Press and Media

Until now, reporting and accounting of musical content used in TV shows, spots, intro sequences and as background music in talk-shows and TV interviews was only based on rough estimates. Given that these estimates have a critical impact on the remuneration of the right holders, Fraunhofer IDMT has developed a new technology that allows automatic and efficient detection of speech and music content in the daily or weekly TV broadcasts. The public German TV broadcasters ARD and ZDF now rely on Fraunhofer IDMT’s music and speech detection technology to analyze their channels in the German Broadcasting Archive.

Oldenburg/London. The Fraunhofer IDMT will be represented at the “Summer Science Exhibition” of the Royal Society in London from 30 June to 5 July 2015 as part of the EU DREAMS project. Together with research partners, scientists from the Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology will demonstrate how audio signal processing can decisively improve the intelligibility of speech even in environments with a high level of reverberation and interference noise.

Oldenburg/Hamburg. Attending a public event, such as a theater performance, movie show, oral presentation, or football match, can be severely compromised if an individual has difficulties in understanding speech. »MobileConnect« and »CinemaConnect« are two apps made by Sennheiser which allow attendees to enjoy the live sound of a public event over WLAN streaming using their smartphones. The two apps now feature a new function, named »Personal Hearing«, which allows users not only to change the volume level of the audio signal they receive, but also to optimize speech intelligibility and sound quality according to their individual hearing requirements. The signal processing technology was developed by the Oldenburg-based Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology of Fraunhofer IDMT.

Oldenburg/Frankfurt. At this year’s »Zukunft Lebensräume« trade fair, the Fraunhofer IDMT and six of its industry partners will present hearing, speech and audio technologies that make life easier for older people in particular.

At Prolight & Sound, taking place April 15 – 18 in Frankfurt, Fraunhofer IDMT and Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup will be presenting the new ’POLARIS evolution’ mixing console, which features Fraunhofer’s SpatialSound Wave technology.

At this year’s Hannover Messe, being on April 13th until 17th, Fraunhofer IDMT will present two new tools at the Thüringer Gemeinschaftsstand (common booth of Thuringian enterprises run by the Thuringian Ministry of Economy): the new version of the Micro-Sleep Alerter which recognizes when the driver has a micro sleep, comes with improved algorithms and hardware; the Eyetracker, a system for 3D monitoring of a person’s line of gaze, which can be used for a wide range of diverse applications.

At NAB Show, the world’s largest convention for the digital media industry, taking place April 13 – 16 in Las Vegas (Nevada, USA), Fraunhofer IDMT will be presenting it’s A/V Analyzing Toolbox, a collection of components for analyzing and optimizing processes for broadcasting, distributing, and archiving digital content. Besides a number of previously introduced components, such as quality control of audio and video content (QC Components) or automatic measurement of the exact amount of music in radio and TV programs, the Fraunhofer experts will be showcasing a new tool for efficient management of video data in large archives.

Playing an instrument is a lot of fun. But with the growing musicianship often the wish comes up with interpreting pieces of music freely and to jam accordingly to a song. With the new Emused app developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT, you can learn musical improvisation in a completely interactive way.

To detect weak points of products preferably during the product development phase, and to assess a product’s market potential, usability tests are extremely helpful. Unfortunately, these tests are usually quite expensive and require a lot of time. CoALa (Collaborative Analysis Lab) by Fraunhofer IDMT is an easy to use tool for efficient determination of users’ assessments and preferences. The tool will be presented for the first time at the CeBIT 2015.

Oldenburg/Wedemark. Audio specialist Sennheiser has developed new wireless headphones with the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT. The RS 195 compensates for age-related hearing loss through personalized sound adjustments that can be adapted to each user’s preferences and individual hearing levels.