Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation

Timothy Alan Port

Benjamin Alexander Jancovich

Richard James Cartwright

Sebastian P B Holzapfel

Juan Felix Torres

Andrew Peter Reilly

Jack Gregory Hays

Daniel Steven Templeton

Winston Chi Wai Ng

Sean Alexander Brady

Alan Jeffrey Seefeldt

Joshua Brandon Lando

David Matthew Cooper

Mark William Gerrard

William Thomas Rowley

Paul Holmberg

Joseph McKee

Sebastian PB Holzapfel

Rendering audio signals may involve a mapping for each audio signal to the loudspeaker signals computed as a function of an audio signal's intended perceived spatial position, physical positions associated with the loudspeakers and a time- and frequency-varying representation of loudspeaker signal level relative to a maximum playback limit of each loudspeaker. Each mapping may be computed to approximately achieve the intended perceived spatial position of an associated audio signal when the loudspeaker signals are played back. A representation of loudspeaker signal level relative to a maximum playback limit may be computed for each audio signal. The mapping of an audio signal into a particular loudspeaker signal may be reduced as loudspeaker signal level relative to a maximum playback limit increases above a threshold, while the mapping may be increased into one or more other loudspeakers for which the maximum playback limits are less than a threshold.

Spatial audio rendering adaptive to signal level and loudspeaker playback limit thresholds

Some implementations involve determining a noise metric and/or a speech intelligibility metric and determining a compensation process corresponding to the noise metric and/or the speech intelligibility metric. The compensation process may involve altering a processing of audio data and/or applying a non-audio-based compensation method. In some examples, altering the processing of the audio data does not involve applying a broadband gain increase to the audio signals. Some examples involve applying the compensation process in an audio environment. Other examples involve determining compensation metadata corresponding to the compensation process and transmitting an encoded content stream that includes encoded compensation metadata, encoded video data and encoded audio data from a first device to one or more other devices.

Adjusting audio and non-audio features based on noise metrics and speech intelligibility metrics

In some embodiments, a method for performing at least one of enhancement, decoding, or rendering of a multichannel audio signal in response to compression feedback or feedback from a smart amplifier. For example, the compression feedback may be indicative of amount of compression applied to each of multiple frequency bands, of the audio signal or an enhanced audio signal generated in response thereto. The enhancement (e.g., bass enhancement) may include dynamic routing of audio content of the input audio signal between channels of an enhanced audio signal generated in response thereto. The enhancement and compression may be performed on a per speaker class basis. Other aspects are systems (e.g., programmed processors) and devices (e.g., devices having physically-limited bass reproduction capabilities, such as, for example, a notebook or laptop computer, tablet, soundbar, mobile phone, or other device with small speakers) configured to perform any embodiment of the method.

Multichannel audio enhancement, decoding, and rendering in response to feedback

Embodiments are disclosed for non-intrusive transducer health detection in an audio system. In an embodiment, a method performed by the audio system comprises outputting one or more encoded inaudible acoustic signals into an acoustic transmission medium using a first transducer. The one or more encoded inaudible acoustic signals are received from the acoustic transmission medium using a second transducer of the audio system. The received one or more encoded inaudible acoustic signals are used to identify failure or degradation of the first or second transducer.

Non-intrusive transducer health detection

Some noise compensation methods involve receiving microphone signals corresponding to ambient noise from a noise source location in or near an audio environment, determining or estimating a listener position in the audio environment and estimating at least one critical distance, which is a distance from the noise source location at which directly propagated sound pressure is equal to diffuse field sound pressure. Some examples involve estimating whether the listener position is within the at least one critical distance and implementing a noise compensation method for the ambient noise based, at least in part, on an estimate of whether the listener position is within the critical distance.

Methods for reducing error in environmental noise compensation systems

Some implementations involve receiving a content stream that includes audio data, receiving at least one type of level adjustment indication relating to playback of the audio data and controlling a level of the input audio data, based on the at least one type of level adjustment indication, to produce level-adjusted audio data. Some examples involve determining, based at least in part on the type(s) of level adjustment indication, a multiband limiter configuration, applying the multiband limiter to the level-adjusted audio data, to produce multiband limited audio data and providing the multiband limited audio data to one or more audio reproduction transducers of an audio environment.

Multiband limiter modes and noise compensation methods

Noise compensation method comprising: (a) receiving a content stream including content audio data; (b) receiving first microphone signals from a first device; (c) detecting ambient noise from a noise source location in or near the audio environment; (d) causing a first wireless signal to be transmitted from the first device to a second device, the first wireless signal including instructions for the second device to record an audio segment (e) receiving a second wireless signal from the second device; (f) determining a content stream audio segment time interval for a content stream audio segment; (g) receiving a third wireless signal from the second device, including a recorded audio segment captured via a second device microphone; (h) determining a second device ambient noise signal at the second device location; and (i) implementing a noise compensation method for the content audio data based, at least in part, on the second device ambient noise signal.

Some implementations involve receiving a content stream that includes audio data, determining a content type corresponding to the content stream and determining, based at least in part on the content type, a noise compensation method. Some examples involve performing the noise compensation method on the audio data to produce noise-compensated audio data, rendering the noise-compensated audio data for reproduction via a set of audio reproduction transducers of the audio environment, to produce rendered audio signals, and providing the rendered audio signals to at least some audio reproduction transducers of the audio environment.

Content and environmentally aware environmental noise compensation

In some embodiments, a method for performing enhancement on an audio signal to generate an enhanced audio signal in response to feedback indicative of amount of compression applied to at least one frequency band of the enhanced audio signal. In typical embodiments, the enhancement is or includes bass enhancement. Examples of other types of enhancement performed in other embodiments include dialog enhancement, upmixing, frequency shifting, harmonic injection or transposition, subharmonic injection, virtualization, and equalization. Other aspects are systems (e.g., programmed processors) and devices (e.g., devices having physically-limited bass reproduction capabilities, such as, for example, a notebook, tablet, mobile phone, or other device with small speakers) configured to perform any embodiment of the method.

Audio enhancement in response to compression feedback

An apparatus and method relating to use of a physical writing surface () during a videoconference or presentation. Snapshots of a whiteboard () are identified by applying a difference measure to the video data (e.g., as a way of comparing frames at different times). Audio captured by a microphone may be processed to generate textual data, wherein a portion of the textual data is associated with each snapshot. The writing surface may be identified (enrolled) using gestures. Image processing techniques may be used to transform views of a writing surface.

Sharing physical writing surfaces in videoconferencing

A method of processing of a sequence of video frames from a camera capturing a writing surface for subsequent transmission to at least one of a remote videoconferencing client and a remote videoconferencing server. The method comprises receiving the sequence of video frames from the camera; and selecting an image area of interest in the video frames, comprising selecting one of a sub-area of the video frames and an entire area of the video frames. The method also comprises, for each current video frame of the sequence of video frames, generating a pen stroke mask by applying adaptive thresholding to the image area of interest. The method also comprises generating an output video frame using the pen stroke mask. Corresponding systems and computer readable media are disclosed.

Processing video including a physical writing surface

A method and a system for dialogue enhancement of an audio signal, comprising receiving (step S) the audio signal and a text content associated with dialogue occurring in the audio signal, generating (step S) parameterized synthesized speech from the text content, and applying (step S) dialogue enhancement to the audio signal based on the parameterized synthesized speech. With the invention text captions, subtitles, or other forms of text content included in an audio stream, can be used to significantly improve dialogue enhancement on the playback side.

Dialogue enhancement based on synthesized speech

Systems and methods for manual characterization of perceived transducer distortion are described. The system includes a signal generator, a controller, a multi-band compressor, and an audio transducer. The signal generator is configured to generate a test signal for a frequency band. The test signal includes at least two simultaneous frequency-modulated tones, which may be combined together in an amplitude-modulated envelope. The at least two simultaneous frequency-modulated tones have different frequencies within the frequency band. The controller is configured to receive user input indicating a gain value. The multi-band compressor is coupled to the signal generator. The multi-band compressor is configured to adjust an amplitude of a component of the test signal based on the gain value. The audio transducer is coupled to the multi-band compressor. The audio transducer is configured to generate an audio signal based on the test signal.

Growing community of inventors

Drummoyne, Australia

Timothy Alan Port