Cloud Binaural Audio Streaming for Mobile Spatial Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current mobile devices face challenges in providing a high-quality spatial audio experience due to limited bandwidth and compute power, which restricts the number of audio signals that can be streamed and binauralized, resulting in a suboptimal spatial audio experience.
Innovation Solution
A cloud spatial audio processing system binauralizes spatial audio and streams it to mobile devices, leveraging greater available bandwidth and compute power in the cloud to convert spatial audio into personalized binaural audio, preserving a similar or better spatial audio experience without the need for downconversion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If spatial audio is binauralized on the mobile station, then the spatial audio experience can be provided, but the bandwidth requirement and compute power requirement increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the binauralization processing function from the mobile station and relocates it to a cloud-based server. The mobile station only receives pre-binauralized audio signals, while the computationally intensive HRTF application and spatial audio processing are performed remotely on the server, thereby reducing the bandwidth and compute power requirements at the mobile device.
2Quantity of substance
If the number of audio signals is reduced for streaming, then the bandwidth consumption decreases, but the spatial audio quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary binauralization processing to the spatial audio signals before streaming them to the mobile station. The server performs HRTF convolution and other spatial processing operations in advance, converting multi-channel spatial audio into binaural format suitable for headphone playback. This preliminary action ensures that the audio quality is preserved while reducing the number of signals that need to be streamed.
3Quantity of substance
If downconversion is applied to spatial audio, then the bandwidth requirement is reduced, but the spatialization accuracy is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the format and parameters of spatial audio signals through cloud-based processing. Instead of simply downconverting the number of channels, the server applies HRTF-based binauralization that transforms the audio parameters to match the characteristics of human hearing and headphone playback. This parameter transformation maintains spatialization accuracy while adapting the signals for efficient streaming.
Data Source
AI summary
Spatial audio is received from an audio server over a first communication link. The spatial audio is converted by a cloud spatial audio processing system into binaural audio. The binauralized audio is streamed from the cloud spatial audio processing system to a mobile station over a second communication link to cause the mobile station to play the binaural audio on the personal audio delivery device.