Spatial audio coding by squeezing: analysis and application to compressing multiple soundfields
RIS ID
32100
Abstract
Spatially Squeezed Surround Audio Coding (S 3 AC) proposed by the authors provides efficient compression of multi-channel surround audio. Compression is achieved by exploiting human sound localisation blur to save the surround soundfield information in a squeezed stereo soundfield. In this paper, the localisation loss during the S 3 AC analysis/synthesis is evaluated and the minimum size of the S 3 AC squeezed soundfield is derived in a frequency dependent form. Results from perceptual listening tests show that, compared with standard squeezing from a 360 ° surround soundfield to a 60 ° stereo soundfield, a more intensive squeezing method, such as from 360°-to-5°, does not introduce audible localisation distortion. This leads to a further application of S 3 AC for compressing more than one surround soundfield into a single stereo downmix for applications such as spatialised teleconferencing. This application is also described and perceptually evaluate
Publication Details
Cheng, B., Ritz, C. H. & Burnett, I. S. (2009). Spatial audio coding by squeezing: analysis and application to compressing multiple soundfields. 17th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO 2009) (pp. 909-913). Glasgow, Scotland: EURASIP.