2341 results about "Stereophonic sound" patented technology

In processing a multi-channel audio signal having at least three original channels, a first downmix channel and a second downmix channel are provided, which are derived from the original channels. For a selected original channel of the original channels, channel side information are calculated such that a downmix channel or a combined downmix channel including the first and the second downmix channels, when weighted using the channel side information, results in an approximation of the selected original channel. The channel side information and the first and second downmix channels form output data to be transmitted to a decoder, which, in case of a low level decoder only decodes the first and second downmix channels or, in case of a high level decoder provides a full multi-channel audio signal based on the downmix channels and the channel side information. Since the channel side information only occupy a low number of bits, and since the decoder does not use dematrixing, an efficient and high quality multi-channel extension for stereo players and enhanced multi-channel players is obtained.

The invention relates to mobile audio playback devices and methods of its operation for enhanced music and sound experience for mobile devices. To provide stereo and surround sound, the present invention provides an audio playback device with a receiving means for receiving multi-channel audio data, obtaining means connected to the receiving means, for obtaining first channel audio data from the multi-channel audio data for playback on the audio playback device, and playback means having at least one loudspeaker, and being connected to the obtaining means for outputting the first channel audio data. The other not selected audio channels or all received audio data may be transferred to other terminals for playback or may be discarded.

A portable multimedia player is used to wirelessly access and control a media server that is streaming digital media by way of a wireless interface to a media unit such as a stereo/speakers in the case of streaming digital audio. In one embodiment, the portable multimedia player is wirelessly synchronized to a selected one(s) of a number of digital media files stored on the media server in such a way that digital media file metadata (song title, author, etc.) associated with the selected digital media file(s) only is transferred from the media server to be stored in the portable media player.

A wireless speaker system configured to receive stereo audio information wirelessly transmitted by an audio source including first and second loudspeakers. The first loudspeaker establishes a bidirectional secondary wireless link with the audio source for receiving and acknowledging receipt of the stereo audio information. The first and second loudspeakers communicate with each other via a primary wireless link, and the first and second loudspeakers are configured to extract first and second audio channels, respectively, from the stereo audio information. A wireless audio system including an audio source and first and second loudspeakers, each having a wireless transceiver. The first and second loudspeakers communicate via a primary wireless link. The audio source communicates audio information to the first loudspeaker via a secondary wireless link which is configured according to a standard wireless protocol. The first loudspeaker is configured to acknowledge successful reception of audio information via the secondary wireless link.

Home security detectors configured with the control components of the home comprising interactive detectors enhanced to support location-awareness and home occupant-awareness and functionality. The system includes at least one motion sensor configured with communication devices operatively arranged to transmit information about any motion of occupants in the various sections of the home as part of the information about the occupancy of the home during an emergency. At least one sensor is provided in various rooms of a home each sensing a state of the home. A central communication device is coupled, wired or wirelessly, directly or indirectly, to each home sensor configured to transmit the state of the home. The number of occupants in the home are determined by at least one body heat sensor and at least one heartbeat sensor each configured with the interactive detectors to detect the presence of emergency and home occupants and to know the present situations such as their heartbeats, such that the number of occupants and their locations are determinable from the number of detected body heat and their security and safety conditions are determinable by their heartbeats. The detection method includes the steps of sensing a state of the home and transmitting the state of the home to at least a server. Images of the home are captured by at least a camera means configured with at least a MOS and/or CMOS based active sensor array for producing real-time images and stored in the server for wireless retrieval. The images ideally include at least an intruder of the home. The server is configured with a central processor for enabling controlling security vigilance monitoring and for enabling rapid distribution of detection data, voice, and other detection signals within the monitoring environment. The system establishes a network which includes configuring home audio/visual devices, media destination means such as televisions, monitors, PDAs, notepads, notebooks, MP3, wireless stereo, cell phones etc for the detection means. The control server supports video/audio servings, telephony, messaging, file sharing, internetworking, and security monitoring and allows home occupants to access and control the home network environment from any location within a controlled residential, commercial/industrial and/or non-residential, commercial/industrial environment with at least a computer means such as a cell phone.

A portable handheld digital content player has an integrated wireless interface, an integrated FM transmitter and an integrated auto on and auto off feature for ease of use in vehicles. The player and associated software on a base content server provide automated broadband wireless content downloads to the player while in a vehicle and transfer of audio to the vehicle stereo via FM band transmission without the use of an accessory. The player integrates an FM scan function to search for a suitable frequency for transmitting within the FM band. The player integrates some PDA-like functionality including personal contact information, appointment calendar, user schedule, email in addition to others.

A technique for enhancing audio signals generated from compressed digital audio files is described. The technique uses a Bass Maximizer module, a Harmonic Exciter module and a Quasi Stereo module. The Bass Exciter module enhances the intensity, depth and punch of the bass audio content by creating harmonic sequences from low frequency components contained in the original input signal. The Harmonic Exciter module adds to the treble audio content of the original input signal by generating harmonic series from the high frequency components contained in the input signal. The Quasi Stereo Module creates a stereo image of the enhanced input signal by adding and subtracting delayed and filtered versions of the enhanced input signal with itself to create left and right channeled stereo-like outputs. The technique provides a useful tool to regenerate from an audio signal more pleasant and joyful sounds.

Methods and systems for determining and utilizing spatial correlative information relating to two or more devices to determine device positioning are described. Using audio signals emitted from stereo speakers, for example, associated with a first device and a microphone associated with the second device, the distance and angle between the two devices and as their relative positions can be determined. No other sensors or specialized accessories are needed on either device to calculate the distance and angles. The devices need only be loaded with the appropriate software which, when executed, is able to carry out steps of the present invention. The usefulness of one or both of the devices may be enhanced by knowing the distance and angle data between the devices. For example, one device may be a TV having stereo speakers and the other device may be a handheld device, such as a smartphone, having a microphone.

A scheme for stereo and multi-channel synthesis of inter-channel correlation (ICC) (normalized cross-correlation) cues for parametric stereo and multi-channel coding. The scheme synthesizes ICC cues such that they approximate those of the original. For that purpose, diffuse audio channels are generated and mixed with the transmitted combined (e.g., sum) signal(s). The diffuse audio channels are preferably generated using relatively long filters with exponentially decaying Gaussian impulse responses. Such impulse responses generate diffuse sound similar to late reverberation. An alternative implementation for reduced computational complexity is proposed, where inter-channel level difference (ICLD), inter-channel time difference (ICTD), and ICC synthesis are all carried out in the domain of a single short-time Fourier transform (STFT), including the filtering for diffuse sound generation.

A two-channel phase-amplitude stereo encoding and decoding scheme enabling flexible and spatially accurate interactive 3-D audio reproduction via standard audio-only two-channel transmission. The encoding scheme allows associating a 2-D or 3-D positional localization to each of a plurality of sound sources by use of frequency independent inter-channel phase and amplitude differences. The decoder is based on frequency-domain spatial analysis of 2-D or 3-D directional cues in a two-channel stereo signal and re-synthesis of these cues using any preferred spatialization technique, thereby allowing faithful reproduction of positional audio cues and reverberation or ambient cues over arbitrary multi-channel loudspeaker reproduction formats or over headphones, while preserving source separation despite the intermediate encoding over only two audio channels.

A unified approach, a fusion technique, a space-time constraint, a methodology, and system architecture are provided. The unified approach is to fuse the outputs of monocular and stereo video trackers, RFID and localization systems and biometric identification systems. The fusion technique is provided that is based on the transformation of the sensory information from heterogeneous sources into a common coordinate system with rigorous uncertainties analysis to account for various sensor noises and ambiguities. The space-time constraint is used to fuse different sensor using the location and velocity information. Advantages include the ability to continuously track multiple humans with their identities in a large area. The methodology is general so that other sensors can be incorporated into the system. The system architecture is provided for the underlying real-time processing of the sensors.

The present invention relates to a method for selecting auditory signal components for reproduction by means of one or more supplementary sound reproducing transducers, such as loudspeakers, placed between a pair of primary sound reproducing transducers, such as left and right loudspeakers in a stereophonic loudspeaker setup or adjacent loudspeakers in a surround sound loudspeaker setup, the method comprising the steps of (i) specifying azimuth angle range within which one of said supplementary sound reproducing transducers is located or is to be located and a listening direction; (Ii) based on said azimuth angle range and said listening direction, determining left and right interaural level difference limits and left and right interaural time difference limits, respectively; (iii) providing a pair of input signals for said pair of primary sound reproducing transducers; (iv) pre-processing each of said input signals, thereby providing a pair of pre-processed input signals; (v) determining interaural level difference and interaural time difference as a function of frequency between said pre-processed signals; and (vi) providing those signal components of said input signals that have interauial level differences and interaural time differences in the interval between said left and right interaural level difference limits, and left and right interaural time difference limits, respectively, to the corresponding supplementary sound reproducing transducer. The invention also relates to a device for carrying out the above method and systems of such devices.

There is disclosed a depth information generation apparatus capable of acquiring high-precision depth information within a short computation time. A depth information generation apparatus of this invention generates depth information at the capture position of a reference image from the reference image, and at least one peripheral image that forms a stereo image pair with the reference image, and has a high-speed stereo processor (30) for generating depth information at high speed from the reference image and peripheral image, and a high-precision stereo processor (40) for generating high-precision depth information. A motion detector (20) detects a motion in an image, and instructs an image composition unit (50) to select the output from the high-speed stereo processor (30) for a portion with a large motion, and the output from the high-precision stereo processor (40) for other portions. The image composition unit (50) composites the outputs from the high-speed stereo processor (30) and high-precision stereo processor (40) in accordance with an instruction from the motion detector (20), and outputs a depth map as final depth information.

A system, method and device for the capture and display of high-resolution stereoscopic or monoscopic wide fields-of-view (FOV) at still or video rates, presenting techniques and designs for distance measuring, for changing the working stereo capture range of a stereoscopic image capture device, and for playing pre-recorded or transmitted stereoscopic video image data through a player unit. The system supports multiple independent viewers and image analysis sub-systems of various types utilizing hardware, software and firmware. Further included is a stereoscopic videoconferencing embodiment that captures and transmits an entire room's view and automatically directs focus of images.

The present invention describes techniques that can be used to provide novel methods of spatial audio rendering using adapted M-S matrix shuffler topologies. Such techniques include headphone and loudspeaker-based binaural signal simulation and rendering, stereo expansion, multichannel upmix and pseudo multichannel surround rendering.

A universal four-channel multimedia computer speaker system is connectable to audio sub-system control circuits (e.g., “sound cards”) of both the four-channel type and the conventional two-channel (stereo) type. With the audio sub-system control circuit being of a four-channel type, the universal four-channel audio system functions as a conventional multimedia computer four-channel surround sound audio system. With a four audio channel multimedia computer work and the audio sub-system control circuit being of a conventional two-channel (stereo) type, the universal four-channel audio system is configured to provide one pair of wide-band speakers (e.g., the front) with distinct audio playback according to respective right-front and left-front audio channels in a four or two audio channel multimedia computer work such as a game, music, etc. The universal four-channel audio system is configured to provide at the rear speakers distinct audio playback that are generated from the right-front and left-front audio channels in the four or two audio channel multimedia computer work. With respect to the rear speakers, the universal four-channel audio system includes a proxy audio signal component that provides respective right and left rear proxy audio signals to proximate the typical sound of actual right and left rear audio signals carried on a four audio channel multimedia computer work or simulated surround signals generated from conventional two channel multimedia work.

An apparatus for synthesizing a rendered output signal having a first audio channel and a second audio channel includes a decorrelator stage for generating a decorrelator signal based on a downmix signal, and a combiner for performing a weighted combination of the downmix signal and a decorrelated signal based on parametric audio object information, downmix information and target rendering information. The combiner solves the problem of optimally combining matrixing with decorrelation for a high quality stereo scene reproduction of a number of individual audio objects using a multichannel downmix.

According to an embodiment, an apparatus and method are disclosed for dynamic gesture recognition from stereo sequences. In an embodiment, a stereo sequence of images of a subject is obtained and a depth disparity map is generated from the stereo sequence. The system is initiated automatically based upon a statistical model of the upper body of the subject. The upper body of the subject is modeled as three planes, representing the torso and arms of the subject, and three Gaussian components, representing the head and hands of the subject. The system tracks the upper body of the subject using the statistical upper body model and extracts three-dimensional features of the gestures performed. The system recognizes the gestures using recognition units, which, under a particular embodiment, utilizes hidden Markov models for the three-dimensional gestures.