MP3...in Surround Sound 247
A number of people sent in the latest news from the fine folks at Frauhofer that they are expecting to have surround sound working for MP3s by July. The details are pretty sketchy in the article, but supposedly it won't be much more space per MP3s, and existing players will work with it.
Ipod? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ipod? (Score:5, Funny)
An optional accessory allows the device so play through bone conduction so that you don't have unsightly earphone wires coming out of the back of your pants.
Re:Ipod? (Score:2)
Re:Ipod? (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as ipod updates go it's fairly easy. ITunes will pull down updates when new ones are released and updated your ipod when it's connected. Not very difficult and apple is on top of their updates. Apple makes updates easy.
Re:Ipod? (Score:3, Interesting)
It would need a new connector, because you can only get stereo stereo from the iPod as far as I can tell. And how do you get surround sound from a pair of headphones with only with a left and right channel? Or am I missing something here?
Re:Ipod? (Score:3, Insightful)
Binaural Explained (Score:5, Interesting)
It would need a new connector, because you can only get stereo stereo from the iPod as far as I can tell.
For a surround output to an audio system, you would need a new connector offering at least 4 channels (Front L/R, rear L/R), line level. They'd probably make it straight-up 5.1, though.
And how do you get surround sound from a pair of headphones with only with a left and right channel?Easily. Headphones have two channels (L/R), you have two ears (L/R). Your brain does some pretty heavy duty phase analysis to figure out where a sound is coming from. In fact, binaural recording is a technique where two microphones (L/R) are mounted on a form resembling the human head, but you need to wear headphones for the full effect.
A portable device could either use 4 channel headphones (expensive, requires 4 amplifiers to drive them, would increase battery consumption) or could use a DSP integrated circuit to decode the surround sound channels, perform the phase analysis done by the human brain, and send this synthetic binaural signal to regular headphones.
But it's still a lot of work for little payoff. Most of the use for surround sound in any form is movies. Music tends to be mixed to 2 channels from the perspective of a listener sitting in front of the stage, so I think its importance in a portable device primarily used for music is pretty limited.
4-channel headphones? (Score:2)
</sarcasm>
Curiously, when you put two drivers inside the same can and seal it over a single ear, there is no opportunity to perform phase analysis. Not saying 4-channel 'phones don't exist (though Google doesn't seem to know of any)... nope, just saying the market is probably limited to people that buy penis enlargement pills from spamvertisments.
Re:Binaural Explained (Score:2)
Re:Binaural Explained (Score:3, Insightful)
But you need a slightly different mix for binaural vs. stereo devices (due to differences in delays and placement of the drivers). And to produce a proper stereo soundstage, you need to be really careful ab
Re:Ipod? (Score:2)
you can get the origional dolby suround from only 2 speakers easily...
the rear speaker is simply the positive lead from the left and right speaker into the rear speaker.
I had surround sound for movies at home cince 1987 for basically free that way... today I use a real surround decoder, but the origional dolby spec followed the above.
(note, most rear speakers today that are 5.1 surround are really that way also. it is rare that any surround sound decoder can send discreet
Re:Ipod? (Score:2)
Re:Simple -- Binaural (Score:3, Funny)
386, Now with 24-bit Colour! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:386, Now with 24-bit Colour! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:386, Now with 24-bit Colour! (Score:4, Insightful)
There are far better options around for multi-channel audio now.
Previous extensions, like mp3-pro, not successful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Previous extensions, like mp3-pro, not successf (Score:5, Insightful)
For what it's worth, MP3Pro also wasn't really backwards-compatible, even though it claimed to be. In a format that didn't support the extensions, it cut off the entire high end and it sounded like absolute shit. It remains to be seen if the same issue will be seen in these surround MP3s, but if it really doesn't add too much, like the article is implying, I don't imagine it will be a cataclysmic failure.
Besides, there aren't that many surround-sound audio CDs to rip yet, so something like this wouldn't gain in popularity until a more popular codec has already superseded it. I wouldn't worry about it gaining any type of dominance.
Re:Previous extensions, like mp3-pro, not successf (Score:5, Informative)
From the article, again:
There's no extra channels, just an extra layer telling the player how to manipulate the two existing audio channels to obtain a surround-like effect. While the merits of this approach alone make me skeptical, what really bothers me about this is how different players are all going to have completely different implementations of using this extra layer of data to manipulate the audio channels, meaning we're going to have no consistency whatsoever with how it even sounds.
Re:Previous extensions, like mp3-pro, not successf (Score:2)
but I dont see my audiotrons, my pioneer car stereo, and my portables getting ogg support in the next 10,000 years so Mp3 it is.. and the same stance is held by millions of other consumers that also shelled out gobs of cash for mp3 enabled devices..
I dont care what is better, I care about what works in my equipment. if they come out with blue-ray uber DVD players tommorow almost 90% of the population
Re:Previous extensions, like mp3-pro, not successf (Score:2)
You're right about the utter lack of ogg support, and the fact that mp3 succeeds because it's everywhere and easy (and cheap) to get your hands on.
Re:386, Now with 24-bit Colour! (Score:2)
-
If you start adding extra features that break compatibility people will just move to a better quality CODEC with the same features (and possibly more).
But the article makes it clear that the new Mp3s will play just fine in current software/hardware, they just won't be able to take advantage of the surround sound information. This isn't breaking compatability at all, in fact it's preserving it while adding new features.Re: (Score:2)
conversion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:conversion (Score:2)
Re:conversion (Score:2)
New format? Why? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New format? Why? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:New format? Why? (Score:3, Informative)
Exactly right. Dolby Pro Logic works with regular stereo channels. If left and right are identical, it's the center channel. If they're exactly opposite (can't think of the "waveform" word for this) the sound goes to the rear channel. Otherwise they go to the front per usual. Other than making sure the sound is encoded in this way (which would take no extra "
Re:New format? Why? (Score:2)
Re:New format? Why? (Score:2)
to a decoder that is aware of dolby's magic, it can mathematically create the rear and center channels from the way the two standard channels are encoded. its actually very simple.
FM radio is the same way, it wasn't always stereo. before the hi-fi days FM was mono and the stereo encoders were created in a way that made it possible to transmit one single a
Re:New format? Why? (Score:3, Informative)
FM radio is the same way, it wasn't always stereo.
Yes, but to rebroadcast a stereo FM signal, you have to be stereo-aware. The idea behind Dolby PL is that copying equipment didn't need to be PL-aware. But back then, all the duplicating equipment would preserve phase. These days, it may get chunked, inverted, or have other icky stuff happen.
Re:New format? Why? (Score:2)
Re:New format? Why? (Score:2)
Does anyone know how Dolby Pro-Logic II encoding works?
Ooh... MP3 goodness is all around (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Informative)
What I'm not sure of is if the support for "joint" surround is there. (Like joint stereo, only for surround)
Who wants to use a proprietary sound format, when they can use a much more appealing open format.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Insightful)
MP3: Everything supports it, which is very appealing for consumers.
OGG: Few products support it, not very appealing for consumers.
This is the old VHS/BETA debate again. Each one has various advantages over the other, but MP3 has already won mindshare and, as a result, is ubiquitous. In the end, consumers don't really care that Apple has to pay Fraunhofer $1 (or whatever) for licensing iPod's MP3 tech instead of $0 for OGG. After all, you'll never see Apple advertising a regular iPod for $299 -OR- you can get an iPod which doesn't play MP3 for $298.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
When a mp3 player with surround sound gets developed, on which peopel can also play back all their old mp3s, then that player will have an enormous advantage over ogg, regardless of how much earlier ogg had surround sound.
I wonder tho, multi channel mpeg audio is not new, it has been done on mpeg layer 2, and that is in fact in use in many European DVD players.
Fr
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
I am not sure what you are saying here, but I am pretty sure that you mean
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the places Ogg Vorbis has become surprisingly popular is in soundtracks for computer games. The no licensing fees must be one useful aspect, but there's also definite technological advantages such as better compression, more channels and - very important for sound effects and looped audio - arbitrary length samples.
I was really impressed to discover that Halo for the PC uses Ogg Vorbis for all its sound, and it's published by Microsoft! It's not alone, either - if you've bought a PC game at all recently there's a good chance the audio's compressed with Ogg Vorbis.
Is Ogg Vorbis successful? I'd say it was.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
And don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
No licencing fees doesn't mean just that. It also means no overhead like getting a licencing deal set up, signed, making sure it's paid on time, in right amount, used only in accordance with the terms and so on. I'm seeing this first hand how much time is spent fiddling.
Just the process of going to someone with the authoroty to sign contracts and spend money in the company's name is wasting time, and time is money. That everyone, everywhere can use it for whatever is in itself probably worth as much as the licencing costs themselves.
Kjella
Re:And don't forget... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
No it isn't, and I wish people wouldn't keep bring that up. Any decent media player can play multiple formats, getting support for Ogg in a program is really really simple and free. MP3 and Ogg can and do co-exist quite happly.
The same can't be said for BETA and VHS which are very different physically. There may have been a device that can play both, but I bet it cost a small fortune. It isn't easy to do. And this is why BETA failed.
Ogg is everywhere, still a smal
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
I do! Well actually, I still prefer AAC, but you'd probably try to make the same argument.
As much as people bitched and moaned at the time, as far as I can tell the GIF tax never really hurt anyone. Likewise, it's hard for me to worry about MP3 not being free as long as my player of choice [apple.com] isn't costing me a cent.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
I'll bet Seagate loves you.
Re:Nothing to see here. (Score:2)
The key word here is "use". Can I use ogg on my iPod? In my car mp3 player? Practically anywhere at all? No. This is news because it applies to something people like my Mum and Dad have heard of. I sincerely doubt that they are aware of OGG and FLAC.
Outside of slashdot people don't care about open vs proprietary, "free as in speech", elegance of algorithms or having the source. Technology is an enabler, no
I thought... (Score:3, Informative)
I just assumed that the surround channels were basically a diff between the right and left channel and the center was a sum.
Re:I thought... (Score:4, Informative)
Now "Dolby Stereo" sounds like it is, well, stereo. So the marketing department decided at some point that it should be called "Dolby Surround", which is fair enough. "Pro Logic" is "Dolby Surround" for use in home A/V amps, but with "Pro" electronics (logic). Another marketing term for the same thing.
That system should work fine on any MP3. Stereo MPEG audio on DVDs (so not the Dolby Digital or DTS tracks) quite often have Dolby Stereo/Surround encoding on them as well.
The truth is that the BBC article doesn't have enough information and I think "Surround" is used as a general term to indicate more than two channels of audio. So no way of knowing what they actualy mean.
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
Re:I thought... (Score:2)
Quadrophenia (Score:3, Funny)
A new iPod style (Score:2)
Vorbis can already do this :P (Score:5, Informative)
http://xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/vorbis-spec-intro.
Re:Vorbis can already do this :P (Score:2, Funny)
Surround? (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe "multichannel" would be a more appropriate description.
Re:Surround? (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe "multichannel" would be a more appropriate description.
Surround sound is the technique of placing speakers around you so sound comes from all directions.
While it is true that some encoding schemes (i.e. Dolby) work by combining the various channels into just
DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Silly? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they are just adding information to the main track, why put that information in the file to begin with? Just let the user have a "spatial" encoder plug-in that jacks into winamp or whatever. Doing it this way increases the file size for everybody... people with and without surround systems.
Surround information should not be "created." It should be ripped and converted from the original source.
Before long we'll have the mp3 mess that we currently have with all the video codecs.
Davak
Re:Silly? (Score:3)
Truth is that there is not enough information in the article to tell what they are doing. My best guess is that they are multi channel enabling MP3s. So they would record all the discreet channels from a DTS
DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I'll sit out on this one thank you very much. I like music and everything, but stereo is more than adequate for me (If I want 6 channel sound, I'll just watch a DVD...)
MS ahead of the game?? (Score:4, Interesting)
Was MS first to have this technology for the mainstream consumer???
Re:MS ahead of the game?? (Score:2)
FooBar2000 (Score:2)
www.foobar2000.com for details.
Zaireeka! (Score:3, Funny)
Some Additional Tech (Score:5, Informative)
By far, the most popular algorithm in use for surround sound encoding is Dolby's AC3 (I can say this, because it's on pretty much every DVD, and nothing comes close to its penetration even in the audio space -- not even DVD-Audio). AC3 itself is a pretty fascinating codec; one of the more interesting things about it is that each additional channel requires less and less bandwidth to tack on. This is because there tends to be massive correlation between channels -- either the same sound is coming from multiple directions, or a sound is coming from one direction and all the others are silent, or some combination therein. AC3 encodes this quite efficiently, and thus gets really high quality surround sound in surprisingly few bits.
I suspect they're engineering a similar mode for MP3 -- hopefully something a little nicer than Joint Stereo, which basically works by doing a mono mix and specifying which frequencies are louder in which channel. No, this doesn't work very well. Concievably, we could see something like VBR on a per-channel basis, but I suspect this would cause existing decoders to collapse. I do believe it's possible to place extra data between MP3 granules; I suppose they'll get their backwards compatible surround mode worked into there.
--Dan
Re:Some Additional Tech (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Some Additional Tech (Score:2)
Joint stereo does mid/side encoding. Basically, you can convert any standard left-right stereo source to mid-side with simple math. The mid channel is left+right, the side channel is left-right. Now the benefit here is that more of what we percieve as quality comes from the mid channel than the side channel. So, when we do M/S endocing, we spend more bits on the mid, and it is perciev
How discrete are the channels? (Score:2, Interesting)
This might be a smooth way to sneak in DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
LK
Another proprietary multiplexing algorithm ? (Score:2, Insightful)
But it is exactly what the Ogg Vorbis is working on. Please, don't adopt this standard ; I am sick of patents and licenses issues on video and audio codecs and algorithms. The industry will proba
WTF?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Surround (Score:2, Informative)
Surround sound is the technique to make stereo come from different directions. Either using virtual surround by splitting by frequency range or using additional information, like Dolby Surround with its phase encoding.
DTS and dolby digital 5.1 shouldn't be called surround, they are multichannel sound.
Ogg and WMA 9 both support multichannel sound. Of course all stereo formats support surround (dolby) as long as the phase information
Re:Surround (Score:2)
i dont get it... (Score:3, Insightful)
ob-misquoted-simpsons (Score:2)
Still 2 Channels.. (Score:2)
Using this extra information helps MP3 players recreate the surround sound effect.
Pfft. Glorified "expand stereo". We don't need this. A DSP would handle it just fine.. even a lot of built in motherboard sound chipsets have an "expand stereo" slider nowadays. This is pretty much worthless.
Missing the point (Score:2, Informative)
Multichan MP3 is already *in* the MPEG2 standard (Score:4, Interesting)
ISO13818 describes
* the Low Sampling Frequency extensions (which describe encoding mpeg audio at 16/22.05/24 kHz). This is already incorporated in most encoders.
* 3/2-stero+LFE (Section 0.2.3.2 describes the various configurations e.g. 3/2, 3/1, etc)
For a very brief moment when I had too much time, I worked on getting the multichannel stuff working in tooLame (the layer2 mpeg audio encoder) and the way it works is this:
1. The encoder works out the overall bitrate for all the channels (X bits)
2. The encoder assigns some bits (Y) to be used for the backwards compatible 2-channel stereo so that all compliant decoders will work. Y gt X. (The way the 5 channels are crosstalked and cancelled out to get 2 stereo channels is complex. Read the standard if you want more info).
3. There will then be Z bits (Z=X-Y) left over for the storage of the other channels. (Referred to as "Ancillary data").
4. The beginning of the mpeg audio frame has a flag set so that compliant decoders know about the extra info.
5. Old decoders won't grok the flag, and so they'll just read the stereo info, skip over all the extra info and then find the next bit of data they do understand.
The outcome of all this is that you may have a 512kbps mpeg audio stream which contains 256kbps of the stereo information and then 256kbits of "extra" info that is used to reconstruct the full 3/2 channels of sound.
There is a problems with this however. Compliant MPEG audio streams have a maximum bitrate as set out in the original MPEG1 standard (11172). For example, the maximum total bitrate of a 44.1kHz mp3 file is 1011 kbps. However, when you do really high bitrate multichannel stuff, you can exceed this limit: in this case, the MPEG2 standard suggests using another file to store the information (referred to as the "extension bitstream").
Hope this helped someone.
later
mike
Re:How hard will it be to convert? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How hard will it be to convert? (Score:2)
Lossless is the One True Way for storing music on a PC.
Re:How hard will it be to convert? (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd just add extra headers and increase file size. If you want to dynamically alter sounds in 3d space dependant on temporal and frequency factors a plugin might be more appropriate. How often do you listen to all of your mp3 collection?
Re:How hard will it be to convert? (Score:3, Informative)
Your original mp3s are in stereo and not in surround, so you wont win anything by converting them to the new format as far as I understand it. They would still be stereo (converting from mono to stereo doesn't either make the sound stereo). This new format would just mean that you could make mp3s with surround sound in the future.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bait and switch? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bait and switch? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Surround sound? (Score:2)
*puts tinfoil hat on*
unless they know something we don't....
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
I imagine Frauhofer have an eye [or maybe that should be ear] on SACD and DVD-Audio ripping, for which this would be useful.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Competition (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.zalman.co.kr/english/product/ZM-RS6F
Re:Competition (Score:3, Informative)
Yes and no. AAC is not really competition from the point of view of the Fraunhofer Institute, since it's developed mainly by the same group [fraunhofer.de]:
"Fraunhofer IIS has been the main developer of the most advanced audio coding schemes, like MPEG Layer-3 (MP3) and MPEG AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)."
Re:Can someone enlighten me? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Can someone enlighten me? (Score:2)
Re:WOW. Awesome. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:WOW. Awesome. (Score:3, Interesting)
All this said, it's really annoying to have the SACD and DVD-A dual "standards". I am format-agnostic, but a lot more cooler music has been coming out on SACD, like the 30th Anniversary Dark Side of the Moon, and a whole collection of Bob Dylan albums; all of these have been re
Re:WOW. Awesome. (Score:2)