AES Paris 2016
Saturday, June 4, 17:30 — 19:00 (Havane Amphitheatre)
Heyser Lecture
Presenter:Rozenn Nicol, Orange Labs - Lannion, France
Abstract:
The Richard C. Heyser distinguished lecturer for the 140th AES Convention is Rozenn Nicol, a research engineer on spatial audio at Orange Labs in France. She has worked on the development of innovative 3D sound technologies such as binaural, WFS and ambisonics, to enhance future telecommunication services. The title of her lecture is "The 3D Audio Revolution from Labs to Mass Market."
Over the past 25 years, there have been many major evolutions in spatial audio. After more than 50 years of stereophony, new technologies, such as Wave Field Synthesis, Higher Order Ambisonics or Vector Base Amplitude Panning, were introduced. They promise an enhanced 3D audio experience, where virtual sound sources can be accurately synthesized in any direction. Various formats of multichannel audio are now proposed: from 5.1, to 7.1, 10.2, Auro-3D (9.1, 11.1 or 13.1), 22.2, and Dolby Atmos (5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1.2, 7.1.4, 9.1.2). Not only the number of channels increases for a better sound immersion, but also sound spatialization is extended to elevation effects. In parallel, more and more tools are available for the capture, the editing, the coding and the reproduction of spatial audio. However, since these evolutions require more and more complex setups of loudspeakers, spatial audio is faced with the risk of being limited to movie theaters or amusement parks. Fortunately, a new step was recently reached with the binaural adaptation of any multichannel audio to headphone listening. Pioneer experiments from radio or television (BBC, Radio France, France Télévisions) show that spatial is very close to becoming a mass market product.
