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BBC Research & Development is the technical research department of the

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Function

It has responsibility for researching and developing advanced and emerging media technologies for the benefit of the corporation, and wider UK and European media industries, and is also the technical design authority for a number of major technical infrastructure transformation projects for the UK broadcasting industry.

Structure

BBC R&D is part of the wider BBC Design & Engineering, and is led by Jatin Aythora, Director, Research & Development. In 2011, the North Lab moved into MediaCityUK in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

along with several other departments of the BBC, whilst the South Lab remained in White City in London.

History

In April 1930 the Development section of the BBC became the Research Department. The department as it stands today was formed in 1993 from the merger of the BBC Designs Department and the BBC Research Department. From 2006 to 2008 it was known as Research and Innovation but has since reverted to its original name. BBC Research & Development has made major contributions to broadcast technology, carrying out original research in many areas, and developing items like the

peak programme meter A peak programme meter (PPM) is an instrument used in professional audio that indicates the level of an audio signal. Different kinds of PPM fall into broad categories: *True peak programme meter. This shows the peak level of the waveform no ...

(PPM) which became the basis for many world standards.

Innovations

It has also been involved in many well-known consumer technologies such as

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

, DAB,

NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Spi ...

and Freeview. It was at the forefront of the development of FM radio, stereo FM, and RDS. These innovations have led to Queen's Awards for Innovation in 1969, 1974, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2001 and 2011. In the 1970s, its engineers designed the famous

LS3/5A The LS3/5A (each element pronounced separately, without the stroke) is a small studio monitor loudspeaker originated by the BBC for use by outside broadcast vans to ensure quality of their broadcasts. The speaker concept set out transparent an ...

studio monitor for use in

outside broadcasting Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video camera ...

units.Prakel, David (August 1979)
"BBC's Home Service"
''Hi-Fi Answers'', pp67–9 (Courtesy link) Licensed to manufacturers, the loudspeaker sold 100,000 pairs in its 20+ years' life.Seydor, Paul (2 December 2008)
"Stirling Broadcast LS3/5a V2 Loudspeaker"
''The Absolute Sound''.

Closure of Kingswood Warren and move to London and Salford

In early 2010 the department had approximately 135 staff based at three locations: White City in London, Kingswood Warren in

Kingswood, Surrey Kingswood or Kingswood with Burgh Heath is a residential area on the North Downs in the Borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. Part of the London commuter belt, Kingswood is just to the east of the A217 separating it from Tadwort ...

, and the R&D (North Lab) at the BBC's Manchester offices at New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. In early 2010 the Kingswood Warren site was vacated and the bulk of the department relocated to Centre House, in

White City, London White City is a district of London, England, in the northern part of Shepherd's Bush in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, 5 miles (8 km) west-northwest of Charing Cross. White City is home to Television Centre (previously th ...

co-locating with the main campus of the BBC in London, whilst a significant number have moved to the new North Lab in MediaCityUK in

. BBC R&D has more than 200 employees in their UK labs.

Future projects

BBC R&D engineers and researchers are currently active on approximately 50 projects, including 7 active national and international collaborative research efforts. These include R&D projects built around

BBC Redux BBC Redux was a BBC Research & Development system that digitally recorded television and radio output in the United Kingdom produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It operated from 2007 to 2022 and contains several petabytes of record ...

—the

proof of concept Proof of concept (POC or PoC), also known as proof of principle, is a realization of a certain method or idea in order to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle with the aim of verifying that some concept or theory has prac ...

for the cross-platform, Flash video-based streaming version of the BBC iPlayer.

References

External links

*
BBC R&D Reports list 1933 - 1996
(PDF, 965 kB) *
Move

Location of South Lab

Video clips

History of the department and interviews with the staff

Talk by Matthew Postgate in Manchester in November 2009
at

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:BBC Research and Development Audio engineering Digital Video Broadcasting Engineering research institutes Freeview (UK) Organisations based in Salford Organisations based in Surrey Radio technology Reigate and Banstead Research institutes in England Science and technology in Greater Manchester Scientific organizations established in 1923 Sound production technology Sound recording technology Television technology 1923 establishments in the United Kingdom