The 2021 announcement of the FIAT/IFTA’s Media Studies Commission has been published online.

Rai realized four virtual LIS interpreters, developed by adopting the latest computer graphics technologies and the use of innovative platforms.
This research activity will allows RAI to manage the entire process of generating new contents in LIS for future services for deaf people.

For the first time in more than 25 years the FIAT/IFTA Executive Council and the IASA Board have decided to join forces and organize a joint conference with an integrated programme.

As part of a collaboration with Rai WAY, the electromagnetic behavior of an open GTEM cell at different operating frequencies (from 250 MHz to 1 GHz) has been analyzed, implementing an accurate finite-element model of the device. The analysis, conducted both from a simulation and an experimental point of view, has allowed to characterize this electromagnetic structure as to the field uniformity, a quality necessary to carry out field probes calibration or electromagnetic compliance tests.

A new method to generate and transmit alarm signals to alert the population in the event of natural disasters, embedded in satellite TV transmissions has been devised by Rai-CRITS and proposed to DVB. The prototype developed in the project allowed us to test in the laboratory the effectiveness of the method and the backward compatibility with existing DVB-S/S2 receivers.

It’s online the 2020 announcement of the FIAT/IFTA’s Media Studies Commission.

Last December the neo dott. Ing. Giuliano Cammarata graduated with a 110/110 score at the Polytechnic of Turin with the thesis entitled “The preservation of films. Strategies for scanning, archiving and restoration proposed as part of the DigiMaster RAI project“. The thesis, starting from the practical experience of internship carried out at Centro Ricerche, Innovazione Tecnologica e Sperimentazione (CRITS), investigates the digitalization and digital preservation workflows of films with special focus on 35mm format.

On last October 26th, CRITS experimented, in collaboration with RAI Gold, the new application RAI Bridge. Designed entirely by CRITS, RAI Bridge is not just a companion screen application, but a true end-to-end system for creating interactive experiences with TV programs.

During the recent “COMSOL Conference 2019” held in Cambridge, the Research and Technological Innovation and Experimentation Center (CRITS) in collaboration with Tecnologie Riprese Esterne of Turin (ING-PROD) presented a work entitled: “Design and optimization of circularly polarized antennas for mobile shooting of sports events”, receiving the prize “Best Paper Award”. This activity, concerning the project of antennas used during the last “Giro d’Italia” in May, is part of the long tradition of research and innovation in support of the transition to digital for shooting sports events on the move.

The Research and Technological Innovation Center presented two papers at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) held in Amsterdam, the leading international convention along with NAB Show in Las Vegas on broadcasting technologies and new media. The two papers, the first about radio services on smart speakers and the second about regional content on DVB-T2, were presented on Saturday the 14th at the Conference.

Both papers were included in the prestigious IET’s Journal “The best of IBC 2019”, an acknowledgement to the 10 best papers of the IBC Conference: it’s the first time two papers from Rai reach this achievement.

On Sunday 15th September MediaRoad awarded the winners of the Sandbox Prize in a Ceremony taking place at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC2019), Amsterdam. Judy Parnall, EBU Technical Committee Chair, presented the awards to two startups and one Sandbox among the most innovative.

The annual metadata workshop took place in Geneva at the headquarters of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU-UER). RAI CRITS presented three speeches related to the following topics: an approach for the creation of datasets for AI; an information model and related tools developed for the planning and execution of television productions based on the simultaneous and automated use of multiple drones; a dashboard for the integration of AI services for multimedia content analysis.

The future DVB-I standard aims to deliver TV programmes over the Internet, so that they can be received and displayed by a variety of connected receivers (TVs, PCs, tablets, smartphones) with the same ease of use as today’s traditional TV programmes received from an antenna.

The new DVB-I services will be discovered by means of an installation procedure functionally equivalent to a frequency scan, and included in a channel list having a Logical Channel Numbering (LCN) harmonised with broadcast services.

In Italy, radio is one of the most popular media, thanks to its immediacy and ubiquity. DAB+ is the technology chosen by most European countries for the digital evolution of radio. Reliability, sound quality, transmission efficiency, energy efficiency, textual and graphic information services: DAB+ Digital Radio overcomes analogue radio in several ways.

The standard has been successfully adopted by several European countries: as Norway, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Italy. Among them, Norway has begun the FM switch-off at the beginning of 2017, and other countries have plans for the Digital Switch-Over.

On this website is available the following document

“Consultazione dei soggetti di cui all’articolo 1, comma 6), lettera a), punto 2 della legge 31 luglio 1997, n. 249”

The advent of the Internet and the proliferation of digital services have led to a radical change in the way people enjoy radio and television. The plethora of products, services and content available on the Internet has accustomed its users to interactivity, the ability to search and choose when and what media content to listen, transforming the traditional radio and television listeners into an active consumers, capable of expressing their tastes and preferences. Paradoxically, the vast amount of content available has created an informative overhead and created the problem of finding the most suitable content for each user.
Recommender Systems represent the technological response to the need of relevance. In this context, the broadcaster has the opportunity to evolve its communicative paradigm: in addition to broadcast its content, it can propose the most relevant to its users.

Optical fibres are now increasingly popular in telecommunications, due to their extremely high bandwidth, their very low attenuation, their complete immunity to electromagnetic interference and their reduced diameter and weight.
For these reasons, they are playing an increasing role in trasporting TV content, both for in-building TV signal distribution within the multi-service optical infrastructure, which is mandated in all new buildings (Italian Law 164, 2014) and for TV consumption via broadband networks, which will benefit from ongoing investments in FTTH (Fiber to The Home) architectures, where the fibre is terminated at each building. In Italy, network operators are launching massive optical fiber investment plans over the next five years, not only to cover the most densely populated areas (A and B) but also for less profitable areas (C and D).

The Radio Group of the EBU Strategic Programme, co-chaired by Rai Research Centre, has updated the guidelines for Digital Radio Deployment in Europe, included in the EBU R138 recommendation.

Personalized Linear Radio is based on the idea of replacing part of the audio of linear radio with personalized and user-specific audio content. Audio content can be downloaded from the Internet or from other sources. The context can be the profile of the listener, her mood and activity she is doing, her position, the weather conditions, and all the factors that contribute to characterizing the listener’s status. The ultimate goal of the service is to improve listeners’ user experience, giving them targeted content, while optimizing the use of network resources.

The DVB is currently starting a Commercial Study Mission casting DVB’s Vision for Satellite Broadcasting, looking at the near- and long term, and going beyond classic geostationary satellite constellations, anticipating a successful bringing into use of future low earth orbiting payloads.

Rai-CRIT will participate in these activities, according to its leaderschip role and active participation in the DVB technical module dedicated to satellite transmissions, aiming at evaluating opportunities, times and methods for new standardisation activities.

WiB  (Wideband Reuse-1 Broadcasting) is a new system concept for DTT where potentially all frequencies within the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band are used on all transmitter  sites (i.e. reuse-1).

More pixels or best quality pixels? The problems of a higher resolution signal against an improved quality signal. The challenges of Rai and Reserch Centre towards a high technical quality television.

The High Dynamic Range allows a significantly improved image. The pixels that compose the image are high quality compared to the current pixels, with more information content. The signal reproduced on the new HDR screens is more dynamic and therefore with a much higher brightness, as well as with a superior detail perception.

Rai is planning to extend DAB+ services to the most important Italian urban areas and to the motorways (including service continuity in tunnels). Radio service transmission inside tunnels requires methods such as the installation of radiating cables (“leaky-feeders”) along the tunnel ceiling. This approach is costly, thus leading RAI Research Center to investigate the feasibility of an alternative approach using direct RF irradiation by means of antennas positioned outside the tunnels (not far from the entrance) or internally.

In the modern digital age, a big challenge lies in the ability of collecting, connecting, analysing and presenting heterogeneous content streams, accessible through different sources, and published through different media modalities. At this purpose, the project is aiming at identifying an end-to-end workflow for data driven journalism.

MIND is the “Content Management” and “Multichannel Publishing” system that allows to associate and synchronize images and textual information with each of the DAB+ radio channels distributed across the network nationwide. Its ability to synchronize with the channel’s schedule and to choose and create new content to be transmitted, allows to get a channel dynamism even without a continuous publisher’s intervention.

RaiPlay, the new Rai multimedia portal released in 2016, is available as a browser and as an application for mobile devices and smart TVs. CRIT has overseen the software development of the TV version and interactive decoders to DVB MHP standard with gold stamp.

The film and television have undergone an extraordinary evolution in the technical means as in content. The need to keep up with the times and with a society living in ever-increasing pace has profoundly changed the way of realizing television and radio programs. The manner of conducting the programs has changed dramatically from the fifties to the present, from a television in black and white that “entered” into the homes with discretion and played just a few hours of the day of a program like the present with channels broadcasting 24 hours daily and characterized by fast tempos and rhythms. the user is also changed, now the viewer quickly select with the remote control a number of channels to decide what to watch and with TVs connected to the network selects the contents and realizes its own schedule. People with disabilities and the elderly, by contrast, strongly demanding the reduction of the complexity of television and the reduction of technological barriers. The project Stretch TV, launched by RAI – Centre for Research and Technological Innovation and RAI – Social Secretariat, aims to develop a technological solution that allows to significantly improve the usability of television content by persons with sensory disabilities and / or cognitive and the elderly.

The RAI internal project for the digitisation of archive audiovisual material currently stored on physical legacy carriers. It aims at the preservation of RAI  contents produced and communicated to the public till present day. The Centre for Research and Technological Innovation is involved together with other RAI departments, namely Teche, ICT, and Produzione-TV.

Today, TV content can be distributed via Internet as OTT (Over The Top) delivery, allowing to expand the traditional offer with on-demand services. As the QoS (Quality of Service) cannot be guaranteed on the Internet as on a private IP network, during the years specific network architectures have been designed and developed (CDN: Content Distribution Network) and adaptive streaming protocols (ABR: Adaptive Bit-Rate), in order to optimise the data stream according to the broadband connection and the kind o terminal associated to each user.