I was in a pub the other day watching 'Mastermind' (UK based high-brow high tension one-on-one quiz show). Every time a large truck went past the window it drowned out the sound of the television. I might have been able to piece together the missing words had I been able to see the quizmaster's mouth move, but unfortunately the camera was constantly on the contestant. I didn't think to put on the subtitles, but I did think of this:

What if the sound from the television were run through a digital signal processor that detemined the mouth-shape that would have created such a sound? The mouth-shape could then be displayed in real time in the corner of the screen, helping those who are hard of hearing or in noisy environments to piece together the dialogue.
-- st3f, Aug 09 2004

North Carolina State University... http://www.multimed...u/research/voiceio/
...have a research group looking at this already. Back to the drawing board. [st3f, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

New technology catches Hitler off guard http://www.telegrap...11/22/nhitler22.xml
Telegraph article [Dub, Mar 28 2008]

Hitler Speaks http://video.google...pe=search&plindex=1
Video Documentry [Dub, Mar 28 2008]

//I was in a pub the other day watching 'Mastermind' //
You obviously go to a much better class of pub than the rest of us - most pubs which have televisions seem to show nothing but football (yawn!).
-- hippo, Aug 09 2004


Subtitles?
-- skinflaps, Aug 09 2004


I don't know whether Mastermind has subtitles. If it does it might be of the 'Live Stenographer' i.e. very inaccurate kind. Given that I may well be in the Pub watching Mastermind tonight prior to the music quiz I will find out.
-- gnomethang, Aug 09 2004


As a derivative, how about Shorthand?
-- thumbwax, Aug 09 2004


<vaguely related aside>Many natives of urban NW England speak with exaggerated mouth movements because their 18th and 19th century ancestors had to make themselves understood over the noise of the machinery in the cotton and wool mills where they worked.</vra>
-- angel, Aug 09 2004


<vaguely related aside comment> In my part of Lancashire, it was called "me-mawing". Many of the older members of my family had worked in the mills, and were quite adept at lip-reading</vrac>
-- coprocephalous, Mar 28 2008



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