IBC
It is generally acknowledged that the better the quality of audio experience, the more enjoyable the pictures and the more likely viewers are to enjoy watching a programme.
With momentum building toward Ultra HD TV broadcasting, attention is turning to how audio can keep pace with significantly greater resolutions screened on increasingly large living room displays. While the specifications for broadcasting Ultra-HD at 4K and at 8K resolutions are in place, there is no agreement on an international standard for U-HD audio. That may be about to change as the body which drafted the original U-HD specs meets this month to discuss whether consensus is possible.
With momentum building toward Ultra HD TV broadcasting, attention is turning to how audio can keep pace with significantly greater resolutions screened on increasingly large living room displays. While the specifications for broadcasting Ultra-HD at 4K and at 8K resolutions are in place, there is no agreement on an international standard for U-HD audio. That may be about to change as the body which drafted the original U-HD specs meets this month to discuss whether consensus is possible.
“As more consumers buy 80-100 inch screens then it becomes valuable to have sound localised vertically as well as horizontally,” explains David Wood, Chairman of ITU-R Working Party 6C. “It is this combination of lateral and vertical which is the focus of discussion in the ITU and other bodies, but there are several different approaches to achieving it.”
Candidates include using 22 discrete channels plus subwoofers in the 8K Super Hi-Vision system favoured by Japanese broadcaster NHK, an extension of the traditional audio reproduction for speakers. Up for debate is whether such a rigid system of speaker layout is suitable in an age of increasing audio-visual consumption on tablets and smartphones.
There are two other options on the table. Scene-based audio, of which the chief example is Higher Order Ambisonics, attempts to reproduce a sound-field at a single point in space and provides for flexibility in speaker configuration. An alternative is object-based coding which treats sound sources as independent objects along with metadata (parameters like elevation and distance) needed to reproduce them on playback.
Aside from allowing listening devices to become independent of the mix, a benefit of this approach is that it could be rendered differently for different people, such as affording a different balance between foreground and background sounds for those hard of hearing. Dolby Atmos is the first commercial approach using object-based audio. Designed for cinema theatres, it has been introduced into a handful of cinemas and used to produce sound mixes for films like The Hobbit and Brave. Although intended to draw punters away from their TVs and back to theatres, there's no reason why the object-based principal can't be applied to the home. Dolby doesn't rule it out.
At the SMPTE Technology Summit on Digital Cinema earlier this month, John Kellogg, Senior Director at audio technology developer DTS, urged the creation of an open standard for immersive audio, warning that without one, the industry faces “potential chaos - format wars, cost and confusion.”
Aside from allowing listening devices to become independent of the mix, a benefit of this approach is that it could be rendered differently for different people, such as affording a different balance between foreground and background sounds for those hard of hearing. Dolby Atmos is the first commercial approach using object-based audio. Designed for cinema theatres, it has been introduced into a handful of cinemas and used to produce sound mixes for films like The Hobbit and Brave. Although intended to draw punters away from their TVs and back to theatres, there's no reason why the object-based principal can't be applied to the home. Dolby doesn't rule it out.
At the SMPTE Technology Summit on Digital Cinema earlier this month, John Kellogg, Senior Director at audio technology developer DTS, urged the creation of an open standard for immersive audio, warning that without one, the industry faces “potential chaos - format wars, cost and confusion.”
He argued that with the arrival of numerous immersive and object-based sound systems, “mixing a film seven different ways isn’t really sustainable.”
SMPTE's technology committee on digital sound systems has in fact begun laying the ground work for a new audio standard aimed at creating a consistent sound experience in cinema theatres.
SMPTE's technology committee on digital sound systems has in fact begun laying the ground work for a new audio standard aimed at creating a consistent sound experience in cinema theatres.
A parallel project to incorporate immersive audio content into the new standard will start this July.
As 4K content proliferates the focus on the audio part of an upgraded audio-visual experience for TV will surely grow. Alongside broadcast bodies like the EBU, SMPTE and DVB the industry may need to seek consensus from a wider sphere of consumer electronics companies and even OTT providers.
Can the industry create something that is more immersive, more interactive while still addressing the masses? There are a lot of questions still unanswered about what the total 4K experience means and IBC2013 will be the place to tackle them.
Can the industry create something that is more immersive, more interactive while still addressing the masses? There are a lot of questions still unanswered about what the total 4K experience means and IBC2013 will be the place to tackle them.
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