Perceptual evaluation of bitrate compressed ambisonic scenes in loudspeaker based reproduction

TY - CONF

T1 - Perceptual evaluation of bitrate compressed ambisonic scenes in loudspeaker based reproduction

AU - Rudzki, Tomasz

AU - Hening, Pierce

AU - Gomez-Lanzaco, Ignacio

AU - Stubbs, Jessica

AU - McKenzie, Thomas

AU - Skoglund, Jan

AU - Murphy, Damian

AU - Kearney, Gavin

N1 - Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge the participation of the listening test subjects. This research was supported by Google. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Audio Engineering Society. All rights reserved.

PY - 2019/3

Y1 - 2019/3

N2 - The increasing popularity of Ambisonics as a spatial audio format for streaming services poses new challenges to existing audio coding techniques. This paper seeks to evaluate timbral distortion and localization accuracy of Ambisonic audio encoded using Opus low-bitrate compression. The study was conducted for 1st, 3rd and 5thorder Ambisonic signals at various bitrates reproduced over a 50-channel spherical loudspeaker configuration. This study has identified how lower bitrates reduce timbral fidelity, though this changes depending on the audio content. Localization accuracy has been found to be relatively robust even at very low bitrates. The results suggest that the user experience of spatial audio streaming services would significantly improve if 3rd order Ambisonics would be implemented over 1st order.

AB - The increasing popularity of Ambisonics as a spatial audio format for streaming services poses new challenges to existing audio coding techniques. This paper seeks to evaluate timbral distortion and localization accuracy of Ambisonic audio encoded using Opus low-bitrate compression. The study was conducted for 1st, 3rd and 5thorder Ambisonic signals at various bitrates reproduced over a 50-channel spherical loudspeaker configuration. This study has identified how lower bitrates reduce timbral fidelity, though this changes depending on the audio content. Localization accuracy has been found to be relatively robust even at very low bitrates. The results suggest that the user experience of spatial audio streaming services would significantly improve if 3rd order Ambisonics would be implemented over 1st order.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85067884743&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Paper

AN - SCOPUS:85067884743

T2 - 2019 AES International Conference on Immersive and Interactive Audio: Creating the Next Dimension of Sound Experience

Y2 - 27 March 2019 through 29 March 2019

ER -