Michael Armstrong (BSc Eng)
Senior R&D Engineer
Biography
was a Senior R&D Engineer, leaving the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ in March 2024. In their time at ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ R&D they worked across a wide range of research topics from object-based media, sign language, subtitles and speech audibility to video quality and visual perception. More recently Michael worked on narrative structures, interaction and personalisation of media as well as studying audienceβs use of linear media. Their final white paper documented their initial work at ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ R&D on βclosed signingβ in the early days of digital television, which had not previously been published as it failed to provide a practicable solution. The paper brought the topic up to date with the advent of streaming and developments in AI and machine learning. Prior to that they carried out a study of audience behaviour from iPlayer and Sounds data demonstrating how audiences consume some content selectively, making the case for chapterisation and other navigation aids in linear content. They also contributed to the AI4ME project with a paper on the personalisation of media in collaboration with Maxine Glancy. This collaboration also produced a wide-ranging paper on the role of the audience in media which solved many of the problems faced in creating interactive media. This was part of their work on narrative forms for object-based media which had a focus on automation and data driven production, creating interactive and personalised content from segmented linear broadcast programmes.
They have been a long-time advocate of and was instrumental in the creation of the first ever . Michael worked alongside the team building and in a collaboration with ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Newslabs looked at ways of speeding up and automating the production of OBM experiences by re-using tagged linear content. This workinvestigated how different forms of narrative structure could be used to create naturalistic responsive media experiences, looking across the structures used in epic, pre-literate forms of storytelling, improvised narrative forms and modern forms of oral storytelling such as tour guides along with the ways stories develop in video games and immersive media.
Michael joined ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio in 1982 and worked in ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Local Radio in a number of roles, ending up at Bristol as the regional engineering manager for the West Region stations, here pioneering computer-based broadcast systems, turning Radio Bristol into the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's first computer based radio station, integrating a Dalet playout system with BNCS control system and the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's first ENPS installation in the mid 1990s.
In 1999 Michael moved to ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ R&D, working on video coding for sign language, video quality and capacity planning, contributing to the launch of Freeview. This was followed by work on 3D TV and High Frame Rate Television, developing expertise in human perception and its interaction with broadcast content and the perception of video quality. Their work then moved back to accessibility, initially looking at problems of and then focusing on subtitling, developing methods to measure the quality of subtitles and methods for improving their quality and increasing their availability. This body of work has been highlighted in a report on accessibility from the and has been influencing thinking amongst lobby groups and at the ITU. Then more recent work succeeded in automatically recovering subtitles for web clips taken from TV programmes and assisted ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Worldwide in providing subtitles for the recent and for over 3,000 video clips featured on the .
They have also provided consultancy work for the object based radio project and the on the issue of video quality measurement.
External publications:
2023
Michael Armstrong & Iain Gilchrist. IBC2023. September 2023.
Hugo Hammond, Michael Armstrong, Graham Thomas, Edwin Dalmaijer, Iain Gilchrist. Presentation to Vision Sciences Society, May 21st 2023.
Hugo Hammond, Michael Armstrong, Graham A. Thomas & Iain D. Gilchrist. Cogn. Research 8, 22 (2023).
2022
Dynamic behavioural and physiological measures of audience immersion in film and television. Hammond, Hugo, Michael Armstrong, Graham Thomas, and Iain Gilchrist. In PERCEPTION, vol. 51, pp. 70-70. SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2022.
Hammond, Hugo, Michael Armstrong, Graham A. Thomas, and Iain D. Gilchrist. (2022).
, Michael Armstrong, Miles Bernie, Dave Bevan, Andy Brown, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, April 2022.
Object-Based Media: making interactive & personalised content at scale, presentation to
2021
, Michael Armstrong, Miles Bernie, Dave Bevan, Andy Brown, IBC2021.
Whose Chicks are these? A new ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ R&D Springwatch Quiz, Article for the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Springwatch web site.
Creating cross boundary roles for the audience: developing new relationships between creators and audiences, Michael Armstrong and Maxine Glancy,
In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI β21), Benjamin M. Gorman, Michael Crabb, and Michael Armstrong. 2021.
2020
, Lauren Ward, Maxine Glancy, Sally Bowman, Michael Armstrong, IBC2020.
, Mike Armstrong, Sally Bowman, Matthew Brooks, Andy Brown, Juliette Carter, Andy Jones, Max Leonard, Thomas Preece, SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, June 2020.
2019
- IBC2019
(2019) CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019)
2018
- IBC2018.
- , .
Jasmine Cox, Matthew Brooks, Ian Forrester and Mike Armstrong - May 2018 issue of the SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal.
2017
Mike Armstrong and Michael Crabb - Conference on Accessibility in Film, Television and Interactive Media, Oct 2017.
Mike Armstrong - SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal, October Digital Edition.
Jasmine Cox, Matthew Brooks, Ian Forrester and Mike Armstrong - IBC2017 and included in βBest of IBCβ top 10 papers
. Andy Brown, Jayson Turner, Jake Patterson, Anastasia Schmitz, Mike Armstrong, Maxine Glancy - TVX2017 Work in Progress Paper
. Jeremy Foss, Ben Shirley, Benedita Malheiro, Sara Kepplinger, Alexandre Ulisses, Mike Armstrong - TVX2017 workshop
2016
Mike Armstrong, Andy Brown, Michael Crabb, Chris Hughes, Rhianne Jones and James Sandford (2016) - SMPTE Motion Imaging Journal 11/2016; 125(9):33-41. DOI:10.5594/JMI.2016.2614919, November 2016
. Mike Armstrong - IBC 2016 Conference, 2016
2015
, Michael Crabb, Rhianne Jones, Mike Armstrong, Chris J Hughes, 2015/10/26, Proceedings of the 17th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers & accessibility, 215-222, ACM.
, Michael Crabb, Rhianne Jones, Mike Armstrong, 2015/10/26, Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility, 347-348, ACM.
, Mike Armstrong, Andy Brown, Michael Crabb, Chris Hughes, Rhianne Jones, James Sandford, 2015/9, IBC2015, IET.
, Andy Brown, Rhia Jones, Mike Crabb, James Sandford, Matthew Brooks, Mike Armstrong, Caroline Jay, 2015/6/3, Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for TV and Online Video, 103-112, ACM.
, Chris J Hughes, Mike Armstrong, Rhianne Jones, Michael Crabb, 2015/5/18, Proceedings of the 12th Web for All Conference, ACM.
, Chris Hughes, Mike Armstrong, 2015/4, NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference, NAB.
2014
, Mike Armstrong, Matthew Brooks, Anthony Churnside, MEF Melchior, M Shotton, 2014/1, 12.2-12.2, IET Digital Library.
, Matthew Brooks, Mike Armstrong, TVX2014, 2014.
2013
, Mike Armstrong, 2013/1, 11.1-11.1, IET Digital Library.
Jay, Harper, Brown, Glancy & Armstrong - paper at the CHI13 DigitalTV Workshop
2010
2009
, MG Armstrong, DJ Flynn, ME Hammond, SJE Jolly, RA Salmon, 2009/10/1, SMPTE motion imaging journal, V118, Issue 7, 54-59, The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
2008
High frame-rate television, MG Armstrong, DJ Flynn, ME Hammond, SJE Jolly, RA Salmon, IBC2008.
2000
Nick Tanton, Trevor Ware and Michael Armstrong IBC2000
UK Patent Application:
