Lip Reading Technology to help decipher CCTV footages

In a breakthrough research, a new lip-reading technology could help solve crimes by deciphering what people caught on CCTV are saying. The visual speech recognition technology developed by the University of East Anglia in Norwich can be used to determine what people are saying in situations where audio is not good enough to hear - such as on security camera footage.

The technology could be used in various fields from criminal investigations to entertainment. According to Helen Bear, from the university's school of computing science,"Lip-reading has been used to pinpoint words footballers have shouted in heated moments on the pitch but is likely to be of most practical use in situations where there are high levels of noise, such as in cars or aircraft cockpits.”

The system uses minute visual clues in the way the lips move to identify better what is being said. "Crucially, whilst there are still improvements to be made, such a system could be adapted for use for a range of purposes - for example, for people with hearing or speech impairments," Bear added.

According to researchers, some sounds like "P" and "B" or “T” and “D” which look similar to the lips and have traditionally been hard to decipher, can be differentiated using the new technology for a more accurate translation.

The technology, however, struggles with speakers who mumble. Co-creator Richard Harvey said: "Lip-reading is one of the most challenging problems in artificial intelligence so it's great to make progress on one of the trickier aspects, which is how to train machines to recognize the appearance and shape of human lips."