• Ericsson and BBC Research & Development have partnered to deliver a successful proof of concept which significantly reduces the delay associated with live captioning
  • New captioning approach to begin phased roll out across the BBC’s portfolio of channels from summer 2016
  • Ericsson to offer service to clients globally to improve the viewing experience of Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities around the world

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) today unveiled its latest innovation in live captioning, developed in partnership with BBC Research & Development (BBC R&D) – a new, world-first approach that significantly reduces latency in live-captioning.

Until now, live captions for television are typically displayed on screen later than the audio that they represent. The latency is caused by the necessary workflow to create live captions. This latency can be frustrating for audiences and has been subject to regulatory attention both in the UK and around the world.

Ericsson has partnered with BBC R&D to devise the new approach which minimizes the delay between live captions and the audio they represent by utilizing the time taken to compress the audio and video streams for transmission and distribution. As captions take less time to encode, a compensating delay is used to ensure pre-prepared, accurately authored captions are synchronized with the audio. During programs with live captions, this compensating delay can be decreased, which significantly reduces the apparent delay of the live captions.

Ericsson and BBC R&D have completed a successful proof of concept and the new approach will begin a phased roll out across the BBC’s portfolio of channels from summer 2016. Ericsson will also offer this service to clients globally to improve the viewing experience of audiences around the world.

For further information, please refer here.

Ericsson Corporate Communications
Phone: +46 10 719 69 92
E-mail: media.relations@ericsson.com

Ericsson Investor Relations
Phone: +46 10 719 00 00
E-mail: investor.relations@ericsson.com