Rendering object-based audio in a domestic environment

在家里创造沉浸式媒体体验是学术和主流出版物中流行的话题。文献中已经描述了空间化音频对听者偏好的积极影响，并且产生3D空间音频体验的技术已经建立，其中最常用的是基于通道的系统。虽然这些系统的有效性已经在实验室和电影类型的环境中得到了很好的证明，但在家庭环境中实施面临着多重障碍，包括在额外扬声器的成本和听力体验的改善之间似乎很差的权衡，缺乏对此类系统设置的知识和信心，以及对房间美学的负面感知影响。作为该项目的一部分，最近进行了一项调查，其结果已提交出版，该调查确定，大约11%的英国家庭拥有某种多声道环绕立体声系统，更多的家庭拥有无线和智能设备，尽管它们作为一项技术相对年轻。因此，S3A项目最近在一篇期刊论文中描述了一种新型系统，称为媒体设备编排（MDO），它试图将安装的扬声器与这些无线扬声器以及任何其他潜在的音频设备结合起来，在家庭环境中创建一种由智能渲染器控制的新型系统。该系统将接收基于对象的音频，而不是基于通道的音频，从而能够为任何特定客厅的独特再现设置重新渲染声音场景。这个项目的重点是开发智能渲染器的规则，包括以下因素：扬声器的位置、质量、数量和类型；媒体内容类型，包括纯音频和视听；叙事意图;以及个人和听众群体的需求。为了创建这些规则，我们使用安装在模拟家庭客厅环境中的mdo型系统进行了听力实验，以比较各种重新呈现音频的潜在方法以及这些不同因素的相互作用。这包括文本回应，个人评级和直接比较类型的实验。

Creating immersive media experiences in the home is a topic popular in both academic and mainstream publications. The positive effects of spatialised audio on listener preference have been described in the literature, and technologies for producing 3D spatial audio experiences are well established, with channel-based systems being most commonly used. Whilst the effectiveness of these systems has been well demonstrated in laboratory and cinema-type environments, implementation in the domestic environment faces multiple obstacles including the seemingly poor tradeoff between the cost of additional loudspeakers and improvement in listening experience, a lack of knowledge and confidence in the setup of such a system, and a negative perceived effect on room aesthetics. A recent survey, performed as part of this project, the results of which have been submitted for publishing, has determined that approximately 11% of UK households own some sort of multi-channel surround sound system and that more households own wireless and smart devices, despite their comparative youth as a technology. As such, a new type of system, recently described in a journal paper by the S3A Project as Media Device Orchestration (MDO), seeks to combine installed loudspeakers with these wireless loudspeakers, as well as any other potentially audio-capable devices, to create a new type of system in the domestic environment controlled by an intelligent renderer. This system would receive object-based audio, as opposed to channel-based audio, enabling the re-rendering of the sound scene specifically for the unique reproduction setup in any particular living room. The focus of this project is on the development of rules for the intelligent renderer, incorporating factors including those in the following list: position, quality, number and type of loudspeakers; type of media content including audio-only and audio-visual; narrative intent; and needs of individuals and groups of listeners. To create these rules, listening experiments have been performed to compare various potential ways of re-rendering audio and the interaction of these different factors, using an MDO-type system installed in a simulated domestic living room environment. This has included textual response, individual rating and direct comparison type experiments.