Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation

Thomson Licensing

Dolby International Ab

Interdigital Ce Patent Holdings

Thomson Licensing S.a.

Johannes Boehm

Florian Keiler

Sven Kordon

Peter Jax

Johann-Markus Batke

Alexander Krueger

Oliver Wuebbolt

William Redmann

Xiaoming Chen

Alexander Krüger

Holger Kropp

Hartmut Peters

Marco Winter

Jens Spille

Ulrich Gries

Stefan Abeling

Peter Steinborn

Alexander Kruger

Ernst F Schroeder

Juergen Schmidt

Olivier Wuebbolt

Achim Freimann

Jithin Zacharias

The invention improves HOA sound field representation compression and decompression. A decoder decodes compressed dominant directional signals and compressed residual component signals so as to provide decompressed dominant directional signals and decompressed time domain signals representing a residual HOA component in a spatial domain. A re-correlator re-correlates the decompressed time domain signals to obtain a corresponding reduced-order residual HOA component. A processor determines a decompressed residual HOA component based on the corresponding reduced-order residual HOA component, and determines predicted directional signals based on at least a parameter. The processor is further configured to determine an HOA sound field representation based on the decompressed dominant directional signals, the predicted directional signals, and the decompressed residual HOA component.

Method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing a higher order ambisonics representation for a sound field

A method for generating loudspeaker signals associated with a target screen size is disclosed. The method includes receiving a bit stream containing encoded higher order ambisonics signals, the encoded higher order ambisonics signals describing a sound field associated with a production screen size. The method further includes decoding the encoded higher order ambisonics signals to obtain a first set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals representing dominant components of the sound field and a second set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals representing ambient components of the sound field. The method also includes combining the first set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals and the second set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals to produce a combined set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals.

Method and apparatus for screen related adaptation of a higher-order ambisonics audio signal

Soundfield signals such as e.g. Ambisonics carry a representation of a desired sound field. The Ambisonics format is based on spherical harmonic decomposition of the soundfield, and Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) uses spherical harmonics of at least 2order. However, commonly used loudspeaker setups are irregular and lead to problems in decoder design. A method for improved decoding an audio soundfield representation for audio playback comprises calculating a panning function (W) using a geometrical method based on the positions of a plurality of loudspeakers and a plurality of source directions, calculating a mode matrix (Ξ) from the loudspeaker positions, calculating a pseudo-inverse mode matrix (Ξ) and decoding the audio soundfield representation. The decoding is based on a decode matrix (D) that is obtained from the panning function (W) and the pseudo-inverse mode matrix (Ξ).

Method and device for decoding an audio soundfield representation

A method for performing DRC on a HOA signal comprises transforming the HOA signal to the spatial domain, analyzing the transformed HOA signal, and obtaining, from results of said analyzing, gain factors that are usable for dynamic compression. The gain factors can be transmitted together with the HOA signal. When applying the DRC, the HOA signal is transformed to the spatial domain, the gain factors are extracted and multiplied with the transformed HOA signal in the spatial domain, wherein a gain compensated transformed HOA signal is obtained. The gain compensated transformed HOA signal is transformed back into the HOA domain, wherein a gain compensated HOA signal is obtained. The DRC may be applied in the QMF-filter bank domain.

Method and device for applying dynamic range compression to a higher order ambisonics signal

A method and apparatus for decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) signal representation is disclosed. The apparatus includes an input interface that receives an encoded directional signal and an encoded ambient signal and an audio decoder that perceptually decodes the encoded directional signal and encoded ambient signal to produce a decoded directional signal and a decoded ambient signal, respectively. The apparatus further includes an extractor for obtaining side information related to the directional signal and an inverse transformer for converting the decoded ambient signal from a spatial domain to an HOA domain representation of the ambient signal. The apparatus also includes a synthesizer for recomposing a Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) signal from the HOA domain representation of the ambient signal and the decoded directional signal. The side information includes a direction of the directional signal selected from a set of uniformly spaced directions.

Method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing a higher order ambisonics signal representation

Improved methods and/or apparatus for decoding an encoded audio signal in soundfield format for L loudspeakers. The method and/or apparatus can render an Ambisonics format audio signal to 2D loudspeaker setup(s) based on a rendering matrix. The rendering matrix has elements based on loudspeaker positions and wherein the rendering matrix is determined based on weighting at least an element of a first matrix with a weighting factor The first matrix is determined based on positions of the L loudspeakers and at least a virtual position of at least a virtual loudspeaker that is added to the positions of the L loudspeakers.

Method for and apparatus for decoding/rendering an Ambisonics audio soundfield representation for audio playback using 2D setups

Conventional audio compression technologies perform a standardized signal transformation, independent of the type of the content. Multi-channel signals are decomposed into their signal components, subsequently quantized and encoded. This is disadvantageous due to lack of knowledge on the characteristics of scene composition, especially for e.g. multi-channel audio or Higher-Order Ambisonics (HOA) content. A method for decoding an encoded bitstream of multi-channel audio data and associated metadata is provided, including transforming the first Ambisonics format of the multi-channel audio data to a second Ambisonics format representation of the multi-channel audio data, wherein the transforming maps the first Ambisonics format of the multi-channel audio data into the second Ambisonics format representation of the multi-channel audio data. A method for encoding multi-channel audio data that includes audio data in an Ambisonics format, wherein the encoding includes transforming the audio data in an Ambisonics format into encoded multi-channel audio data is also provided.

Methods, apparatus and systems for encoding and decoding of multi-channel Ambisonics audio data

The invention discloses rendering sound field signals, such as Higher-Order Ambisonics (HOA), for arbitrary loudspeaker setups, where the rendering results in highly improved localization properties and is energy preserving. This is obtained by rendering an audio sound field representation for arbitrary spatial loudspeaker setups and/or by a a decoder that decodes based on a decode matrix (D). The decode matrix (D) is based on smoothing and scaling of a first decode matrix {circumflex over (D)} with smoothing coefficients. The first decode matrix {circumflex over (D)} is based on a mix matrix G and a mode matrix {tilde over (ψ)}, where the mix matrix G was determined based on L speakers and positions of a spherical modelling grid related to a HOA order N, and the mode matrix {tilde over (ψ)} was determined based on the spherical modelling grid and the HOA order N.

Method and device for decoding a higher-order Ambisonics (HOA) representation of an audio soundfield

Decoding of Ambisonics representations for a stereo loudspeaker setup is known for first-order Ambisonics audio signals. But such first-order Ambisonics approaches have either high negative side lobes or poor localisation in the frontal region. The invention deals with the processing for stereo decoders for higher-order Ambisonics HOA.

Method and apparatus for decoding stereo loudspeaker signals from a higher-order Ambisonics audio signal

Method and apparatus for screen related adaptation of a Higher-Order Ambisonics audio signal

Method and device for applying Dynamic Range Compression to a Higher Order Ambisonics signal

Methods, apparatus and systems for encoding and decoding of multi-channel ambisonics audio data

Method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing a higher order Ambisonics signal representation

Method for and apparatus for decoding/rendering an ambisonics audio soundfield representation for audio playback using 2D setups

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Goettingen, Germany

Johannes Boehm