Apparatus and Method for Decomposing an Input Signal Using a Downmixer
Specification
The present invention relates to audio processing and, in particular to audio signal
decomposition into different components such as perceptually distinct components.
The human auditory system senses sound from all directions. The perceived auditory (the
adjective auditory denotes what is perceived, while the word sound will be used to
describe physical phenomena) environment creates an impression of the acoustic properties
of the surrounding space and the occurring sound events. The auditory impression
perceived in a specific sound field can (at least partially) be modeled considering three
different types of signals at the car entrances: The direct sound, early reflections, and
diffuse reflections. These signals contribute to the formation of a perceived auditory spatial
image.
Direct sound denotes the waves of each sound event that first reach the listener directly
from a sound source without disturbances. It is characteristic for the sound source and
provides the least-compromised information about the direction of incidence of the sound
event. The primary cues for estimating the direction of a sound source in the horizontal
plane are differences between the left and right ear input signals, namely interaural time
differences (ITDs) and interaural level differences (ILDs). Subsequently, a multitude of
reflections of the direct sound arrive at the ears from different directions and with different
relative time delays and levels. With increasing time delay, relative to the direct sound, the
density of the reflections increases until they constitute a statistical clutter.
The reflected sound contributes to distance perception, and to the auditory spatial
impression, which is composed of at least two components: apparent source width (ASW)
(Another commonly used term for ASW is auditory spaciousness) and listener
envelopment (LEV). ASW is defined as a broadening of the apparent width of a sound
source and is primarily determined by early lateral reflections. LEV refers to the listener's
sense of being enveloped by sound and is determined primarily by late-arriving reflections.
The goal of electroacoustic stereophonic sound reproduction is to evoke the perception of a
pleasing auditory spatial image. This can have a natural or architectural reference (e.g. the
recording of a concert in a hall), or it may be a sound field that is not existent in reality
(e.g. electroacoustic music).
From the field of concert hall acoustics, it is well known that - to obtain a subjectively
pleasing sound field - a strong sense of auditory spatial impression is important, with LEV
being an integral part. The ability of loudspeaker setups to reproduce an enveloping sound
field by means of reproducing a diffuse sound field is of interest. In a synthetic sound field
it is not possible to reproduce all naturally occurring reflections using dedicated
transducers. That is especially true for diffuse later reflections. The timing and level
properties of diffuse reflections can be simulated by using "reverberated" signals as
loudspeakers feeds. If those are sufficiently uncorrelated, the number and location of the
loudspeakers used for playback determines if the sound field is perceived as being diffuse.
The goal is to evoke the perception of a continuous, diffuse sound field using only a
discrete number of transducers. That is, creating sound fields where no direction of sound
arrival can be estimated and especially no single transducer can be localized. The
subjective diffuseness of synthetic sound fields can be evaluated in subjective tests.
Stereophonic sound reproductions aim at evoking the perception of a continuous sound
field using only a discrete number of transducers. The features desired the most are
directional stability of localized sources and realistic rendering of the surrounding auditory
environment. The majority of formats used today to store or transport stereophonic
recordings are channel-based. Each channel conveys a signal that is intended to be played
back over an associated loudspeaker at as specific position. A specific auditory image is
designed during the recording or mixing process. This image is accurately recreated if the
loudspeaker setup used for reproduction resembles the target setup that the recording was
designed for.
The number of feasible transmission and playback channels constantly grows and with
every emerging audio reproduction format comes the desire to render legacy format
content over the actual playback system. Upmix algorithms are a solution to this desire,
computing a signal with more channels from a legacy signal. A number of stereo upmix
algorithms have been proposed in the literature, e.g. Carlos Avendano and Jean-Marc Jot,
"A frequency-domain approach to multichannel upmix", Journal of the Audio Engineering
Society, vol. 52, no. 7/8, pp. 740-749, 2004; Christof Faller, "Multiple-loudspeaker
playback of stereo signals," Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 54, no. 11, pp.
1051-1064, November 2006; John Usherand Jacob Benesty, "Enhancement of spatial
sound quality: A new reverberation-extraction audio upmixer," IEEE Transactions on
Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, vol. 15, no. 7, pp. 2141-2150, September
2007.Most of these algorithms are based on a direct/ambient signal decomposition
followed by rendering adapted to the target loudspeaker setup.
The described direct/ambient signal decompositions are not readily applicable to multi¬
channel surround signals. It is not easy to formulate a signal model and filtering to obtain
from N audio channels the corresponding N direct sound and N ambient sound channels.
The simple signal model used in the stereo case, see e.g. Christof Faller, "Multipleloudspeaker
playback of stereo signals," Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 54,
no. 11, pp. 1051-1064, November 2006, assuming direct sound to be correlated amongst all
channels, does not capture the diversity of channel relations that can exist between
surround signal channels.
The general goal of stereophonic sound reproduction is to evoke the perception of a
continuous sound field using only a limited number of transmission channels and
transducers. Two loudspeakers are the minimum requirement for spatial sound
reproduction. Modern consumer systems often offer a larger number of reproduction
channels. Basically, stereophonic signals (independent of the number of channels) are
recorded or mixed such that for each source the direct sound goes coherent (- dependent)
into a number of channels with specific directional cues and reflected independent sounds
go into a number of channels determining cues for apparent source width and listener
envelopment. Correct perception of the intended auditory image is usually only possible in
the ideal point of observation in the playback setup the recording was intended for. Adding
more speakers to a given loudspeaker setup usually enables a more realistic
reconstruction/simulation of a natural sound field. To use the full advantage of an extended
loudspeaker setup if the input signals are given in another format, or to manipulate the
perceptually distinct parts of the input signal, those have to be separately accessible. This
specification describes a method to separate the dependent and independent components of
stereophonic recordings comprising an arbitrary number of input channels below.
A decomposition of audio signals into perceptually distinct components is necessary for
high quality signal modification, enhancement, adaptive playback, and perceptual coding.
A number of methods have recently been proposed that allow the manipulation and/or
extraction of perceptually distinct signal components from two-channel input signals.
Since input signals with more than two channels become more and more common, the
described manipulations are desirable also for multichannel input signals. However, most
of the concepts described for two-channel input can not easily be extended to work with
input signals with an arbitrary number of channels.
If one were to perform a signal analysis into direct and ambience parts with, for example, a
5.1 channel surround signal having a left channel, a center channel, a right channel, a left
surround channel, a right surround channel and a low-frequency enhancement (subwoofer),
it is not straight-forward how one should apply a direct/ambience signal analysis. One
might think of comparing each pair of the six channels resulting in a hierarchical
processing which has, in the end, up to 15 different comparison operations. Then, when all
of these 15 comparison operations have been done, where each channel has been compared
to every other channel, one would have to determine how one should evaluate the 15
results. This is time consuming, the results are hard to interprete, and due to the
considerable amount of processing resources, not usable for e.g. real-time applications of
direct/ambience separation or, generally, signal decompositions which may be, for
example, used in the context of upmix or any other audio processing operations.
In M. M. Goodwin and J. M. Jot, "Primary-ambient signal decomposition and vector-based
localization for spatial audio coding and enhancement," in Proc. Of ICASSP 2007, 2007, a
principal component analysis is applied to the input channel signals to perform the primary
(= direct) and ambient signal decomposition.
The models used in Christof Faller, "Multiple-loudspeaker playback of stereo signals,"
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 54, no. 11, pp. 1051-1064, November 2006
and C. Faller, "A highly directive 2-capsule based microphone system," in Preprint 123rd
Conv. Aud. Eng. Soc, Oct. 2007 assume de-correlated or partially correlated diffuse sound
in stereo and microphone signals, respectively. They derive filters for extracting
diffuse/ambient signal given this assumption. These approaches are limited to single and
two channel audio signals.
A further reference is C. Avendano and J.-M. Jot, "A frequency-domain approach to
multichannel upmix", Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 52, no. 7/8, pp. 740-
749, 2004. The reference M. M. Goodwin and J. M. Jot, "Primary-ambient signal
decomposition and vector-based localization for spatial audio coding and enhancement," in
Proc. Of ICASSP 2007, 2007, comments on the Avendano, Jot reference as follows. The
reference provides an approach which involves creating a time-frequency mask to extract
the ambience from a stereo input signal. The mask is based on the cross-correlation
between the left-and right channel signals, however, so this approach is not immediately
applicable to the problem of extracting ambience from an arbitrary multichannel input. To
use any such correlation-based method in this higher-order case would call for a
hierarchical pairwise correlation analysis, which would entail a significant computational
cost, or some alternate measure of multichannel correlation.
Spatial Impulse Response Rendering (SIRR) (Juha Merimaa and Ville Pulkki, "Spatial
impulse response rendering", in Proc. of the 7th Int. Conf. on Digital Audio Effects
(DAFx'04), 2004) estimates the direct sound with direction and diffuse sound in B-Format
impulse responses. Very similar to SIRR, Directional Audio Coding (DirAC) (Ville Pulkki,
"Spatial sound reproduction with directional audio coding," Journal of the Audio
Engineering Society, vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 503-516, June 2007) implements similar direct and
diffuse sound analysis to B-Format continuous audio signals.
The approach presented in Julia Jakka, Binaural to Multichannel Audio Upmix, Ph.D.
thesis, Master's Thesis, Helsinki University of Technology, 2005 describes an upmix using
binaural signals as input.
The reference Boaz Rafaely, "Spatially Optimal Wiener Filtering in a Reverberant Sound
Field, IEEE Workshop on Applications of Signal Processing to Audio and Acoustics 2001,
October 2 1 to 24, 2001, New Paltz, New York," describes the derivation of Wiener filters
which are spatially optimal for reverberant sound fields. An application to two-microphone
noise cancellation in reverberant rooms is given. The optimal filters which are derived
from the spatial correlation of diffuse sound fields capture the local behavior of the sound
fields and are therefore of lower order and potentially more spatially robust than
conventional adaptive noise cancellation filters in reverberant rooms. Formulations for
unconstrained and causally constrained optimal filters are presented and an example
application to a two-microphone speech enhancement is demonstrated using a computer
simulation.
It is the object of the present invention to provide an improved concept for decomposing an
input signal.
This object is achieved by an apparatus for decomposing an input signal in accordance
with claim 1, a method of decomposing an input signal in accordance with claim 14 or a
computer program in accordance with claim 15.
The present invention is based on the finding that, for decomposing a multi-channel signal,
it is an advantageous approach to not perform the analysis with respect to the different
signal components with the input signal directly, i.e. with the signal having at least three
input channels. Instead, the multi-channel input signal having at least three input channels
is processed by a downmixer for downmixing the input signal to obtain a downmixed
signal. The downmixed signal has a number of downmix channels which is smaller than
the number of input channels and, preferably, is two. Then, the analysis of the input signal
is performed on the downmixed signal rather than on the input signal directly and the
analysis results in an analysis result. However, this analysis result is not applied to the
downmixed signal, but is applied to the input signal or, alternatively, to a signal derived
from the input signal where this signal derived from the input signal may be an upmix
signal or, depending on the number of channels of the input signals, also a downmix signal,
but this signal derived from the input signal will be different from the downmixed signal,
on which the analysis has been performed. When, for example, the case is considered that
the input signal is a 5.1 channel signal, then the downmix signal, on which the analysis is
performed, might be a stereo downmix having two channels. The analysis results are then
applied to the 5.1 input signal directly, to a higher upmix such as a 7.1 output signal or to a
multi-channel downmix of the input signal having for example only three channels, which
are the left channel, the center channel and the right channel, when only a three channel
audio rendering apparatus is at hand. In any case, however, the signal on which the
analysis results are applied by the signal processor is different from the downmixed signal
that the analysis has been performed on and typically has more channels than the
downmixed signal, on which the analysis with respect to the signal components is
performed on.
The so-called "indirect" analysis/processing is possible due to the fact that one can assume
that any signal components in the individual input channels also occur in the downmixed
channels, since a downmix typically consists of an addition of input channels in different
ways. One straightforward downmix is, for example, that the individual input channels are
weighted as required by a downmix rule or a downmix matrix and are then added together
after having been weighted. An alternative downmix consists of filtering the input channels
with certain filters such as HRTF filters and the downmix is performed by using filtered
signals, i.e. the signals filtered by HRTF filters as known in the art. For a five channel
input signal one requires 10 HRTF filters, and the HRTF filter outputs for the left part/left
ear are added together and the HRTF filter outputs for the right channel filters are added
together for the right ear. Alternative downmixes can be applied in order to reduce the
number of channels which have to be processed in the signal analyzer.
Hence, embodiments of the present invention describe a novel concept to extract
perceptually distinct components from arbitrary input signals by considering an analysis
signal, while the result of the analysis is applied to the input signal. Such an analysis signal
can be gained e.g. by considering a propagation model of the channels or loudspeaker
signals to the ears. This is in part motivated by the fact that the human auditory system also
uses solely two sensors (the left and right ear) to evaluate sound fields. Thus, the extraction
of perceptually distinct components is basically reduced to the consideration of an analysis
signal that will be denoted as downmix in the following. Throughout this document, the
term downmix is used for any pre-processing of the multichannel signal resulting in an
analysis signal (this may include e.g. a propagation model, HRTFs, BRIRs, simple crossfactor
downmix).
Knowing the format of the given input and the desired characteristics of the signal to be
extracted, the ideal inter-channel relations can be defined for the downmixed format and
such, an analysis of this analysis signal is sufficient to generate a weighting mask (or
multiple weighting masks) for the decomposition of multichannel signals.
In an embodiment, the multi-channel problem is simplified by using a stereo downmix of a
surround signal and applying a direct/ambient analysis to the downmix. Based on the
result, i.e. short-time power spectra estimations of direct and ambient sounds, filters are
derived for decomposing a N-channel signal to N direct sound and N ambient sound
channels.
The present invention is advantageous due to the fact that signal analysis is applied on a
smaller number of channels, which significantly reduces the processing time required, so
that the inventive concept can even be applied in real time applications for upmixing or
downmixing or any other signal processing operation where different components such as
perceptually different components of a signal are required.
A further advantage of the present invention is that although a downmix is performed it has
been found out that this does not deteriorate the detectability of perceptually distinct
components in the input signal. Stated differently, even when input channels are
downmixed, the individual signal components can nevertheless be separated to a large
extent. Furthermore, the downmix operates as a kind of "collection" of all signal
components of all input channels into two channels and the single analysis applied on these
"collected" downmixed signals provides a unique result which no longer has to be
interpreted and can be directly used for signal processing.
In a preferred embodiment, a particular efficiency for the purpose of signal decomposition
is obtained when the signal analysis is performed based on the pre-calculated frequencydependent
similarity curve as a reference curve. The term similarity includes the
correlation and the coherence, where - in a strict - mathematical sense, the correlation is
calculated between two signals without an additional time shift and the coherence is
calculated by shifting the two signals in time/phase so that the signals have a maximum
correlation and the actual correlation over frequency is then calculated with the time/phase
shift applied. For this text, similarity, correlation and coherence are considered to mean the
same, i.e., a quantitative degree of similarity between two signals, e.g., where a higher
absolute value of the similarity means that the two signals are more similar and a lower
absolute value of the similarity means that the two signals are less similar.
It has been shown that the usage of such a correlation curve as a reference curve allows a
very efficiently implementable analysis, since the curve can be used for straightforward
comparison operations and/or weighting factor calculations. The use of a pre-calculated
frequency-dependent correlation curve allows to only perform simple calculations rather
than more complex Wiener filtering operations. Furthermore, the application of the
frequency-dependent correlation curve is particularly useful due to the fact that the
problem is not addressed from a statistical point of view but is addressed in a more analytic
way, since as much information as possible from the current setup is introduced so as to
obtain a solution to the problem. Additionally, the flexibility of this procedure is very high,
since the reference curve can be obtained by many different ways. One way is to actually
measure the two or more signals in a certain setup and to then calculate the correlation
curve over frequency from the measured signals. Therefore, one may emit independent
signals from different speakers or signals having a certain degree of dependency which is
pre-known.
The other preferred alternative is to simply calculate the correlation curve under the
assumption of independent signals. In this case, any signals are actually not necessary,
since the result is signal-independent.
The signal decomposition using a reference curve for the signal analysis can be applied for
stereo processing, i.e., for decomposing a stereo signal. Alternatively, this procedure can
also be implemented together with a downmixer for decomposing multichannel signals.
Alternatively, this procedure can also be implemented for multichannel signals without
using a downmixer when a pair-wise evaluation of signals in a hierarchical way is
envisaged.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention are subsequently discussed with respect to
the accompanying figures, in which:
Fig. 1 is a block diagram for illustrating an apparatus for decomposing an input
signal using a downmixer;
Fig. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an implementation of an apparatus for
decomposing a signal having a number of at least three input channels using
an analyzer with a pre-calculated frequency dependent correlation curve in
accordance with a further aspect of the invention;
Fig. 3 illustrates a further preferred implementation of the present invention with a
frequency-domain processing for the downmix, analysis and the signal
processing;
Fig. 4 illustrates an exemplary pre-calculated frequency dependent correlation
curve for a reference curve for the analysis indicated in Fig. 1 or Fig. 2;
Fig. 5 illustrates a block diagram illustrating a further processing in order to
extract independent components;
Fig. 6 illustrates a further implementation of a block diagram for further
processing where independent diffuse, independent direct and direct
components are extracted;
Fig. 7 illustrates a block diagram implementing the downmixer as an analysis
signal generator;
Fig. 8 illustrates a flowchart for indicating a preferred way of processing in the
signal analyzer of Fig. 1 or Fig. 2;
Figs. 9a-9e illustrate different pre-calculated frequency dependent correlation curves
which can be used as reference curves for several different setups with
different numbers and positions of sound sources (such as loudspeakers);
Fig. 10 illustrates a block diagram for illustrating another embodiment for a
diffuseness estimation where diffuse components are the components to be
decomposed; and
Fig. llA and 11B illustrate example equations for applying a signal analysis without a
frequency-dependent correlation curve, but relying on Wiener filtering
approach.
Fig. 1 illustrates an apparatus for decomposing an input signal 10 having a number of at
least three input channels or, generally, N input channels. These input channels are input
into a downmixer 12 for downmixing the input signal to obtain a downmixed signal 14,
wherein the downmixer 12 is arranged for downmixing so that a number of downmix
channels of the downmixed signal 14, which is indicated by "m", is at least two and
smaller than the number of input channels of the input signal 10. The m downmix channels
are input into an analyzer 16 for analyzing the downmixed signal to derive an analysis
result 18. The analysis result 8 is input into a signal processor 20, where the signal
processor is arranged for processing the input signal 10 or a signal derived from the input
signal by a signal deriver 22 using the analysis result, wherein the signal processor 20 is
configured for applying the analysis results to the input channels or to channels of the
signal 24 derived from the input signal to obtain a decomposed signal 26.
In the embodiment illustrated in Fig. 1, a number of input channels is n, the number of
downmix channels is m, the number of derived channels is 1, and the number of output
channels is equal to 1, when the derived signal rather than the input signal is processed by
the signal processor. Alternatively, when the signal deriver 22 does not exist then the input
signal is directly processed by the signal processor and then the number of channels of the
decomposed signal 26 indicated by "1" in Fig. 1 will be equal to n. Hence, Fig. 1 illustrates
two different examples. One example does not have the signal deriver 22 and the input
signal is directly applied to the signal processor 20. The other example is that the signal
deriver 22 is implemented and, then, the derived signal 24 rather than the input signal 10 is
processed by the signal processor 20. The signal deriver may, for example, be an audio
channel mixer such as an upmixer for generating more output channels. In this case 1
would be greater than n. In another embodiment, the signal deriver could be another audio
processor which performs weighting, delay or anything else to the input channels and in
this case the number of output channels of 1of the signal deriver 22 would be equal to the
number n of input channels. In a further implementation, the signal deriver could be a
downmixer which reduces the number of channels from the input signal to the derived
signal. In this implementation, it is preferred that the number 1 is still greater than the
number m of downmixed channels in order to have one of the advantages of the present
invention, i.e. that the signal analysis is applied to a smaller number of channel signals.
The analyzer is operative to analyze the downmixed signal with respect to perceptually
distinct components. These perceptually distinct components can be independent
components in the individual channels on the one hand, and dependent components on the
other hand. Alternative signal components to be analyzed by the present invention are
direct components on the one hand and ambient components on the other hand. There are
many other components which can be separated by the present invention, such as speech
components from music components, noise components from speech components, noise
components from music components, high frequency noise components with respect to low
P201 1/070702
frequency noise components, in multi-pitch signals the components provided by the
different instruments, etc. This is due to the fact that there are powerful analysis tools such
as Wiener filtering as discussed in the context of Fig. 11A, 11B or other analysis
procedures such as using a frequency-dependent correlation curve as discussed in the
context of, for example, Fig. 8 in accordance with the present invention.
Fig. 2 illustrates another aspect, where the analyzer is implemented for using a precalculated
frequency-dependent correlation curve 16. Thus, the apparatus for decomposing
a signal 28 having a plurality of channels comprises the analyzer 16 for analyzing a
correlation between two channels of an analysis signal identical to the input signal or
related to the input signal, for example, by a downmixing operation as illustrated in the
context of Fig. 1. The analysis signal analyzed by the analyzer 16 has at least two analysis
channels, and the analyzer 16 is configured for using a pre-calculated frequency dependent
correlation curve as a reference curve to determine the analysis result 18. The signal
processor 20 can operate in the same way as discussed in the context of Fig. 1 and is
configured for processing the analysis signal or a signal derived from the analysis signal by
a signal deriver 22, where the signal deriver 22 can be implemented similarly to what has
been discussed in the context of the signal deriver 22 of Fig. 1. Alternatively, the signal
processor can process a signal, from which the analysis signal is derived and the signal
processing uses the analysis result to obtain a decomposed signal. Hence, in the
embodiment of Fig. 2 the input signal can be identical to the analysis signal and, in this
case, the analysis signal can also be a stereo signal having just two channels as illustrated
in Fig. 2. Alternatively, the analysis signal can be derived from an input signal by any kind
of processing, such as downmixing as described in the context of Fig. 1 or by any other
processing such as upmixing or so. Additionally, the signal processor 20 can be useful to
apply the signal processing to the same signal as has been input into the analyzer or the
signal processor can apply a signal processing to a signal, from which the analysis signal
has been derived such as indicated in the context of Fig. 1, or the signal processor can
apply a signal processing to a signal which has been derived from the analysis signal such
as by upmixing or so.
Hence, different possibilities exist for the signal processor and all of these possibilities are
advantageous due to the unique operation of the analyzer using a pre-calculated frequencydependent
correlation curve as a reference curve to determine the analysis result.
Subsequently, further embodiments are discussed. It is to be noted that, as discussed in the
context of Fig. 2, even the use of a two-channel analysis signal (without a downmix) is
considered. Hence, the present invention as discussed in the different aspects in the context
of Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, which can be used together or as separate aspects, the downmix can be
processed by the analyzer or a two-channel signal, which has probably not been generated
by a downmix, can be processed by the signal analyzer using the pre-calculated reference
curve. In this context, it is to be noted that the subsequent description of implementation
aspects can be applied to both aspects schematically illustrated in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 even
when certain features are only described for one aspect rather than both. If, for example,
Fig. 3 is considered, it becomes clear that the frequency-domain features of Fig. 3 are
described in the context of the aspect illustrated in Fig. 1, but it is clear that a
time/frequency transform as subsequently described with respect to Fig. 3 and the inverse
transform can also be applied to the implementation in Fig. 2, which does not have a
downmixer, but which has a specified analyzer that uses a pre-calculated frequency
dependent correlation curve.
Particularly, the time/frequency converter would be placed to convert the analysis signal
before the analysis signal is input into the analyzer, and the frequency/time converter
would be placed at the output of the signal processor to convert the processed signal back
into the time domain. When a signal deriver exists, the time/frequency converter might be
placed at an input of the signal deriver so that the signal deriver, the analyzer, and the
signal processor all operate in the frequency/subband domain. In this context, frequency
and subband basically mean a portion in frequency of a frequency representation.
It is furthermore clear that the analyzer in Fig. 1 can be implemented in many different
ways, but this analyzer is also, in one embodiment, implemented as the analyzer discussed
in Fig. 2, i.e. as an analyzer which uses a pre-calculated frequency-dependent correlation
curve as an alternative to Wiener filtering or any other analysis method.
The embodiment of Fig. 3 applies a downmix procedure to an arbitrary input signal to
obtain a two-channel representation. An analysis in the time-frequency domain is
performed and weighting masks are calculated that are multiplied with the time frequency
representation of the input signal, as is illustrated in Fig. 3.
In the picture, T/F denotes a time frequency transform; commonly a Short-time Fourier
Transform (STFT). iT/F denotes the respective inverse transform [x^ri),- ··, ( )] are the
time domain input signals, where n is the time index. [X (m,i),---,X N(m,i)] denote the
coefficients of the frequency decomposition, where m is the decomposition time index,
and i is the decomposition frequency index. [D , i),D2(m,i)] are the two channels of the
downmixed signal.
2
W{m,i) is the calculated weighting. [Y {m, /),... ,YN(m,i)] are the weighted frequency
decompositions of each channel. Hy(i) are the downmix coefficients, which can be realvalued
or complex-valued and the coefficients can be constant in time or time-variant.
Hence, the downmix coefficients can be just constants or filters such as HRTF filters,
reverberation filters or similar filters.
U (h , ...,N) (2)
In Fig. 3 the case of applying the same weighting to all channels is depicted.
[y (n),...,y N (n)] are the time-domain output signals comprising the extracted signal
components. (The input signal may have an arbitrary number of channels (N ), produced
for an arbitrary target playback loudspeaker setup. The downmix may include HRTFs to
obtain ear-input-signals, simulation of auditory filters, etc. The downmix may also be
carried out in the time domain.).
In an embodiment, the difference between a reference correlation (Throughout this text, the
term correlation is used as synonym for inter-channel similarity and may thus also include
evaluations of time shifts, for which usually the term coherence is used. Even if time-shifts
are evaluated, the resulting value may have a sign. (Commonly, the coherence is defined as
having only positive values) as a function of frequency cr ( ) and the actual correlation
of the downmixed input signal csig ) is computed. Depending on the deviation of the
actual curve from the reference curve, a weighting factor for each time-frequency tile is
calculated, indicating if it comprises dependent or independent components. The obtained
time-frequency weighting indicates the independent components and may already be
applied to each channel of the input signal to yield a multichannel signal (number of
channels equal to number of input channels) including independent parts that may be
perceived as either distinct or diffuse.
The reference curve may be defined in different ways. Examples are:
• Ideal theoretical reference curve for an idealized two- or three-dimensional diffuse
sound field composed of independent components.
· The ideal curve achievable with the reference target loudspeaker setup for the given input
signal (e.g. Standard stereo setup with azimuth angles (±30°) , or standard five channel
setup according to ITU-R BS.775 with azimuth angles (0°,±30\±1 10°) )).
• The ideal curve for the actually present loudspeaker setup (the actual positions could be
measured or known through user-input. The reference curve can be calculated assuming
playback of independent signals over the given loudspeakers).
• The actual frequency-dependent short time power of each input channel may be
incorporated in the calculation of the reference.
Given a frequency dependent reference curve ( cre (o>)), an upper threshold ( ch ) ) and
lower threshold ( ( ) ) can be defined (see Fig. 4). The threshold curves may coincide
with the reference curve cr f { ) = ch c ) = clo ) ) , or be defined assuming detectability
thresholds, or they may be heuristically derived.
If the deviation of the actual curve from the reference curve is within the boundaries given
by the thresholds, the actual bin gets a weighting indicating independent components.
Above the upper threshold or below the lower threshold, the bin is indicated as dependent.
This indication may be binary, or gradually (i.e. following a soft-decision function). In
particular, if the upper- and lower threshold coincides with the reference curve, the applied
weighting is directly related to the deviation from the reference curve.
With reference to Fig. 3, reference numeral 32 illustrates a time/frequency converter which
can be implemented as a short-time Fourier transform or as any kind of filterbank
generating subband signals such as a QMF filterbank or so. Independent on the detailed
implementation of the time/frequency converter 32, the output of the time/frequency
converter is, for each input channel i a spectrum for each time period of the input signal.
Hence, the time/frequency processor 32 can be implemented to always take a block of
input samples of an individual channel signal and to calculate the frequency representation
such as an FFT spectrum having spectral lines extending from a lower frequency to a
higher frequency. Then, for a next block of time, the same procedure is performed so that,
in the end, a sequence of short time spectra is calculated for each input channel signal. A
certain frequency range of a certain spectrum relating to a certain block of input samples of
an input channel is said to be a "time/frequency tile" and, preferably, the analysis in
analyzer 16 is performed based on these time/frequency tiles. Therefore, the analyzer
receives, as an input for one time/frequency tile, the spectral value at a first frequency for a
certain block of input samples of the first downmix channel and receives the value for
the same frequency and the same block (in time) of the second downmix channel D2.
Then, as for example illustrated in Fig. 8, the analyzer 16 is configured for determining
(80) a correlation value between the two input channels per subband and time block, i.e. a
correlation value for a time/frequency tile. Then, the analyzer 16 retrieves, in the
embodiment illustrated with respect to Fig. 2 or Fig. 4, a correlation value (82) for the
corresponding subband from the reference correlation curve. When, for example, the
subband is the subband indicated at 40 in Fig. 4, then the step 82 results in the value 4 1
indicating a correlation between - 1 and +1, and value 4 1 is then the retrieved correlation
value. Then, in step 83, the result for the subband using the determined correlation value
from step 80 and the retrieved correlation value 4 1 obtained in step 82 is performed by
performing a comparison and the subsequent decision or is done by calculating an actual
difference. The result can be, as discussed before, a binary result saying that the actual
time/frequency tile considered in the downmix/analysis signal has independent
components. This decision will be taken, when the actually determined correlation value
(in step 80) is equal to the reference correlation value or is quit close to the reference
correlation value.
When, however, it is determined that the determined correlation value indicates a higher
absolute correlation than the reference correlation value, then it is determined that the
time/frequency tile under consideration comprises dependent components. Hence, when
the correlation of a time/frequency tile of the downmix or analysis signal indicates a higher
absolute correlation value than the reference curve, then it can be said that the components
in this time/frequency tile are dependent on each other. When, however, the correlation is
indicated to be very close to the reference curve, then it can be said that the components
are independent. Dependent components can receive a first weighting value such as 1 and
independent components can receive a second weighting value such as 0. Preferably, as
illustrated in Fig. 4, high and low thresholds which are spaced apart from the reference line
are used in order to provide a better result which is more suited than using the reference
curve alone.
Furthermore, with respect to Fig. 4, it is to be noted that the correlation can vary between -
1 and +1. A correlation having a negative sign additionally indicates a phase shift of 180°
between the signals. Therefore, other correlations only extending between 0 and 1 could be
applied as well, in which the negative part of the correlation is simply made positive. In
this procedure, one would then ignore a time shift or phase shift for the purpose of the
correlation determination.
The alternative way of calculating the result is to actually calculate the distance between
the correlation value determined in block 80 and the retrieved correlation value obtained in
block 82 and to then determine a metric between 0 and 1 as a weighting factor based on the
distance. While the first alternative (1) in Fig. 8 only results in values of 0 or 1, the
possibility (2) results in values between 0 and 1 and are, in some implementations,
preferred.
The signal processor 20 in Fig. 3 is illustrated as multipliers and the analysis results are
just a determined weighting factor which is forwarded from the analyzer to the signal
processor as illustrated in 84 in Fig. 8 and is then applied to the corresponding
time/frequency tile of the input signal 10. When for example the actually considered
spectrum is the 20th spectrum in the sequence of spectra and when the actually considered
frequency bin is the 5th frequency bin of this 20th spectrum, then the time/frequency tile can
be indicated as (20, 5) where the first number indicates the number of the block in time and
the second number indicates the frequency bin in this spectrum. Then, the analysis result
for time/frequency tile (20, 5) is applied to the corresponding time/frequency tile (20, 5) of
each channel of the input signal in Fig. 3 or, when a signal deliver as illustrated in Fig. 1 is
implemented, to the corresponding time/frequency tile of each channel of the derived
signal.
Subsequently, the calculation of a reference curve is discussed in more detail. For the
present invention, however, it is basically not important how the reference curve was
derived. It can be an arbitrary curve or, for example, values in a look-up table indicating an
ideal or desired relation of the input signals Xj in the downmix signal D or, and in the
context of Fig. 2 in the analysis signal. The following derivation is exemplary.
The physical diffusion of a sound field can be evaluated by a method introduced by Cook
et al. (Richard K. Cook, R. V. Waterhouse, R. D. Berendt, Seymour Edelman, and Jr. M.C.
Thompson, "Measurement of correlation coefficients in reverberant sound fields," Journal
Of The Acoustical Society Of America, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 1072-1077, November 1955),
utilizing the correlation coefficient ( r ) of the steady state sound pressure of plane waves at
two spatially separated points, as illustrated in the following equation (4)
r = < P i (n ) ' P (n ) >
(4)
where p n) and p ri ) are the sound pressure measurements at two points, n is the time
index, and < ·> denotes time averaging. In a steady state sound field, the following
relations can be derived:
r(k, d) - fo e _ dimensional sound fields) , and (5)
kd
r(k, d) =J 0(kd) (for two - dimensional soundfields) , (6)
I n
where d is the distance between the two measurement points and k =— is the
l
wavenumber, with l being the wavelength. (The physical reference curve r(k,d) may
already be used as cr for further processing.)
A measure for the perceptual diffuseness of a sound field is the interaural cross
correlation coefficient p ), measured in a sound field. Measuring p implies that the
radius between the pressure sensors (resp. the ears) is fixed. Including this restriction, r
becomes a function of frequency with the radian frequency w =kc , where c is the speed
of sound in air. Furthermore, the pressure signals differ from the previously considered
free field signals due to reflection, diffraction, and bending-effects caused by the listener's
pinnae, head, and torso. Those effects, substantial for spatial hearing, are described by
head-related transfer functions (HRTFs). Considering those influences, the resulting
pressure signals at the ear entrances are p n, ) and pR n, >) . For the calculation,
measured HRTF data may be used or approximations can be obtained by using an
analytical model (e.g. Richard O. Duda and William L. Martens, "Range dependence of the
response of a spherical head model," Journal Of The Acoustical Society Of America, vol.
104, no. 5, pp. 3048-3058, November 1998).
Since the human auditory system acts as a frequency analyzer with limited frequency
selectivity, furthermore this frequency selectivity may be incorporated. The auditory filters
are assumed to behave like overlapping bandpass filters. In the following example
explanation, a critical band approach is used to approximate these overlapping bandpasses
by rectangular filters. The equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) may be calculated as a
function of center frequency (Brian R. Glasberg and Brian C. J. Moore, "Derivation of
auditory filter shapes from notched-noise data," Hearing Research, vol. 47, pp. 103-138,
1990). Considering that the binaural processing follows the auditory filtering, p has to be
calculated for separate frequency channels, yielding the following frequency dependent
pressure signals
p (n, ) = — - w p n,w)άw (7) w) J«-
® = IbTcT J ( > '
where the integration limits are given by the bounds of the critical band according to the
actual center frequency w . The factors 1/b (w) may or may not be used in equations (7)
and (8).
If one of the sound pressure measurements is advanced or delayed by a frequency
independent time difference, the coherence of the signals can be evaluated. The human
auditory system is able to make use of such a time alignment property. Usually, the
interaural coherence is calculated within ± 1 ms. Depending on the available processing
power, calculations can be implemented using only the lag-zero value (for low complexity)
or the coherence with a time advance and delay (if high complexity is possible). In the
following, no distinction is made between both cases.
The ideal behavior is achieved considering an ideal diffuse sound field, which can be
idealized as a wave field that is composed of equally strong, uncorrelated plane waves
propagating in all directions (i.e. a superposition of an infinite number of propagating
plane waves with random phase relations and uniformly distributed directions of
propagation). A signal radiated by a loudspeaker can be considered a plane wave for a
listener positioned sufficiently far away. This plane wave assumption is common in
stereophonic playback over loudspeakers. Thus, a synthetic sound field reproduced by
loudspeakers consists of contributing plane waves from a limited number of directions.
Given an input signal with N channels, produced for playback over a setup with
loudspeaker positions [ 1 /2,/3,...,/^]. (Ih the case of a horizontal only playback setup,
indicates the azimuth angle. In the general case, = (azimuth, elevation) indicates the
position of the loudspeaker relative to the listener's head. If the setup present in the
listening room differs from the reference setup, / · may alternatively represent the
loudspeaker positions of the actual playback setup). With this information, an interaural
coherence reference curve p r for a diffuse field simulation can be calculated for this
setup under the assumption that independent signals are fed to each loudspeaker. The
signal power contributed by each input channel in each time-frequency tile may be
included in the calculation of the reference curve. In the example implementation, p ref is
used as c f .
Different reference curves as examples for frequency-dependent reference curves or
correlation curves are illustrated in Figs. 9a to 9e for a different number of sound sources
at different positions of the sound sources and different head orientations as indicated in
the Figs.
Subsequently the calculation of the analysis results as discussed in the context of Fig. 8
based on the reference curves is discussed in more detail.
The goal is to derive a weighting that equals 1, if the correlation of the downmix channels
is equal to the calculated reference correlation under the assumption of independent signals
being played back from all loudspeakers. If the correlation of the downmix equals + 1 or -1,
the derived weighting should be 0, indicating that no independent components are present.
In between those extreme cases, the weighting should represent a reasonable transition
between the indication as independent (W=l) or completely dependent (W=0).
Given the reference correlation curve cr ) and the estimation of the correlation /
coherence of the actual input signal played back over the actual reproduction setup
( c ¾ (<¾)) cS jg is the correlation resp. coherence of the downmix), the deviation of c ig )
from c f >) can be calculated. This deviation (possibly including an upper and lower
threshold) is mapped to the range [0;1] to obtain a weighting (W(m,i)) that is applied to all
input channels to separate the independent components.
The following example illustrates a possible mapping when the thresholds correspond with
the reference curve:
The magnitude of the deviation (denoted as D ) of the actual curve csig from the reference
cref is given by
D « = ¾(«)-c re («) | (9)
Given that the correlation / coherence is bounded between [-1;+1], the maximally possible
deviation towards + 1 or - 1 for each frequency is given by
A+( ) l-c ref ( ) (10)
_( ) = re (©) + l (11)
The weighting for each frequency is thus obtained from
(13)
Considering the time dependence and the limited frequency resolution of the frequency
decomposition, the weighting values are derived as follows (Here, the general case of a
reference curve that may change over time is given. A time-independent reference curve
(i.e. cr ( )) is also possible):
Such a processing may be carried out in a frequency decomposition with frequency
coefficients grouped to perceptually motivated subbands for reasons of computational
complexity and to obtain filters with shorter impulse responses. Furthermore, smoothing
filters could be applied and compression functions (i.e. distorting the weighting in a
desired fashion, additionally introducing minimum and / or maximum weighting values)
may be applied.
Fig. 5 illustrates a further implementation of the present invention, in which the
downmixer is implemented using HRTF and auditory filters as illustrated. Furthermore,
Fig. 5 additionally illustrates that the analysis results output by the analyzer 16 are the
weighting factors for each time/frequency bin, and the signal processor 20 is illustrated as
an extractor for extracting independent components. Then, the output of the processor 20
is, again, N channels, but each channel now only includes the independent components and
does not include any more dependent components. In this implementation, the analyzer
would calculate the weightings so that, in the first implementation of Fig. 8, an
independent component would receive a weighting value of 1 and a dependent component
would receive a weighting value of 0. Then, the time/frequency tiles in the original N
channels processed by the processor 20 which have dependent components would be set to
0.
In the other alternative were there are weighting values between 0 and 1 in Fig. 8, the
analyzer would calculate the weighting so that a time/frequency tile having a small
distance to the reference curve would receive a high value (more close to 1), and a
time/frequency tile having a large distance to the reference curve would receive a small
weighting factor (being more close to 0). In the subsequent weighting illustrated, for
example, in Fig. 3 at 20, the independent components would, then, be amplified while the
dependent components would be attenuated.
When, however, the signal processor 20 would be implemented for not extracting the
independent components, but for extracting the dependent components, then the
weightings would be assigned in the opposite so that, when the weighting is performed in
the multipliers 20 illustrated in Fig. 3, the independent components are attenuated and the
dependent components are amplified. Hence, each signal processor can be applied for
extracting of the signal components, since the determination of the actually extracted
signal components is determined by the actual assigning of weighting values.
Fig. 6 illustrates a further implementation of the inventive concept, but now with a
different implementation of the processor 20. In the Fig. 6 embodiment, the processor 20 is
implemented for extracting independent diffuse parts, independent direct parts and direct
parts/components per se.
To obtain, from the separated independent components ( U,···, UN ), the parts contributing
to the perception of an enveloping / ambient sound field, further constraints have to be
considered. One such constraint may be the assumption that enveloping ambience sound is
equally strong from each direction. Thus, e.g. the minimum energy of each time-frequency
tile in every channel of the independent sound signals can be extracted to obtain an
enveloping ambient signal (which can be further processed to obtain a higher number of
ambience channels). Example:
mi . », }
Yj
m =gj ,i -Yj n,i) ,with g j m,i = , (15)
where P denotes a short-time power estimate. (This example shows the simplest case. One
obvious exceptional case, where it is not applicable is when one of the channels includes
signal pauses during which the power in this channel would be very low or zero.)
In some cases it is advantageous to extract the equal energy parts of all input channels and
calculate the weighting using only this extracted spectra.
X j (m, i) = j (m, i) X .(m, i) , with g (m, i) = (16)
The extracted dependent (those can e.g. be derived as Y epe de t = Y j( i) - Xj(m,i) parts)
can be used to detect channel dependencies and such estimate the directional cues inherent
in the input signal, allowing for further processes as e.g. repanning.
Fig. 7 depicts a variant of the general concept. The N-channel input signal is fed to an
70702
analysis signal generator (ASG). The generation of the M-channel analysis signal may e.g.
include a propagation model from the channels / loudspeakers to the ears or other methods
denoted as downmix throughout this document. The indication of the distinct components
is based on the analysis signal. The masks indicating the different components are applied
to the input signals (A extraction / D extraction (20a, 20b)). The weighted input signals can
be further processed (A post / D post (70a, 70b) to yield output signals with specific
character, where in this example the designators "A" and "D" have been chosen to indicate
that the components to be extracted may be "Ambience" and "Direct Sound".
Subsequently, Fig. 10 is described. A stationary sound fields is called diffuse, if the
directional distribution of sound energy does not depend on direction. The directional
energy distribution can be evaluated by measuring all directions using a highly directive
microphone. In room acoustics, the reverberant sound field in an enclosure is often
modeled as a diffuse field. A diffuse sound field can be idealized as a wave field that is
composed of equally strong, uncorrelated plane waves propagating in all directions. Such a
sound field is isotropic and homogeneous.
If the uniformity of the energy distribution is of peculiar interest, the point-to-point
correlation coefficient
of the steady state sound pressures pi(t) and p 2(t) at two spatially separated points can be
used to assess the physical diffusion of a sound field. For assumed ideal three dimensional
and two dimensional steady state diffuse sound fields induced by a sinusoidal source, the
following relations can be derived:
_ (kd )
r D ~ d~ '
and
r 2D J (kd),
where k =— (with l = wavelength) is the wave number, and d is the distance between the
l
measurement points. Given these relations, the diffusion of a sound field can be evaluated
by comparing measurement data to the reference curves. Sine the ideal relations are only
necessary, but not sufficient conditions, a number of measurements with different
orientations of the axis connecting the microphones can be considered.
Considering a listener in a sound field, the sound pressure measurements are given by the
ear input signals pi(t) and pr(t). Thus, the assumed distance d between the measurement
e
points is fixed and r becomes a function of only frequency with / =— , where c is the
2p
speed of sound in air. The ear input signals differ from the previously considered free field
signals due to the influence of the effects caused by the listener's pinnae, head, and torso.
Those effects, substantial for spatial hearing, are described by head related transfer
functions (HRTFs). Measured HRTF data may be used to incorporate these effects. We use
an analytical model to simulate an approximation of the HRTFs. The head is modeled as a
rigid sphere with radius 8.75 cm and ear locations at azimuth ±100° and elevation 0°.
Given the theoretical behavior of r in an ideal diffuse sound field and the influence of the
HRTFs, it is possible to determine a frequency dependent interaural cross-correlation
reference curve for diffuse sound fields.
The diffuseness estimation is based on comparison of simulated cues with assumed diffuse
field reference cues. This comparison is subject to the limitations of human hearing. In the
auditory system the binaural processing follows the auditory periphery consisting of the
external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. Effects of the external ear that are not
approximated by the sphere-model (e.g. pinnae-shape, ear-canal) and the effects of the
middle ear are not considered. The spectral selectivity of the inner ear is modeled as a bank
of overlapping bandpass filters (denoted auditory filters in Fig. 10). A critical band
approach is used to approximate these overlapping bandpasses by rectangular filters. The
equivalent rectangular bandwidth (ERB) is calculated as a function of center frequency in
compliance with,
b(f )=24.7 · (0.00437 f +l)
It is assumed that the human auditory system is capable of performing a time alignment to
detect coherent signal components and that cross-correlation analysis is used for the
estimation of the alignment time t (corresponding to ITD) in the presence of complex
sounds. Up to about 1- 1.5 kHz, time shifts of the carrier signal are evaluated using
waveform cross-correlation, while at higher frequencies the envelope cross-correlation
becomes the relevant cue. In the following, we do not make this distinction. The interaural
coherence (IC) estimation is modeled as the maximum absolute value of the normalized
interaural cross-correlation function
Some models of binaural perception consider a running interaural cross-correlation
analysis. Since we consider stationary signals, we do not take into account the dependence
on time. To model the influence of the critical band processing, we compute the frequency
dependent normalized cross-correlation function as
where A is the cross-correlation function per critical band, and B and C are the
autocorrelation functions per critical band. Their relation to the frequency domain by the
bandpass cross-spectrum and bandpass auto-spectra can be formulated as follows:
where L(f) and R(f) are the Fourier transforms of the ear input signals, / =/ ± are
the upper and lower integration limits of the critical band according to the actual center
frequency, and * denotes complex conjugate.
If the signals from two or more sources at different angles are super-positioned, fluctuating
ILD and ITD cues are evoked. Such ILD and ITD variations as a function of time and/or
frequency may generate spaciousness. However, in the long time average, there must not
be ILDs and ITDs in a diffuse sound field. An average ITD of zero means that the
correlation between the signals can not be increased by time alignment. ILDs can in
principal be evaluated over the complete audible frequency range. Because the head
constitutes no obstacle at low frequencies, ILDs are most efficient at middle and high
frequencies.
Subsequently Fig. 11A and 11B is discussed in order to illustrate an alternative
implementation of the analyzer without using a reference curve as discussed in the context
of Fig. 10 or Fig. 4.
A short-time Fourier transform (STFT) is applied to the input surround audio channels
x (n)to xN (n), yielding the short-time spectra X m to XN(m,i), respectively, where
is the spectrum (time) index and i the frequency index. Spectra of a stereo downmix of
the surround input signal, denotedC hi,ί ) and X (m,i) , are computed. For 5.1 surround,
an ITU downmix is suitable as equation (1). j ( , ) to X (m,i) correspond in this order
to the left (L), right (R), center (C), left surround (LS), and right surround (RS) channels.
In the following, the time and frequency indices are omitted most of the time for brevity of
notation.
Based on the downmix stereo signal, filter WD and WA are computed for obtaining the
direct and ambient sound surround signal estimates in equation (2) and (3).
Given the assumption that ambient sound signal is uncorrelated between all input channels,
we chose the downmix coefficients such that this assumption also holds for the downmix
channels. Thus, we can formulate the downmix signal model in equation 4.
D and represent the correlated direct sound STFT spectra, and A i and A2 represent
uncorrelated ambience sound. One further assumes that direct and ambience sound in each
channel are mutually uncorrelated.
Estimation of the direct sound, in a least means square sense, is achieved by applying a
Wiener filter to the original surround signal to suppress the ambience. To derive a single
filter that can be applied to all input channels, we estimate the direct components in the
downmix using the same filter for the left and right channel as in equation (5).
The joint mean square error function for this estimation is given by equation (6).
E{-} is the expectation operator and PD and PA are the sums of the short term power
estimates of the direct and ambience components, (equation 7).
The error function (6) is minimized by setting its derivative to zero. The resulting filter for
the estimation of the direct sound is in equation 8.
Similarly, the estimation filter for the ambient sound can be derived as in equation 9.
In the following, estimates for P and PA are derived, needed for computing W and WAThe
cross-correlation of the downmix is given by equation 10.
where, given the downmix signal model (4), reference is made to ( 11).
Assuming further that the ambience components in the downmix have the same power in
the left and right downmix channel, one can write equation 12.
Substituting equation 12 into the last line of equation 0 and considering equation 3 one
gets equation (14) and ( 15).
As discussed in the context of Fig. 4, the generation of the reference curves for a minimum
correlation can be imagined by placing two or more different sound sources in a replay
setup and by placing a listener head at a certain position in this replay setup. Then,
completely independent signals are emitted by the different loudspeakers. For a twospeaker
setup, the two channels would have to be completely uncorrelated with a
correlation equal to 0 in case there would not be any cross-mixing products. However,
these cross-mixing products occur due to the cross-coupling from the left side to the right
side of a human listening system and, other cross-couplings also occur due to room
reverberations etc.. Therefore, the resulting reference curves as illustrated in Fig. 4 or in
Figs. 9a to 9d are not always at 0, but have values particularly different from 0 although
the reference signals imagined in this scenario were completely independent. It is, however
important to understand that one does not actually need these signals. It is also sufficient to
assume a full independence between the two or more signals when calculating the
reference curve. In this context, it is to be noted, however, that other reference curves can
be calculated for other scenarios, for example, using or assuming signals which are not
fully independent, but have a certain, but pre-known dependency or degree of dependency
between each other. When such a different reference curve is calculated, the interpretation
or the providing of the weighting factors would be different with respect to a reference
curve where fully independent signals were assumed.
Although some aspects have been described in the context of an apparatus, it is clear that
these aspects also represent a description of the corresponding method, where a block or
device corresponds to a method step or a feature of a method step. Analogously, aspects
described in the context of a method step also represent a description of a corresponding
block or item or feature of a corresponding apparatus.
The inventive decomposed signal can be stored on a digital storage medium or can be
transmitted on a transmission medium such as a wireless transmission medium or a wired
transmission medium such as the Internet.
Depending on certain implementation requirements, embodiments of the invention can be
implemented in hardware or in software. The implementation can be performed using a
digital storage medium, for example a floppy disk, a DVD, a CD, a ROM, a PROM, an
EPROM, an EEPROM or a FLASH memory, having electronically readable control
signals stored thereon, which cooperate (or are capable of cooperating) with a
programmable computer system such that the respective method is performed.
Some embodiments according to the invention comprise a non-transitory data carrier
having electronically readable control signals, which are capable of cooperating with a
programmable computer system, such that one of the methods described herein is
performed.
Generally, embodiments of the present invention can be implemented as a computer
program product with a program code, the program code being operative for performing
one of the methods when the computer program product runs on a computer. The program
code may for example be stored on a machine readable carrier.
Other embodiments comprise the computer program for performing one of the methods
described herein, stored on a machine readable carrier.
In other words, an embodiment of the inventive method is, therefore, a computer program
having a program code for performing one of the methods described herein, when the
computer program runs on a computer.
A further embodiment of the inventive methods is, therefore, a data carrier (or a digital
storage medium, or a computer-readable medium) comprising, recorded thereon, the
computer program for performing one of the methods described herein.
A further embodiment of the inventive method is, therefore, a data stream or a sequence of
signals representing the computer program for performing one of the methods described
herein. The data stream or the sequence of signals may for example be configured to be
transferred via a data communication connection, for example via the Internet.
A further embodiment comprises a processing means, for example a computer, or a
programmable logic device, configured to or adapted to perform one of the methods
described herein.
A further embodiment comprises a computer having installed thereon the computer
program for performing one of the methods described herein.
In some embodiments, a programmable logic device (for example a field programmable
gate array) may be used to perform some or all of the functionalities of the methods
described herein. In some embodiments, a field programmable gate array may cooperate
with a microprocessor in order to perform one of the methods described herein. Generally,
the methods are preferably performed by any hardware apparatus.
The above described embodiments are merely illustrative for the principles of the present
invention. It is understood that modifications and variations of the arrangements and the
details described herein will be apparent to others skilled in the art. It is the intent,
therefore, to be limited only by the scope of the impending patent claims and not by the
specific details presented by way of description and explanation of the embodiments
herein.
WO 2012/076332 PCT/EP2011/070702
Claims
1. Apparatus for decomposing an input signal (10) having a number of at least three
input channels, comprising:
a downmixer (12) for downmixing the input signal to obtain a downmix signal,
wherein the downmixer (12) is configured for downmixing so that a number of
downmix channels of the downmixed signal (14) is at least 2 and smaller than the
number of input channels;
an analyzer (16) for analyzing the downmixed signal to derive an analysis result
(18); and
a signal processor (20) for processing the input signal (10) or a signal (24) derived
from the input signal, or a signal, from which the input signal is derived, using the
analysis result (18), wherein the signal processor (20) is configured for applying the
analysis result to the input channels of the input signal or channels of the signal
derived from the input signal to obtain the decomposed signal (26).
2. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a time/frequency
converter (32) for converting the input channels into a time sequence of channel
frequency representations, each input channel frequency representation having a
plurality of subbands, or in which the downmixer (12) comprises a time/frequency
converter for converting the downmixed signal,
wherein the analyzer (16) is configured for generating an analysis result (18) for
individual subbands, and
wherein the signal processor (20) is configured for applying the individual analysis
results to corresponding subbands of the input signal or the signal derived from the
input signal.
3. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 or 2, in which the analyzer (16) is configured
to produce, as the analysis result, weighting factors (W(m, i)), and
WO 2012/076332 PCT/EP2011/070702
in which the signal processor (20) is configured for applying the weighting factors
to the input signal or the signal derived from the input signal by weighting with the
weighting factors.
4. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, in which the downmixer
is configured for adding weighted or unweighted input channels in accordance with
a downmix rule being such that at least the two downmix channels are different
from each other.
5. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, in which the downmixer
(12) is configured for filtering the input signal (10) using room impulse responsesbased
filters binaural room impulse responses- (BRIR-) based filters or HRTFbased
filters.
6. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, in which the processor
(20) is configured for applying a Wiener filter to the input signal or the signal
derived from the input signal, and
in which the analyzer (16) is configured for calculating the Wiener filter using
expectation values derived from the downmix channels.
7. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, further comprising a
signal deriver (22) for deriving the signal from the input signal so that the signal
derived from the input signal has a different number of channels compared to the
downmix signal or the input signal.
8. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, in which the analyzer
(20) is configured for using a pre-stored frequency-dependent similarity curve
indicating a frequency-dependent similarity between two signals generateable by
previously known reference signals.
9. Apparatus in accordance with any one of claims 1 to 8, in which the analyzer is
configured for using a pre-stored frequency-dependent similarity curve indicating a
frequency-dependent similarity between two or more signals at a listener position
under the assumption that the signals have a known similarity characteristic and
that the signals are emittable by loudspeakers at known loudspeaker positions.
WO 2012/076332 PCT/EP2011/070702
10. Apparatus in accordance with one of claims 1 to 7, in which the analyzer is
configured to calculate a signal-dependent frequency-dependent similarity curve
using a frequency-dependent short-time power of the input channels.
1 . Apparatus in accordance with any one of claims 8 to 10, in which the analyzer (16)
is configured to calculate a similarity of the downmixed channel in a frequency
subband (80), to compare a similarity result with a similarity indicted by the
reference curve (82, 83) and generate the weighting factor based on a result of the
compression as the analysis result, or
to calculate a distance between the corresponding result and a similarity indicated
by the reference curve for the same frequency subband and to further calculate a
weighting factor based on the distance as the analysis result.
12. Apparatus in accordance with one of the preceding claims, wherein the analyzer
(16) is configured to analyze the downmix channels in subbands determined by a
frequency resolution of the human ear.
13. Apparatus in accordance with one of claims 1 to 12, in which the analyzer (16) is
configured to analyze the downmixed signal to generate an analysis result allowing
a direct ambience decomposition, and
in which the signal processor (20) is configured for extracting the direct part or the
ambience part using the analysis result.
14. Method of decomposing an input signal (10) having a number of at least three input
channels, comprising:
downmixing (12) the input signal to obtain a downmix signal, so that a number of
downmix channels of the downmixed signal (14) is at least 2 and smaller than the
number of input channels;
analyzing (16) the downmixed signal to derive an analysis result (18); and
processing (20) the input signal (10) or a signal (24) derived from the input signal,
or a signal, from which the input signal is derived, using the analysis result (18),
wherein the analysis result is applied to the input channels of the input signal or
2/076332 PCT/EP201 1/070702
channels of the signal derived from the input signal to obtain the decomposed
signal (26).
Computer program for performing the method of claim 14, when the computer
program is executed by a computer or processor.