Audio Packet Concealment Using Buffer Reconstruction Cues
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Poor network connections lead to temporal gaps in audio data packets, causing artifacts such as pops and clicks during real-time collaborative audio streaming among multiple users.
Innovation Solution
An audio streaming device and system that buffer, reconstruct, and conceal missing audio data packets using indicators within the packets to mitigate artifacts, employing methods like inserting silence or pseudo-random noise, and increasing buffer size for resending requests.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If audio data packets are transmitted over a network for real-time collaborative streaming, then multiple users can collaborate in real time, but temporal gaps and missing packets occur leading to audible artifacts
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by buffering incoming audio data packets before reconstruction, allowing time to detect missing packets and apply concealment algorithms before the audio is played back, thus preventing audible artifacts
Solution Approach 2:
A server acts as an intermediary between audio streaming devices, receiving packets, detecting gaps using sequence numbers, applying concealment techniques, and redistributing corrected streams to maintain audio continuity across the network
2Reliability
If buffer size is increased to accommodate network variations, then packet loss is reduced, but latency increases affecting real-time performance
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial concealment actions by only processing and concealing the specific missing packets identified through sequence number gaps, rather than buffering or retransmitting entire audio streams, thus minimizing latency while maintaining reliability
Solution Approach 2:
The buffer size parameter is dynamically adjusted based on network conditions and packet loss rates, allowing the system to optimize between latency and packet delivery completeness by changing the buffering parameter adaptively
3Reliability
If packet loss concealment is applied to mitigate artifacts, then audio quality is maintained, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The packet loss concealment functionality is extracted as a separate modular component that can be independently implemented and configured, allowing the core audio streaming system to remain simple while adding complexity only where needed for quality maintenance
Data Source
AI summary
An audio streaming device includes a network interface, a memory storing instructions, and a processor communicatively coupled to the network interface and the memory. The processor is configured to execute the instructions to receive audio data packets from a further audio streaming device, where each audio data packet includes an indicator of the position of the audio data packet within an audio stream. The processor is configured to execute the instructions to buffer the received audio data packets; reconstruct the audio stream based on the indicator of each buffered audio data packet; prior to reconstructing the audio stream, identify whether there is a missing audio data packet within the audio stream based on the indicator of each buffered audio data packet; and in response to identifying a missing audio data packet, conceal the missing audio data packet to mitigate artifacts in the reconstructed audio stream.