Content for All, Television for All | Next Generation Audio for Accessibility

About the speaker

David Bradshaw spent much of his career in the BBC, starting as a design engineer and retiring as a Group Head in the BBC’s R&D Department at Kingswood Warren. In 2001, he transferred to the DTG to set up the laboratory facilities for DTG Testing Ltd, starting in a cabin at Kingswood Warren and overseeing the moves into larger premises at Nine Elms and Vauxhall. He initiated the development of the test streams now used for receiver compliance testing and which were used in the “Digital Tick” campaign and was chair of the DTG Usability Group. This Group was responsible for the publication of the Usability Guidelines, the U Book.

David retired from full-time work in 2009 and took on the chairmanship of the Accessibility Group. The Group added accessibility guidance to the U Book.

About the speaker

Simon is currently leading part of the BBC’s Design and Engineering team focused on Audio & Archiving in production, however he started his broadcasting career in Student Radio in 1983 when he was studying Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the University of Bradford. He joined the BBC in 1988 as a trainee Radio Engineer and has worked as an engineer across most the BBC’s radio services. This expanded to include BBC TV work in 2006 when managing part of BBC R&D. He has worked on numerous BBC & EBU projects since including Loudness [& EBU R128], object based audio, binaural audio, audio over IP and audio archiving.

Simon’s current projects include work to make object based audio technology ready for production and distribution at scale, building the next generation of internet fit Studios for the BBC’s National Radio Services and the introduction of environmental sustainable technology. He’s a member of the World DAB Technical Committee, as well as assistant chair of the DVB Technical Module for Audio & Video Coding and co-chairs the audio specialist group of FAME, the Forum for Advanced Media in Europe, working on an interoperable and sustainable approach to next generation UHDTV across Europe.

About the speaker

Rupert has 40 years’ experience in audio engineering and honed his innovation skills working in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. His pioneering work with audio objects to allow the viewer to alter the relative loudness of dialogue and background sounds won the innovation award at NAB in 2011. Rupert is now a freelance consultant working on audio for next-generation TV with Fraunhofer IIS. Recent work includes MPEG-H trials during the Football World Cup, Eurovision Song Contest and European Athletics Championships.

About the speaker

John Paton is an Innovation and Technology Officer at RNIB and works on accessibility of television, radio and video on demand services. John has a wealth of experience of accessibility issues for those with sensory disabilities as he has worked in the sensory loss charity sector since 2006. He previously worked on accessibility and technology for Action on Hearing Loss and Sense (a charity for deafblind people). He also has a Master’s Degree in Computer Systems Engineering and an interest in the accessibility potential of emerging technologies.

About the speaker