SCS visits Radio Television Hong Kong (with photos)

     The Secretary for the Civil Service, Mrs Ingrid Yeung, today (July 30) visited the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AI Lab) and the new studios of Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) in Kwun Tong to see the department's new directions in the use of technology in television production, and to meet with the management and staff representatives.

     Accompanied by the Permanent Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Clement Leung, Mrs Yeung first met the Director of Broadcasting, Mr Eddie Cheung, and other staff of the directorate, and was briefed on the latest work and programme production of the department. She also met with staff representatives of the department to hear their concerns and views.

     Mrs Yeung said that as a government department and a public broadcaster, RTHK has an important role to play in providing the public with diversified radio, television and new media services, enabling the public to understand the latest developments in our country and in Hong Kong. She encouraged RTHK to continue to make good use of technology, produce more quality programmes and tell the good stories of Hong Kong to the world.

     Mrs Yeung then visited the AI Lab, which was officially launched this month, where colleagues explained to her the latest applications of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in programme production and how RTHK is exploring its use in programme production. During the visit, production staff and interns demonstrated for her the use of AI software in various aspects, including restoring old footage, improving the quality and removing static noise from historical photos and videos, language translation, text-to-image or video generation, and clothing conversion.

     She also watched a demonstration by the production staff and an intern of a motion capture system, which uses AI to recognise different facial expressions and sensors to capture full body movements, and gloves to track finger movements connected to an unreal engine with high-performance computing to produce images of RTHK Television's AI presenter, Aida. Earlier, RTHK used the system to produce a series of promotional clips for its Paris Olympics programmes, largely reducing production time to two hours for each clip. Mrs Yeung was pleased to learn that the system has given the production staff more room for creativity and improved work efficiency. 

     She then went to the new studio, which is equipped with a large digital video wall, and saw a demonstration of how the studio's LED screen, which is equipped with virtualisation and augmented reality technology, can be used to integrate virtual environments, real footage and studio scenes into the programme production process, making the images more realistic and achieving versatile production and better visual effects.