Rudzki, Tomasz, Gomez-Lanzaco, Ignacio, Stubbs, Jessica et al. (3 more authors) (2019) Auditory Localization in Low-Bitrate Compressed Ambisonic Scenes. Applied Sciences. 2618. ISSN 2076-3417
Abstract
The increasing popularity of Ambisonics as a spatial audio format for streaming services poses new challenges to existing audio coding techniques. Immersive audio delivered to mobile devices requires an efficient bitrate compression that does not affect the spatial quality of the content. Good localizability of virtual sound sources is one of the key elements that must be preserved. This study was conducted to investigate the localization precision of virtual sound source presentations within Ambisonic scenes encoded with Opus low-bitrate compression at different bitrates and Ambisonic orders (1st, 3rd, and 5th). The test stimuli were reproduced over a 50-channel spherical loudspeaker configuration and binaurally using individually measured and generic Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs). Participants were asked to adjust the position of a virtual acoustic pointer to match the position of virtual sound source within the bitrate-compressed Ambisonic scene. Results show that auditory localization in low-bitrate compressed Ambisonic scenes is not significantly affected by codec parameters. The key factors influencing localization are the rendering method and Ambisonic order truncation. This suggests that efficient perceptual coding might be successfully used for mobile spatial audio delivery.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 by the authors |
Keywords: | spatial audio,perceptual evaluation,listening tests,ambisonics,binaural,bitrate compression,auditory localization,audio codec,opus,streaming |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Electronic Engineering (York) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/M001210/1 |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 28 Jun 2019 12:50 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jan 2025 00:23 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.3390/app9132618 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/app9132618 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:147962 |