System for rendering and playback of object based audio in various listening environments

• US 9,826,328 B2
• Filed: 08/28/2013
• Issued: 11/21/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/31/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Inventors: Mehta, Sripal S., Crockett, Brett G., Hooks, Spencer, Seefeldt, Alan, Chabanne, Christophe, Brown, C. Phillip, Lando, Joshua B., Basler, Brad, Murrie, Stewart
• Primary Examiner(s): Kuntz, Curtis
• Assistant Examiner(s): Zhu, Qin
• Application Number:
  US14/421,798
• Publication Number:
  US 20150223002A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,546 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2205/022 Plurality of transducers corresponding to a plurality of sound channels in each earpiece of headphones or in a single enclosure
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 2227/003 Digital PA systems using, e.g. LAN or internet
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 27/00 Public address systems circuits for preventing acoustic reaction H04R3/02; circuits for distributing signals to loudspeakers H04R3/12; monitoring or testing arrangements for public address systems H04R29/007; amplifiers H03F
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 5/02 Spatial or constructional arrangements of loudspeakers
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/03 Aspects of down-mixing multi-channel audio to configurations with lower numbers of playback channels, e.g. 7.1 -> 5.1 H04S2400/01 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/11 Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field H04S2420/13 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/01 Enhancing the perception of the sound image or of the spatial distribution using head related transfer functions [HRTF's] or equivalents thereof, e.g. interaural time difference [ITD] or interaural level difference [ILD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2420/03 Application of parametric coding in stereophonic audio systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/30 Control circuits for electronic adaptation of the sound field
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/301 Automatic calibration of stereophonic sound system, e.g. with test microphone
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/307 Frequency adjustment, e.g. tone control H04S7/301 takes precedence

Abstract

Embodiments are described for a system of rendering object-based audio content through a system that includes individually addressable drivers, including at least one driver that is configured to project sound waves toward one or more surfaces within a listening environment for reflection to a listening area within the listening environment; a renderer configured to receive and process audio streams and one or more metadata sets associated with each of the audio streams and specifying a playback location of a respective audio stream; and a playback system coupled to the renderer and configured to render the audio streams to a plurality of audio feeds corresponding to the array of audio drivers in accordance with the one or more metadata sets.

Claims

1. A system for playback of spatial audio-based sound using reflected sound elements, comprising:

a network linking components of the system in a listening environment;

an array of individually addressable audio drivers for distribution around the listening environment, wherein each driver is associated with a unique identifier defined within a communication protocol of the network,

and wherein a first portion of the array comprise drivers configured to transmit sound directly to a location in the listening environment,

and wherein a second portion of the array comprise drivers configured to transmit sound to the location after reflection off of one or more surfaces of the listening environment, wherein at least one driver of the second portion is an upward-firing driver configured to project sound waves toward a ceiling of the listening environment for reflection down to said location, in such a manner as to simulate the presence of at least one height speaker positioned in the ceiling, and

a renderer coupled to the array of drivers and configured to route audio streams of the spatial audio-based sound to either the first portion of the array or the second portion of the array based on one or more characteristics of the audio streams and the listening environment, characterized in that the system further comprises,

a height cue filter for generating perceptual height cues for audio objects in the reflected audio streams, the perceptual height cues derived by at least partially removing from the reflected audio streams a first height cue for a physical speaker location in the listening environment and at least partially inserting in the reflected audio streams a second height cue for a reflected speaker location.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the reflected speaker location associated with the audio object comprises a location in three-dimensional space.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the audio streams correlate to a plurality of audio feeds corresponding to the array of audio drivers in accordance with one or more metadata sets.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the at least one audio driver comprises an upward-firing driver embodied in one of:

a standalone driver within a speaker enclosure, and a driver placed proximate one or more front-firing drivers in a unitary speaker enclosure.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the array of audio drivers are distributed around the listening environment in accordance with a defined audio surround sound configuration, and wherein the listening environment comprises one of:

an open space, a partially enclosed room, and a fully enclosed room, and further wherein the audio streams comprise audio content selected from the group consisting of;

cinema content transformed for playback in a home environment, television content, user generated content, computer game content, and music.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein a metadata set supplements a base metadata set that includes metadata elements associated with an object-based stream of spatial audio information, the metadata elements for the object-based stream specifying spatial parameters controlling the playback of a corresponding object-based sound, and comprising one or more of:

sound position, sound width, and sound velocity, the metadata set further including metadata elements associated with a channel-based stream of the spatial audio information, and wherein the metadata elements associated with each channel-based stream comprises designations of surround-sound channels of the audio drivers the defined surround-sound configuration.

7. The system of claim 1 of further comprising:

a microphone placed in the listening environment, and configured to obtain listening environment configuration information encapsulating audio characteristics of the listening environment; and

a calibration component coupled to the microphone and configured to receive and process the listening environment configuration information to define or modify a metadata set associated with the audio stream transmitted to the at least one audio driver.

8. The system of claim 1 further comprising a soundbar containing a portion of the individually addressable audio drivers and including a high-resolution center channel for playback of audio through at least one of the addressable audio drivers of the sound bar.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the renderer comprises a functional process embodied in a central processor associated with the network.

10. The system of claim 1 wherein the renderer comprises a functional process executed by circuitry coupled to each driver of the array of individually addressable audio drivers.

11. The system of claim 1 further comprising an upmixer component configured to decompose the audio streams into a plurality of direct sub-channels and a plurality of reflected sub-channels using a transform operation through an iterative process that maintains energy conservation between the direct and reflected sub-channels.

12. The system of claim 1 further comprising a component that virtually renders object-based audio over multiple pairs of loudspeakers that include one or more individually addressable drivers of both the first portion and the second portion, by performing binaural rendering of each object of a plurality of audio objects and panning a resulting stereo binaural signal between a plurality of cross-talk cancellation circuits coupled to the first portion and second portion of addressable drivers.