The EBU Technology & Innovation Award, running since 2016, shines a light on some of the most creative technologists, developers and researchers from Europe’s public service media community. Here we present the nominees for this year – please get in touch with us if you’d like to be put in contact with any of the project leaders to discuss a potential collaboration.
The winner of the T&I Award 2023 will be announced during the EBU Technical Assembly in Vienna on 15 June.
New ORF newsroom for online, radio and television news
ORF, Austria • Contact: Stefan Kollinger
A fully IT- and IP-based newsroom consolidating three formerly separate teams, with more than 300 journalists producing ORF’s news for all platforms since summer 2022.
-
Nakolos: leveraging 5G broadcast and broadband for unlimited high-quality distribution
ORF, Austria • Contact: Michael Wagenhofer
Middleware for smartphones and a cloud-based headend that enable seamless switching between 5G Broadcast and broadband, reducing CDN peaks and consumption.
-
AI-enriched audio storytelling
Yle, Finland • Contact: Jouni Frilander
A podcast series on urban legends that enriched the volume and variety of its storytelling through the addition of AI-generated versions of the real narrators.
-
Yle Novyny – Ukrainian news service
Yle, Finland • Contact: Samuli Sillanpää
Yle’s first news service that relies on AI-based translations, using the EBU’s EuroVOX to provide Ukranian citizens with essential information in their own language.
-
Automating satellite downlink configuration
Yle, Finland • Contact: Jouni Frilander
An automated solution that radically shortens the time taken to handle synopsis files used to configure thousands of satellite downlinks annually, also reducing the likelihood of errors.
-
SSAI: generating revenue through ad replacement on multi-channel streams
France Télévisions • Contact: Emmanuel Guilly
Using server-side ad insertion on OTT live streams, broadcast ads are replaced with paid ads from the digital advertising systems, including with accessibility features.
-
5G Campus Network – on the way to nomadic operation
SWR, Germany • Contact: Dominique Hoffmann
Development of a full mobile production setup using studio cameras, as well as smart production devices like smartphones, PTZ cameras and a virtual vision mixer.
-
InterviewTool: web-based acquisition of video and/or audio interviews
rbb, NDR, SWR, ORF and DW, Germany & Austria • Contact: Julian Hecker (rbb)
A WebRTC-based tool allowing journalists to conduct interviews over the internet anytime, anywhere, and with any device, without requiring any technical expertise.
-
Public cloud-based election system
RÚV, Iceland • Contact: Bragi Reynisson
A cloud-based solution providing a graphical representation of election data that the television host can control and navigate live, also available via the public website.
-
5G audiovisual broadcast broadband network
Rai Way, Italy • Contact: Mauro D’Onofrio
Testing the ability of 5G technologies to enable both innovative audiovisual production scenarios and hybrid 5G Broadcast/broadband linear content distribution.
-
User-generated AR elements for news
NPO/AVROTROS, Netherlands • Contact: John van de Molengraft
A system that allows journalists to create their own high-quality 3D augmented reality elements for on-air use, without needing to involve a graphic designer.
-
SeeItOver: shared data space for media content insights
RTP, Portugal • Contact: Carlos Barrocas
A system unifying data on audiences and shares, costs, revenues, advertising, etc., offering user-friendly access and enabling data-driven decisions derived from AI models.
-
Radio 3 takes its content to the metaverse
RTVE, Spain • Contact: David Corral
Providing concerts that can be viewed in the metaverse, in 3D with a VR headset and in 2D using an Android application, on a free-to-access platform that doesn’t require registration.
-
Applying AI and cloud for content analysis
RTVE, Spain • Contact: Virginia Bazán-Gil
Applying automated metadata management, including the use of AI tools, to 11,000 hours of content from the RTVE archive, enabling the recovery and reuse of digitized content.
-
IVERES – identification, verification and response
RTVE, Spain • Contact: David Corral
A collaborative effort to combat disinformation through an open verification tool that supports the democratic state and the safeguarding of truthful information for citizens.
-
Hiperia: 100% AI and music
RTVE, Spain • Contact: David Corral
A character, voice and script created with various AI tools contributes to RTVE programming, enabling the exploration of cutting-edge technologies and new narratives.
-
AI to travel from the past to the future
RTVE, Spain • Contact: David Corral
Testing the possibilities of using AI to colourize black and white images from the archives to preserve them, improve their quality and digitize them, enabling their use in new contexts.
-
Elections and AI: no one without information
RTVE, Spain • Contact: David Corral
Creation of an AI-based tool that enables the automatic drafting of texts based on election results that is reliable, useful, coherent and informative.
-
A better and cheaper way to transcode live video online
SVT, Sweden • Contact: David Karlsson
In-house development of a solution for OTT encoding based on off-the-shelf hardware, achieving better results than leading vendors in terms of quality, scalability and costs.
-
Self-directed lighting system for broadcast studios and event locations
SRG SSR, Switzerland • Contact: Christoph Flüeler
A lighting automation system based on object tracking that provides lighting optimized for broadcast/video purposes dynamically and in real time.
-
TouchViz for real-time graphics, clips and events
SRG SSR, Switzerland • Contact: Christoph Flüeler
An iPad-based system giving the host control over real-time graphics and videos in a live broadcast, with the content managed by editorial teams via a web interface.-
Wing Watch – an AI-enhanced interactive wildlife stream
BBC, UK • Contact: Robert Dawes
Using AI-generated data from wildlife cameras to directly drive an enhanced ‘flexible media’ experience for the audience, delivering more without any extra effort.
Private 5G networks for contribution and production
BBC, UK • Contact: Ian Wagdin
Deployment of the largest private standalone 5G network to date, supporting news contribution at a large event with low-latency high-quality radio links for UHD production.