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Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee

New Delhi, July 8 Imagine being able to take print-out of the latest scores while watching a cricket match on TV. ‘Print augmented broadcast’, which allows broadcasters to send printable documents over TV, is amongst the many research activities currently on at HP Labs India.

“Print augmented Broadcast or PrintCast tries to bring the advantages of the two mediums – TV and print to a single platform. It allows broadcasters to send a printable document over the television network. While the viewer is watching news or a cricket match, a printable document can accompany the telecast,” Mr Ajay Gupta, Lab Director of HP Labs India, said.

At the back-end, such a set-up would require specific software (created by HP) and hardware-tweaking of the set-top box.

“TV receives audio video signals, and the software allows the printable content to be used as a digital data. On the user-end the audio video feed goes to the TV, while the digital content goes to the printer,” he said, adding that broadcasters at their end would need to pre-program a document for transmission.

He said that PrintCast had already been tried out on a trial, when the technology was used in Karnataka to beam a transmission on Government schemes.

During the transmission, viewers had the option to take print-outs of the scheme.

HP Labs worldwide employs close to 700 researchers. The largest concentration of these professionals is based in Paulo Alto followed by Bristol. The company has smaller centres in Israel, India (Bangalore), Japan, China and Russia. HP Labs India was established in February 2002 with the focus on creating new technologies for addressing the IT needs of the next billion customers for HP.

“Although we were selling in the markets of China, India, and Russia, we felt that we needed to look at these markets afresh through the research sites, and we now expect growth to come from China, India and Russia,” he said.

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