2012 Award Recipients
Fraunhofer IIS
The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS performs contract research and development for industry and public authorities. Fraunhofer IIS researchers develop microelectronic systems and devices along with the required integrated circuits and software.
Fraunhofer IIS received a 2012 NAB Technology Innovation Award for its Dialog Enhancement Technology which allows a user to adjust the volume of a program’s dialog relative to other soundtrack elements. For example, individual users can adjust to their preference how loud the announcer’s voice is over the background ambience in a sporting event broadcast, or how loud actors’ voices are compared to the music or sound effects in a movie. The technology was successfully demonstrated in experimental broadcasts of the 2011 Wimbledon Tennis Tournament.
RadioTAG Application Working Group
The second 2012 NAB Technology Innovation Award went to the RadioTAG Application Working Group, a team that has taken the RadioDNS Project’s RadioTAG specification and developed an implementation of an open radio tagging protocol. It enables the radio listener to “bookmark†an over-the-air program for later online listening, to flag a song for download or addition to a subscription list, or to sign up for special deals with advertisers – all by simply pushing a button on the radio when the content is heard. The RadioTAG Application Working Group includes participants from Global Radio, Frontier Silicon, and BBC Research & Development.
