NTT Research and Development 2012 Review of Activities

Overview

We are interested in creating an extremely realistic audio system that gives a sense of sharing a space, and we have developed a system for recording wave fronts and physically reconstructing them. By applying a new algorithm for preserving the physical properties of sound waves to large-scale microphone and loudspeaker arrays, we have made possible realtime recording and reproduction of a sound space.

Features

• Spatially recording and reproducing the wave fronts using large-scale arrays enables listeners in the reproduction room to sense the reality of the location of the recorded sound.
• Conventional stereo panning techniques give a sense of left and right to the sound waves; ours gives not only a sense of right and left but also back and front.
• It is possible to reproduce sound images that pop-up from the sound wall (loudspeaker array), so listeners in the reproduction room can share the perceived space with people in the recording room.
• It is possible to record and reproduce a sound space in realtime by using our new transformation algorithm.

Application scenarios

• A telepresence system that gives a sense of sharing space that is close to face-to-face communication.
• A super-realistic audio system that is almost the same as listening to a live source.