DVD Environmental Audio Tracks for Immersive Playback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current DVD playback technologies lack the ability to provide an immersive audio experience by incorporating ambient sounds from the original environment of a performance, limiting the realism and artistic value of audio content.
Innovation Solution
Incorporating environmental audio tracks recorded using microphones and vibration sensors, which capture ambient sounds from the performance location, and encoding these tracks onto a DVD for selective playback with standard audio tracks, allowing users to enhance their listening experience by simulating the original acoustic environment.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If standard audio tracks are used for DVD playback, then the audio content is clear and well-defined, but the immersive quality and realism of the original performance environment are lost
Solution Approach 1:
The audio content is segmented into separate environmental audio tracks that can be independently selected and combined with standard audio tracks. This allows the system to maintain clear standard audio while optionally adding environmental elements like crowd noise, venue acoustics, and atmospheric sounds to enhance realism without compromising audio clarity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent combines standard audio tracks with separate environmental audio tracks to create an enhanced audio experience. The environmental tracks containing ambient sounds, crowd noise, and venue characteristics are merged with the main audio content, allowing users to experience both the clarity of standard audio and the immersive quality of the original performance environment simultaneously.
2Adaptability or versatility
If environmental audio tracks are added to enhance realism, then the immersive quality improves, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The DVD audio system is designed with multi-functionality to handle both standard audio playback and environmental audio enhancement. The playback device can selectively activate different environmental audio tracks based on user preference, maintaining compatibility with existing audio formats while adding enhanced realism capabilities without requiring completely new hardware.
Solution Approach 2:
The environmental audio tracks serve as an intermediary layer between the standard audio and the user's auditory experience. These tracks contain processed ambient sounds and venue characteristics that mediate between the recorded performance and the listener, adding environmental realism without directly modifying the core audio signal structure.
3Ease of operation
If multiple environmental audio tracks are provided for selection, then the user experience becomes more engaging, but the quantity of audio content increases
Solution Approach 1:
The audio system dynamically adjusts the combination of standard and environmental audio tracks based on user selection. Users can choose from multiple environmental audio options (e.g., different venue acoustics, crowd noise levels, atmospheric conditions), and the system dynamically mixes these tracks with the standard audio in real-time, providing an engaging interactive experience without requiring all possible audio variations to be pre-assembled.
Solution Approach 2:
Rather than providing complete re-recordings of performances in every possible environment, the patent uses partial environmental audio elements (ambient sounds, crowd noise, acoustic characteristics) that can be selectively added to standard audio tracks. This partial action approach provides engaging user experience with multiple selection options while keeping the total audio data volume manageable by only adding environmental layers rather than complete alternative recordings.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables a more realistic and engaging audio experience by allowing users to choose from various environmental audio options, adding reverberation, crowd noise, and other room characteristics, enhancing the realism of live performances beyond traditional studio recordings.
Implementation Method 1
recording a physical effect at a point in a structure during a live performance, wherein the physical effect is a response to an acoustic vibration caused by the live performance
Data Source
AI summary
Audio tracks including environmental information are recorded on a DVD, or other playback medium using microphones, vibration sensors, or other devices that capture ambient sound from the original environment in which a performance, presentation or other sound is created. For example, environmental audio tracks can be obtained by placing microphones on the floor, ceiling and walls of an amphitheater during a pop music performance. Any object, item or surface can be a candidate from, or within, which to capture an ambient sound. Sounds can be obtained from sensors mounted to musicians, audience members, theater seats, various rooms within a building, etc. The environmental audio tracks (EATs) can be provided individually or mixed together with one or more other EATs, one or more standard recorded tracks, or otherwise mixed or combined with other sounds. Or the EATs can be processed, effected, etc., as desired. The original or modified EATs are then encoded onto a DVD (or other medium) so that a listener can selectively hear the EATs alone, or in combination with, other audio tracks on the DVD.