Multimedia Research Group

The Multimedia group was the first such group in the UK (established 1969). A major recent contribution was the video transcoder concept: with application to video via satellite, the transcoder has come into its own for wireless video streaming, by taking an already compressed bit-stream and converting it to different formats and bit rates without the need to decode.

Current interests

• IPTV: IPTV will be the main means of video communication.  We are well-placed to develop this area, based on our extensive achievements in video codecs, video transcoding, congestion control, resource allocation, video quality metrics, and video traffic quality measurement
• Teleconferencing: much of our video and audio expertise is also applicable to teleconferencing, which presents a more severe test than IPTV, as it is interactive and involves real-time network traffic
• Spatial audio coding and robust echo cancellation: applied to teleconferencing and blind decomposition of audio
• Video content searching including security applications such as video sensor networks based on our work on object-tracking through saliency and semantics
• Colour object identification through segmentation
• Wireless multimedia: including wearable computers

Group Members

Martin Fleury
Mohammed Ghanbari
Malcolm Hawksford
Steve Sangwine
John Woods

Laboratories

• The Video Networking Laboratory has over thirty five years of experience at the fore-front of video systems research: the first telephone system for the deaf, scalable video coding, and frequency domain transcoders all originated here.
• The Audio Research Laboratory is recognised international for its work in high-quality audio systems, high resolution digital audio and active loudspeaker designs.