DTT can also lead to great news and breakthroughs that make it better. While in Spain we still sigh for having a mandatory HD quality, something that ended up being delayed (let’s not even talk about 4K by default), at least we can be content with new features for Digital Terrestrial Television.
Specifically, this week DTT received the option to broadcast its subtitled version of the radio for deaf people through Digital Terrestrial Television.
Subtitles for the radio on DTT
Radio Nacional de España has started its subtitled broadcast for deaf people on DTT this past Monday, coinciding with “World Radio Day”. The Royal Board on Disability has presented this pioneering experience that allows live radio subtitling through voice recognition and natural language processing.
The subtitles are generated with a tool developed at the Spanish Subtitling and Audio Description Center (CESyA) , known as “Mercurio”, which works thanks to voice recognition and natural language processing, and is supported by a live transcription system. , this time the Google Transcriber. Using this formula, the sound that is picked up in broadcast is processed and sent to the DTT signal synchronized together with the generated subtitle.
Within the framework of the ‘Radio for all’ project, a test was carried out this Monday with which the current regulations on universal accessibility are complied with. With this technological innovation project “it intends to provide an accessible radio service for deaf people through the different broadcast channels: DTT, WEB, RTVE Play and social networks”.
Mandatory HD resolution will have to wait
Other novelties that we expect in DTT, such as the obligatory HD resolution, will have to wait. Although there are more and more DTT channels in HD that we can enjoy today, there are still many television channels that offer SD quality to their viewers. For this reason, and in order to compete against other multimedia content such as online television platforms or content such as Netflix, HBO Max, etc., it was planned to make the mandatory leap to high definition on January 1, 2023. As established in the National Technical Plan for Digital Terrestrial Television, published in the BOE, on June 25, 2019.
However, it was today when, in the Council of Ministers on January 17, 2023, a Royal Decree was approved that extends the deadline for all channels to change the quality of their broadcasts to high definition until February 14, 2024. (HD) and definitively stop issuing in standard format (SD). In this way, there is still a year left for DTT to finally make the leap in quality that we are waiting for and that leaves us with channels like Gol Play (the one with the open-air LaLiga match) in lousy SD quality.