Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] a new application underway
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: to loka 14 1999 - 12:27:36 EDT
>TV, etc. etc. are all stereo-based. Of course this will change at
>some point, but I can't see this coming any time soon. The technology
>is already here, it's not the problem.
i think that the audio&entertainment industry will be making a big
push on this within the next few years. they see it as their next "CD"
- a new format that will persuade people to buy new equipment, new
formats of old material etc.
already, quite a large number of people in the US are buying "home
theater" setups that use 5.1 surround sound, for example.
>Hmm, can you briefly describe what Nuendo does...? I haven't used
>Windows/mac audio apps since SoundForge4.0...
Nuendo is an integrated audio + video editor/sequencer. Its much like
all the rest, only better and also connects audio + video together in
a much more intuitive way than has been done previously (as far as i
know, and i know very, very little about video. BTW, the Avid video
stuff is being/has been merged into the next (current?) release of
protools - they (Digidesign - a division of Avid) will have a single
product now).
As far as surround sound goes: as far as i can determine, they store a
set of pan coefficients with the track. You can change the size of the
set of pan coefficents at any time. If its just 2, you get a stereo
slider pan UI, but for more than that, they provide a 2-view 3D
panner, one presenting position (X-Y axis) and one azimuth
(elevation). It shows each speaker. You can add/remove/move speakers.
i think that adding or removing just alters the set of pan coefficents
(and who knows, it might just be "float pan_coefficients[SPEAKER_MAX]").
as you move the "cursor" around, they recompute the set of pan
coefficients to match. then i think they use them during playback
and/or splitting the track to N tracks for actual surround sound
media.
this is based on their literature and a demo at AES, plus my intuition
from trying to do the same thing.
>I've tried to come up with a design, which would allow me to flexibly
>combine mono, stereo and multichannel audio chains, but it always gets
>too complex (computationally). If I just use mono chains to represent
>multichannel audio, this again will complicate the effect configuration
>as I'd have to connect stereo/m-channel effects to multiple chains.
just ban stereo FX :) i'm only half-kidding! if you can group/sync the
controls on FX, you can do multi-channel FX with mono FX processors.
--p
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