Spatial Audio Capture Using Secondary Device Noise Reduction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Spatial audio capture techniques like SPAC and DirAC face challenges in maintaining audio quality due to noise disturbances from mechanical and electrical sources, such as auto-focus and zoom motors in video recorders, and handling noise in handheld devices, which affect the spatial characteristics of recorded sound.
Innovation Solution
A method utilizing multiple audio recording devices to determine and modify the spatial characteristics of sound to match a desired location and orientation, allowing the use of higher-quality sound captured by a secondary device to replace noisy audio from a primary device, ensuring the sound appears to be captured at the desired location and orientation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If spatial audio capture is performed using a primary device (e.g., video recorder), then the audio can be synchronized with video, but the audio quality deteriorates due to noise from mechanical and electrical components
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a secondary audio recording device as an intermediary to capture high-quality audio separately from the video recording device. This mediator device does not suffer from the mechanical and electrical noise issues, and its audio is later synchronized with the video through spatial parameter matching, thus resolving the contradiction between synchronization reliability and noise interference
Solution Approach 2:
The audio recording function is segmented from the video recording device and assigned to a separate dedicated audio device. This segmentation allows the video recorder to focus on video capture while the separate audio device captures clean audio, eliminating the noise problem while maintaining synchronization through spatial parameter correspondence
2Object-affected harmful factors
If audio is recorded by a device at a different location than the desired capture point, then higher quality audio can be obtained, but the spatial characteristics of the sound do not match the desired location
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a copy of the spatial characteristics data from the primary device and applies it to the audio recorded by the secondary device. By copying the spatial parameters (direction of arrival, diffuseness) from the primary device's perspective to the secondary device's audio, the system makes the audio appear as if it were captured at the primary device's location, thus resolving the spatial mismatch while maintaining high audio quality
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes the spatial parameters of the recorded audio by applying the spatial characteristics from the primary device to the secondary device's recording. This parameter transformation allows the audio to be repositioned virtually to the desired location, maintaining both high audio quality and accurate spatial characteristics
Data Source
AI summary
A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided in order to facilitate spatial audio capture by utilizing multiple audio recording devices. In the context of a method, spatial characteristics of sound recorded by a first device are determined. The method also mapping, with a processor, sound recorded by a second device to a location and orientation of the first device. As such, the spatial characteristics of the sound recorded by the second device are modified to match the spatial characteristics of the sound recorded by the first device.