SINTEF has developed a system using speech recognition in the generation of closed captions (subtitles) for broadcast of live TV programs. During broadcast, a commentator formulates a possibly condensed, but semantically correct version of the original speech. These compressed phrases are recognized by a continuous speech recognizer, and the resulting captions are fed into the teletext system.

This application will provide the hearing impaired with an option to read captions for live broadcast programs, i.e., when off-line captioning is not feasible. The main advantage in using a speech recognizer rather than a stenography based system is the relaxed requirements for operator training. Also, the amount of text generated by a system based on stenography tends to be large, thus making it harder for the viewers to read.

The development has been put on hold due to limited funding.

Contact:
Erik Harborg
Tel.: +47 73 59 31 39