Greeting Card Audio Pre-Processing for Spatial Playback Correction
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Musical greeting cards suffer from poor audio quality due to speaker constraints and inability to produce immersive spatial audio effects, which existing solutions like upgrading speakers or adding more speakers cannot effectively address without increasing costs.
Innovation Solution
A method of pre-processing audio for greeting cards with at least one speaker and an audio control circuit, involving measuring audio response, analyzing device parameters, and generating tuning coefficients to correct playback deficiencies, including applying virtualization transfer functions based on head-related transfer functions to enhance spatial audio playback.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If better loudspeakers or more speakers are used, then audio quality is improved, but manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-processing the audio content before it is played back through the constrained speakers. The system measures the speaker response characteristics and generates compensating filter coefficients in advance, which are then applied to the audio content. This allows the existing low-cost speakers to produce improved audio quality without requiring better hardware, thereby resolving the contradiction between audio quality and manufacturing cost.
2Ease of manufacture
If speaker constraints are accepted, then manufacturing cost is reduced, but audio quality deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by transforming the audio content parameters (frequency spectrum, amplitude) to compensate for the speaker constraints. The system measures the actual speaker response and generates filter coefficients that adjust the audio parameters before playback. This allows low-cost speakers to produce high-quality audio by changing the audio signal parameters rather than improving the physical speaker parameters.
3Device complexity
If traditional audio processing is used, then device complexity is low, but immersive spatial audio effects cannot be achieved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary processing layer between the audio content and the speakers. This intermediary system measures speaker characteristics and generates compensating filter coefficients that enable spatial audio effects. The intermediary processing layer adds the necessary complexity to achieve immersive spatial audio while keeping the physical device simple and low-cost, resolving the contradiction between processing complexity and spatial audio capability.
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
This method optimizes audio playback quality by correcting frequency distortions and enhancing volume levels, enabling the greeting cards to produce immersive spatial audio effects, improving the overall audio experience without increasing costs.
Implementation Method 1
measuring an audio response from the at least one speaker
Implementation Method 2
correct for audio playback deficiencies associated with the one or more device parameters
Implementation Method 3
enhancing volume levels
Implementation Method 4
applying virtualization transfer functions based on head-related transfer functions to enhance spatial audio playback
Data Source
AI summary
A method of pre-processing audio for playback through an audio greeting card having at a speaker array of two or more speakers and an audio control circuit, by defining one or more device parameters associated with the greeting card, measuring an audio response from the greeting card when playing an original audio file, deriving correction gains to correct magnitude response characteristics of the audio response, deriving compressor threshold values to minimize level distortion of the audio response, deriving a virtualization transfer function from the one or more device parameters, and applying the correction gains, compressor threshold values, and the virtualization transfer function to generate an output audio file.