NEWS

Meet the virtual weather presenter

Virtual presenter Metgirl and Metman

26 October 2005 06:45

A ref leader

John Kettley, Michael Fish and now… Metman.

Ever since the dawn of television the weather forecast has been presented by a host of people braced to take the blame for the worst nature can offer us.

But now a computer generated image can shoulder the nation's complaints after a Norfolk company created the first virtual weather presenter.

Televirtual, based in Norwich, launched Metman and Metgirl initially for stations who cannot afford to have their weather presented by 'real' broadcasters.

But managing director Tim Child said the implications for the future of broadcasting and the media in general were endless.

He said the reason weather forecasting was chosen for the prototype was because of its relatively small knowledge base and its formulaic nature.

The speech engine used for the voice is the most complex part of the creation and requires up to 30 hours programming input by reading sample forecasts.

By capturing Mr Child's speaking patterns as well as a lexicon of words and phrases the speech performance is the most sophisticated known to date allowing the most basic of facts and figures to be given to the model which then translates them into a report.

“This model cannot read the news or provide critical commentary as it does not know anything about those things,” said Mr Child.

“But the technology will make it possible to do so in the future. There are broadcasters who I won't mention who say things in the same sort of manner as if the facts were being read to them and this is not much different.”

Gaming channels and quiz TV could also employ the system to operate virtual presenters in virtual sets, at a fraction of the cost of conventional presentation methods.

But Mr Child said his company was not in the business to replace real people, only to provide solutions when they could not be used.

“There is a certain amount of antipathy towards virtual voice technology after its use in call centres and such like and people like the whole cult of personality thing.”

Jim Dale, broadcaster and senior forecaster at British Weather Services, said it was important for the public to be able to put a human face on the forecast - even if only to have someone to blame.

“Often there is a good story to tell behind the weather and it needs a good story teller,” he said.

Look East weatherman Jim Bacon, of Norwich-based WeatherQuest, joked he wouldn't mind being replaced for the early morning broadcasts and fellow forecaster Julie Reinger said it would be nice to have a guaranteed holiday stand-in.

But both agreed real presenters could not be matched by technology.

“I think the great thing about being a local presenter is that you can have a bit of banter and if you make mistakes that makes you more human and hopefully more likeable - and hopefully irreplaceable,” said Ms Reinger.

Mr Child said an even larger market for the creation is in our future homes, installed in domestic television set top boxes so that 3D 'announcers' can present a personalised information service tailored to individual requirements.

Such 'homecasters' would be able to advise on TV viewing schedules, read the news and weather on demand, and trawl the internet on request.

And the voice technology can be applied to help blind and deaf people by, for example, reading emails to the former while the latter read its highly sophisticated synched lip movements.

The forecaster prototype is ready to be up and running in two weeks and Televirtual has already secured a contract with an unnamed niche station for the service.

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