is to develop fundamental audio technologies that enable the enrichment of audience experience for future broadcast delivered over a variety of platforms, and allows the exploitation of innovative broadcast options to create new dimensions in production and broadcast contents. A range of projects and 20 | August/September
development work, both in research and training, will be undertaken by Salford to drive through these goals. At Salford, the initial focus will be on the delivery of spatial audio and periphony in the acoustic environment of living rooms. Examples of planned projects in the first year include: Compression of ambisonics for broadcast; Ambisonic reproduction in living room acoustics; Spatial audio delivery using unconventional loudspeakers; Enhancing binaural listening using ear scans. The ARC and the BBC are currently working on an exciting EU FP7 project Fascinate (new paradigm in broadcast) along with projects on periphony for broadcast and a Knowledge Transfer Project around event sound extraction. The ARC is fully committed to exploit this exciting opportunity provided by the Partnership. With all this research ongoing and the development and implementation of new ideas, the acoustic future sounds perfect! Name: Yiu Lam Email: y.lam@salford.ac.uk Above: Acoustics Research Partnership Research Team with colleagues at MediaCityUK August/September | 21
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RISE August-September 2011 - University of Salford

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