Personalized Object-Based Audio for Hearing Impaired TV Viewers

Shirley BG, Meadows M, Malak F, Woodcock JS, Tidball A. Personalized Object-Based Audio for Hearing Impaired TV Viewers. J Audio Eng Soc. 2017;65(4):293-303. doi:10.17743/jaes.2017.0005

@article{Shirley2017_18562,
  author = {Shirley, Ben Guy and Meadows, Melissa and Malak, Fadi and Woodcock, James Stephen and Tidball, Ash},
  title = {{Personalized Object-Based Audio for Hearing Impaired TV Viewers}},
  journal = {Journal of the Audio Engineering Society},
  volume = {65},
  number = {4},
  pages = {293--303},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2017.0005},
  doi = {10.17743/jaes.2017.0005},
  year = {2017},
  month = apr,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society}
}

TY  - JOUR
TI  - Personalized Object-Based Audio for Hearing Impaired TV Viewers
AU  - Shirley, Ben Guy
AU  - Meadows, Melissa
AU  - Malak, Fadi
AU  - Woodcock, James Stephen
AU  - Tidball, Ash
T2  - Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
J2  - J. Audio Eng. Soc.
VL  - 65
IS  - 4
SP  - 293
EP  - 303
PY  - 2017
DA  - 2017/04/06
DO  - 10.17743/jaes.2017.0005
UR  - https://doi.org/10.17743/jaes.2017.0005
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Age demographics have led to an increase in the proportion of the population suffering from some form of hearing loss. The introduction of object-based audio to television broadcasting has the potential to improve the viewing experience for millions of hearing impaired people. Personalization of object-based audio can assist in overcoming difficulties in understanding speech and the narrative audio. This research presented describes a Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) implementation of object-based clean audio that presents independent object streams based on object-category elicitation. Evaluations were carried out with hearing impaired people, and participants were able to personalize audio levels independently for four object-categories using an on-screen menu: speech, music, background effects, and foreground effects related to on-screen events. Results show considerable preference variation across subjects but nevertheless the expanding object-category personalization beyond a binary speech/nonspeech categorization can substantially improve the viewing experience for some hearing impaired people.
ER  -