Head mounted surround sound system
First Claim
1. A personal surround sound system for an individual listener, comprising:
- a receiver for receiving the individual decoded speaker signals corresponding to a single original performance or sound track for a surround sound system comprised of four speaker signals, left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals representing sound sources disposed in an azimuthal plane in respective first positions;
a head mounted binaural speaker system having a right binaural speaker disposed proximate to the right ear of the listener and a left binaural speaker disposed proximate to the left ear of the speaker;
a virtual positioning system for positioning each of said left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals relative to the listener such that said virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals can be transmitted proximate to the right and left ear of the listener as binaural signals through said right and left binaural speakers, but are actually perceived by the listener as being within, or displaced above or below said azimuthal plane relative to said first positions of the associated left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals; and
a combiner for combining said virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals such that all four virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals are combined to drive said right and left binaural speakers.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A head mounted surround sound virtual positioning system that includes a video recorder (200), which is operable to have disposed therein a tape (202), having a surround sound audio track associated therewith. The surround sound system is encoded on two channels, which are output to a Dolby® decoder (204), which is operable to extract the five surround sound system channels therefrom. The left front, left rear, right front and right rear channels are input to a virtual positioning system (264), which is operable to virtually position each of the speakers relative to the head of the listener (26). These signals are then combined with a combining circuit (268) to provide the virtual positioning of only two speaker lines (58) and (60), disposed adjacent the right and left ears of the listener (26). The speakers (58) and (60) are disposed on the head mounted system such that they are fixed relative to, the ear of the listener and slightly forward of the ears and adjacent the head. The center speaker signal output of the decoder (204) is output from a separate external speaker (310).
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A personal surround sound system for an individual listener, comprising:
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a receiver for receiving the individual decoded speaker signals corresponding to a single original performance or sound track for a surround sound system comprised of four speaker signals, left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals representing sound sources disposed in an azimuthal plane in respective first positions; a head mounted binaural speaker system having a right binaural speaker disposed proximate to the right ear of the listener and a left binaural speaker disposed proximate to the left ear of the speaker; a virtual positioning system for positioning each of said left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals relative to the listener such that said virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals can be transmitted proximate to the right and left ear of the listener as binaural signals through said right and left binaural speakers, but are actually perceived by the listener as being within, or displaced above or below said azimuthal plane relative to said first positions of the associated left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals; and a combiner for combining said virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals such that all four virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals are combined to drive said right and left binaural speakers. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for reproducing a surround sound audio track proximate to the head of an individual listener, comprising the steps of:
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receiving individual decoded speaker signals corresponding to a single original performance or sound track for a surround sound system comprised of four speaker signals, a left front, a left rear, a right front and a right rear speaker signal representing sound sources disposed in an azimuthal plane in respective first positions; virtually positioning each of the left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals such that they can be transmitted proximate to the right and left ear of the listener as binaural signals, but are actually perceived by the listener as being within, or displaced above or below the azimuthal plane relative to the first positions of the associated left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals; disposing a right speaker proximate to the right ear of the listener and a left speaker proximate to the left ear of a speaker; and combining the virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals in the left speaker and right speaker such that all four virtually positioned left front, left rear, right front and right rear speaker signals are combined to drive the right and left speakers. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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Specification