Loudspeaker triplet selection based on low distortion within head for multichannel conversion of smart 3D home theater

Abstract

Summary In recent years, with the vigorous development of 3D film industry, the demand for 3D Smart Home Theater, based on Internet of Things (IoT), continues to grow. Theaters are populated with a large number of loudspeakers for more realistic 3D sound effects. However the number of loudspeakers in home is limited. Therefore, multichannel conversion is required to achieve theater 3D sound effects in home. Traditionally, the replaced loudspeaker signal of the original system is assigned to a “loudspeaker triplet” of the converted system. A large amount of subjective evaluations is necessary to judge the consistency of the replaced loudspeaker position with the “phantom source” positions reconstructed by loudspeaker triplets. In this study, after calculating the least‐squares errors of the reproduced sound field within a given region, we explore the constraint between the low distortion of the reproduced sound field and the loudspeaker triplet positions. Using this constraint rule, we present a new loudspeaker triplet selection criteria that can greatly reduce the number and time of subjective evaluations for selecting the optimal loudspeaker triplet. Simulation and subjective evaluation experiments indicate that the proposed selection method outperforms the traditional method, and that the proposed method can be successfully applied to multichannel conversion.

Foreword to the special issue of the Intelligent Systems for the Internet of Things (ISIT2017)

“…In the article Loudspeaker triplet selection based on low distortion within head for multichannel conversion of smart 3D home theater, 2 the key to the Smart 3D home theater is that you can experience the 3D audio and visual effects of the theater at home. However, in the theater, the popular 3D multichannel sound systems (such as Dolby Atoms, Barco Auro-3D, NHK 22.2 multichannel sound system, etc) cannot be converted directly into a multichannel audio system of the Smart 3D home theater while maintaining the 3D audient experience.…”