Report of the meeting of the SC-02-08 Working Group on audio file transfer and exchange of the SC-02 Subcommittee on Digital Audio, held in Rome, 2013-05-04
The meeting was convened by chair M. Yonge.
The agenda and the report of previous meeting, held in San Francisco, 2012-10-26, were approved as written.
AES31-2-R: Review of AES31-2-2006: Audio-file transfer and exchange - Part 2: File Format for Transferring Digital Audio Data Between Systems of Different Type and Manufacture
Project scope: This standard defines a file format for interchanging audio data between compliant equipment. It is primarily intended for audio applications in professional recording, production, post production, and archiving.
The revised standard was published in January 2013. No additional action was requested or required.
AES31-3-R: Review of AES31-3-2008, AES standard for network and file transfer of audio - Audio-file transfer and exchange - Part 3: Simple project interchange. including maintenance of annex F.
Scope: This standard provides a convention for expressing edit data in text form in a manner that enables simple and accurate computer parsing while retaining human readability. It also describes a method for expressing time-code information in character notation. It supports common professional audio sampling frequencies, video frame rates, and film framing. This document addresses the core need of the AES31 series of standards in providing a simple but extensible system for passing audio material between systems.
This standard requires a formal review in 2013. The meeting proposed reaffirmation.
AES-21id-R: Review of AES-21id-2011, AES Information Document for audio-file transfer and exchange - Screen-less navigation for high-resolution audio on Blu-ray Disc
Project scope: This information document recommends a method for authoring a BD ROM to enable playback in consumer systems without a video screen, and to provide simple track selection from the remote control.
No action was requested or required.
AES-X212: Head-related transfer function (HRTF) interchange file format
Project scope: to standardize a file format to exchange binaural listening parameters in the form of head related transfer functions (HRTF). The format will be scalable to match the available rendering process. The format will be designed to include source materials from different HRTF databases.
This newly-formed project has been exchanging information in task group SC-02-08-E led by M. Parmentier (the task group also met later during the convention). A discussion was held based on the latest SOFA draft 0.3 that is intended to provide a main source for this project.
It was noted that the SOFA draft contains a considerable amount of descriptive and tutorial material which, while useful, would be unnecessary in the fundamental core of a standard for this interchange file format. We resolved to derive a simpler document focussed on the strict content appropriate for a standard.
The intent is to provide a self-documenting format for carrying HRTF and IR data sets from many different originating systems so that they may be exchanged easily. These data sets may be non-identical, but the included descriptive data will be sufficient to interpret the content. Different formats could be identified through a suitable registry. A wide range of users of this data were identified; examples include academic research, commercial audio equipment, and spatial audio rendering on mobile devices.
SOFA is not intended to specify the entire file format, but specifies the content carried in the existing "netCDF-4" file format. This is an open format published by Unidata. The secretariat will explore the best way to reference this format in this draft standard.
C. Par (ECMA TC32-TG22) requested a liaison with this group; and T. Sporer suggested that the AES should contact MPEG group with information on this project with the intent to harmonize effort in this work of common interest,
The secretariat will derive a strawman draft from the SOFA document for comment in the task group.
Liaisons
Secretariat to develop two new liaisons:
ECMA: A new liaison with ECMA was proposed in support of AES-X212 (see above).
MPEG: A new liaison with MPEG was proposed in support of AES-X212 (see above).
New Projects
There were no new projects
New Business
There was no new business
The next meeting will be scheduled in conjunction with the AES 134th Convention to be held in New York, NY., US., 17 to 20 October 2013.
