Abstract:

Audio formats like stereo or surround sound are well known. They deliver a spatial impression of the audio scene that is played back on a specific setup of loudspeakers. Future audio formats will deliver audio content in a more flexible way, e.g. addressing user defined loudspeaker setups or containing 3D information. To design new audio formats, it is important to understand the steps in an audio transmission chain from production over delivery to playback. This talk address format requirements and constraints for new audio formats. It covers channel based formats like stereo and surround, object based representations as used for Wave Field Synthesis, and especially coefficient or scene based representations like Higher Order Ambisonics.

An example will be given by presenting the European funded project Fascinate. Spatial audio processing is a key feature of this project. The Fascinate project develops a system to allow end-users to interactively navigate and view around an ultra-high resolution video panorama showing a live event, with the accompanying audio automatically changing to match the selected view. The output will be adapted to their particular kind of device, covering anything from a mobile handset to an immersive panoramic display. The audio part of this project makes a spatial sound description available to the user. The facilitated technologies include Higher Order Ambisonics as well as Wave Field Synthesis.

Bio:
Jan-Mark Batke is a senior researcher and development engineer at Technicolor.

This lecture is part of CNMAT’s spatial audio lecture series: http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/spatialaudiolectures