An Integrated Audio and Video Communication System for Digital Television Sets

This paper presents an integrated hands-free audio and video communication system for digital television sets. The system is an embedded real-time add-on device of the standard digital TV set. It consists of a digital camera and microphone array which are connected to the TV set through the High-Definition Multimedia Interface. The system is extendable with a 3G modem to become capable to work in a stand-alone mode as a video phone for 3G network. The hardware architecture of the system consists of: (1) the central processing module and (2) remote controller with voice call interface and support for typing text messages. The main software components are: (1) video decoding, (2) engine, (3) On-Screen Display support for videophone, (4) remote control handling, (5) display control and (6) sound control. The system provides hands-free video communication, excellent sound quality via TV loudspeakers and simultaneous watch of the TV broadcast. While the communication with remote user is active, the existing sound from the TV broadcast program is efficiently suppressed with the embedded audio processing engine. This is possible with microphone array usage and sophisticated voice processing algorithms in the background. The system aims to extend functionality of TV sets and improve user experience.