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Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference: GR/M14975/01
Title: DIGITALLY IMPROVING THE CLARITY OF TELEVISION NARRATIVE FOR HARD OF HEARING VIEWERS (DICTION)
Principal Investigator: Kondoz, Professor A
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department: Sch of Electronics & Physical Sciences
Organisation: University of Surrey
Scheme: LINK
Starts: 13 February 1999 Ends: 12 February 2001 Value (£): 103,029
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:
Digital Signal Processing
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:
Creative Industries
Related Grants:
Panel History:  
Summary on Grant Application Form
Background noise in television programmes can be a problem for people who have some hearing problems. In order to make the programme sound (i. e. speech) more intelligible for the hard of hearing one needs to employ signal processing algorithms to suppress the background sound. This however cannot be done in isolation. Firstly, the understanding of the problem and its main cause needs to be investigated.Since the programmes are made independently with no consideration for the hard of hearing, the only way to help these people is by producing a background noise suppression algorithm, which will be used at home. It is of course important that the algorithm to be used does not degrade the actual speech sound and only reduces the background noise/music etc. sound to a level that makes the speech more intelligible. Therefore a clear understanding of the problem must be studied so that the designed signal-processing algorithm can focus its efforts on the problem. This will require substantial amount of algorithm simulation and fine-tuning. It is fairly easy to suppress stationary noise such as fan, engine etc. But music and other types of background sound will need to careful study and characterisation.
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Organisation Website: http://www.surrey.ac.uk