Ocean Blue Software World Class Software Solutions for the Digital Home Talking TV Technology Advanced User Interfaces and Leading Edge Text-To-Speech Technology

As Digital Switchover increases across the world, users are forced to migrate to digital technology. DVB technology, because of the greater number of channels available and the extra features it offers, confronts the user with a significantly higher level of complexity. More page & text based information The user experience for visually impaired people is therefore becoming increasingly more difficult. The Problem with Digital TV

The Challenge The RNIB chose to work with Ocean Blue Software in order to jointly develop an innovative Talking UI and EPG This project also called for an improvement to the standard TV UI for partially sighted users and those with particular visual impairment (Such as colour blindness)

is an accessible, Digital Tick-compliant, DTV software product Designed to be intuitive, provide greater visual clarity in operation and easy to use Improved design of user interface Talking menus Talking TV programming guide Talking on-screen prompts The Solution Main menu, there are seven options. Current option: One Preferences....

Visual; Uses Tiresias font Simple and intuitive screens Dynamic choice of language, font size and colour scheme Audio; Talking menus Talking EPG Audio feedback Audio (Video) description Speech is configurable to the users preferences / requirements Key features

Technical Overview KeySoftwareBlocks

The minimum spec processor that Talking TV can operate on is an ARM9 260MHz. or Similar Power Mips / SH4 etc. The higher the CPU power and memory the quicker and better operation of the speed of software and quality of the voice engine The Talk TV module would be able to reduce its CPU loading by using larger buffers, if there is suitable memory available to allow it to do so. Operating on a Linux OS, using a kHz English voice with a standard dictionary and very small customer lexicon would need 45.2MB of ROM, whereas a kHz English voice would require a total ROM space of 21.5MB The RAM requirement is between 3 – 7.5 Mbyte depending on Language As the Talk TV module retrieves its voice data from the flash memory in real time the memory chosen needs to have quick access time. Typical Specification

A large number of languages are supported most with multiple voices usually including male and female voices all voices come with 8/11/16/22/32/44 KHz sampling frequencies: CatalanDanish DutchFinnish EnglishEsperantoGalician German AmericanAustralianBritish FrenchGreek Italian Norwegian CanadianFrench Mandarin ChinesePolish RussianSwedish Spanish PortugueseTurkish Valencian American Brazilian American Brazilian Argentinean Portuguese Argentinean Portuguese Castilian Castilian Chilean Chilean Mexican Mexican Languages Supported

Market research suggests that greater than 10% of the population would benefit from this technology People to benefit consists of the following ; The over 75s Blind and visually impaired people aged Severely dyslexic people aged People with Parkinsons disease People with Dementia Potential Market

The United States has already passed a Senate bill mandating accessible User Interfaces for CE equipment and that includes features such as Talking Menus and Talking EPG in the way OBS has already implemented. In the EEC the DTG, EBU and Digital Europe are looking to harmonise the specifications for accessible User Interfaces, this will start in the UK with the publication of the U Book (Usability) in June this year. Australia and New Zealand are also introducing the same User Interface for their Help Scheme boxes as part of their DTV program. Global Activity

Ocean Blue Software has a wealth of experience working with assistive technology solutions including Text to Speech. We were instrumental in forming the original RNIB consortium, which provided the industry with the proof of concept that modern day Digital Television platforms were capable of delivering quality User Interfaces and advanced text to speech systems. Ocean Blue products can be tailored to the customers requirements. Customers can also benefit from Ocean Blues wealth of experience in accessible UI design. Ocean Blue provides support during an engineering process and ongoing support & Updates. Advantages of Working with OBS

WINNER: IABM Award for Excellence in Design & Innovation NOMINEE: IMS-Conference TV Innovation Award NOMINEE: Royal Television Society Innovation Award Industry Awards

Ocean Blue Software developed the worlds 1 st advanced User Interface and innovative Text to Speech solution for Digital TV Ocean Blue, in conjunction with the RNIB and their European counterparts in mainland are working to roll out this technology across Europe. Summary

Thank You Phil Evans