Spatial Audio Masking Zone Metadata for Privacy Control
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing spatial audio rendering technologies do not effectively allow content creators to control the playback of discrete audio objects within specific three-dimensional zones, leading to potential exposure of sensitive information during live events like sporting events.
Innovation Solution
The use of metadata to instruct the decoding side to attenuate or omit audio objects positioned within a specified masking zone during spatial audio rendering, employing techniques such as beamforming and sound field processing to ensure that only audio outside the masking zone is heard by the listener.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Illumination intensity
If spatial audio rendering is used to provide immersive listening experience, then audio quality and realism are improved, but sensitive information may be exposed to listeners
Solution Approach 1:
The audio scene is segmented into discrete audio objects, each with its own spatial coordinates. This allows individual objects to be selectively masked based on their position within defined masking zones, enabling privacy protection for specific sound sources while preserving the overall spatial audio experience.
Solution Approach 2:
Different attenuation characteristics are applied to different spatial regions. The masking zone definition allows content creators to specify particular three-dimensional regions where audio objects should be attenuated, creating local privacy zones without affecting the global audio quality or other regions of the sound field.
2Adaptability or versatility
If metadata is used to control audio object attenuation in masking zones, then privacy control is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Masking zones and attenuation preferences are pre-defined in the metadata during content creation. The spatial audio renderer on the client device simply reads these pre-configured parameters and applies the appropriate attenuation, avoiding the need for complex real-time processing or user-side configuration interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
Metadata serves as an intermediary layer between content creators and clients. It carries masking zone definitions and attenuation preferences from the content creation side to the rendering side, enabling sophisticated privacy control without requiring direct complex interactions between the audio objects and the rendering engine.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If beamforming and sound field processing are applied to mask audio objects, then privacy protection is improved, but computational requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of applying complex beamforming to all audio objects in the scene, the system applies attenuation only to audio objects that fall within defined masking zones. This selective approach reduces computational requirements while maintaining effective privacy protection for the specific sensitive audio sources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the attenuation parameter dynamically based on the spatial position of audio objects relative to masking zones. By adjusting the attenuation parameter rather than applying complex spatial filtering to the entire sound field, the system achieves privacy protection with reduced computational energy consumption.
Data Source
AI summary
The various aspects of the disclosure here enable a content creation side to control how a sound program is spatial audio rendered by a decoding side, so that an audio scene component in a metadata-specified three dimensional acoustic masking zone is not heard while another audio scene component in an un-masked zone of the sound program is heard by a listener of the playback. Other aspects are also described and claimed.