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About us

The Rai Centre for Research, Technological Innovation and Experimentation

Story

The Rai Centre for Research, Technological Innovation and Experimentation (CRITS) was founded in Turin in 1930 as “Laboratorio e Officine”, then, in 1961, it became “Research Laboratory”. In 1999 it assumed the name of “Research and Technology Innovation Centre” and, from 2018, the current one. Its headquarters was located from 1960 until 2014 in Corso Eusebio Giambone 68 and, from november 2014 in Via Giovanni Carlo Cavalli 6, always in Turin.

Our mission

The CRITS is part of the Rai technological area under the responsibility of the Chief Technological Officer (CTO) with wich it collaborates in identifying and defi ning the company’s technological strategies.

It plays a central role in planning technological activities and in supporting the Company in fulfilling the Rai-Italian State service contract as regards in particular the technological research activities.

It studies new technologies and trends related to the production, coding and storage of the audio/video material, and related to the production and distribution of multi-platform multimedia content and services, to the integration with social media and to services for inclusion. It also deals with technologies and services for transmission on fixed and mobile networks, broadcast and broadband.

It collaborates in the definition of new technical standards working with agencies and bodies at national and international level; it tests, both in laboratory and on the field, the new systems and services developed.

It collaborates with and supports the Rai Engineering Departments in the development of strategic activities and applications, ensuring flexibility in the use of resources and fostering synergies and integration with other company sectors on inter-disciplinary projects.

It contributes, in turn, to the growth of the corporate technology culture, promoting training courses for technical staff, seminars and publications.

Acknowledgments

  • Received 14 September at IBC 2014 in Amsterdam a prestigious international prize for the best paper of the conference, describing the experimental work carried out in the Valle d’Aosta on an application of second-generation digital terrestrial (T2-lite).
  • Received September 15 a prestigious international award for technological innovation with VISION Cloud project, at IBC 2013 in Amsterdam.
  • Received in December 2011 the ‘‘Giovanni Giovannini. Nostalgia di futuro” prize, in the context of the Conference “Innovation between sustainability and development” for ‘invention of the first microphone system able to make the acoustic zoom without solution of continuity.
  • Received ICMT Award 2011 for convergence Media-driven to “Rai +” project, which won for “the high level of convergence between content and platforms, made contextualizing the flow of images, video and television texts through the use of traditional technologies the Internet and the telecommunications world.
    With Rai + is introduced into the television viewing using new terminals (tablets and smartphones) that make much more simple and immediate interactivity in the future use of advanced services. The prize was delivered by Giorgio Napolitano, President of Italian Republic.
  • Received in November 2010 the “Giovanni Giovannini. Nostalgia di futuro” prize, assigned to Rai for the high contribution of technological innovation in the field of automatic media processing (Hyper Media News and ANTS projects).
  • Received in June 2010 the ICMT Media Convergence prize for the Hyper Media News System and its innovative approach to addressing convergence between different content types and the contribution for aa sector of crucial importance as that of information. The prize was delivered by Giorgio Napolitano, President of Italian Republic of during the Innovation Day.

Scheduled Events

and CRITS involvement