Digital Television Viewing Enhanced For Visually-Impaired
By ScienceDaily,Publication Date: January 16, 2008
Review of a new technique developed at Harvard University’s Schepens Eye Institute enhancing television viewing for people with low vision. Working within the decoder that makes digital television images possible, a simple modification was made to increase contrast-enhancing potential. The same modification could be made to new HDTVs and digital cable set top boxes. To test the new technology, 8 digital videos were presented to 24 participants with vision impairment and 6 with unimpaired vision. Participants were given a remote control which allowed them to increase or decrease the contrast of the image. Results showed that even participants without sight impairment selected some enhancement and that the amount of enhancement selected by sight-impaired participants varied depending on the level of contrast sensitivity loss they experienced due to their impairment, demonstrating that the device was both usable and useful to all participants. Scientists at the Institute are now working with Analog Devices Inc. to create a prototype chip that can be included in all future generations of digital television. Examples of how images are enhanced can be found at http://www.eri.harvard.edu/faculty/peli/lab/videos/mpeg/.
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Link to text: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080115132853.htm
