Method and apparatus for compressing and decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics signal representation
Granted: January 25, 2022
Patent Number:
11234091
A method and apparatus for decompressing a Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) signal representation is disclosed. The apparatus includes an input interface that receives an encoded directional signal and an encoded ambient signal and an audio decoder that perceptually decodes the encoded directional signal and encoded ambient signal to produce a decoded directional signal and a decoded ambient signal, respectively. The apparatus further includes an extractor for obtaining side information…
Processing of microphone signals for spatial playback
Granted: January 25, 2022
Patent Number:
11234072
Disclosed are methods and systems which convert a multi-microphone input signal to a multichannel output signal making use of a time- and frequency-varying matrix. For each time and frequency tile, the matrix is derived as a function of a dominant direction of arrival and a steering strength parameter. Likewise, the dominant direction and steering strength parameter are derived from characteristics of the multi-microphone signals, where those characteristics include values representative…
Signal reshaping and coding for HDR and wide color gamut signals
Granted: January 25, 2022
Patent Number:
11234021
In a method to improve the coding efficiency of high-dynamic range (HDR) images, a decoder parses sequence processing set (SPS) data from an input coded bitstream to detect that an HDR extension syntax structure is present in the parsed SPS data. It extracts from the HDR extension syntax structure post-processing information that includes one or more of a color space enabled flag, a color enhancement enabled flag, an adaptive reshaping enabled flag, a dynamic range conversion flag, a…
Background noise estimation using gap confidence
Granted: January 25, 2022
Patent Number:
11232807
A noise estimation method including steps of generating gap confidence values in response to microphone output and playback signals, and using the gap confidence values to generate an estimate of background noise in a playback environment. Each gap confidence value is indicative of confidence of presence of a gap at a corresponding time in the playback signal, and may be a combination of candidate noise estimates weighted by the gap confidence values. Generation of the candidate noise…
Method and apparatus for screen related adaptation of a higher-order ambisonics audio signal
Granted: January 18, 2022
Patent Number:
11228856
A method for generating loudspeaker signals associated with a target screen size is disclosed. The method includes receiving a bit stream containing encoded higher order ambisonics signals, the encoded higher order ambisonics signals describing a sound field associated with a production screen size. The method further includes decoding the encoded higher order ambisonics signals to obtain a first set of decoded higher order ambisonics signals representing dominant components of the sound…
System and method for displaying high quality images in a dual modulation projection system
Granted: January 18, 2022
Patent Number:
11228740
A novel high efficiency image projection system includes a beam-steering modulator, an amplitude modulator, and a controller. In a particular embodiment the controller generates beam-steering drive values from image data and uses the beam-steering drive values to drive the beam-steering modulator. Additionally, the controller utilizes the beam-steering drive values to generate a lightfield simulation of a lightfield projected onto the amplitude modulator by the beam-steering modulator.…
Translation techniques with adjustable utterance gaps
Granted: January 18, 2022
Patent Number:
11227125
A plurality of utterances of a first user from the language of the first user is translated into a language of a second user. The confidence scores associated with the translated utterances are compared with a confidence threshold. A predetermined utterance gap is adjusted based on the comparison. The predetermined utterance gap is a duration of time that occurs between utterances.
In-service quality monitoring system with intelligent retransmission and interpolation
Granted: January 11, 2022
Patent Number:
11223669
A service request for communication services for communication clients is received. In response, a communication service network is set up to support the communication services. Routing metadata is generated for each of the communication clients. The routing metadata is to be used by each of the communication clients for sharing service quality information with a respective peer communication client over a light-weight peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The routing metadata is downloaded to…
Coding multiview video
Granted: January 4, 2022
Patent Number:
11218729
A target view to a 3D scene depicted by a multiview image is determined. The multiview image comprises multiple sampled views. Each sampled view comprises multiple texture images and multiple depth images in multiple image layers. The target view is used to select, from the multiple sampled views of the multiview image, sampled views. A texture image and a depth image for each sampled view in the selected sampled views are encoded into a multiview video signal to be transmitted to a…
Annoyance noise suppression
Granted: January 4, 2022
Patent Number:
11218796
Personal audio systems and methods are disclosed. A personal audio system includes a voice activity detector to determine whether or not an ambient audio stream contains voice activity, a pitch estimator to determine a frequency of a fundamental component of an annoyance noise contained in the ambient audio stream, and a filter bank to attenuate the fundamental component and at least one harmonic component of the annoyance noise to generate a personal audio stream. The filter bank…
Scalable systems for controlling color management comprising varying levels of metadata
Granted: January 4, 2022
Patent Number:
11218709
Several embodiments of scalable image processing systems and methods are disclosed herein whereby color management processing of source image data to be displayed on a target display is changed according to varying levels of metadata.
Volume leveler controller and controlling method
Granted: January 4, 2022
Patent Number:
11218126
Volume leveler controller and controlling method are disclosed. In one embodiment, A volume leveler controller includes an audio content classifier for identifying the content type of an audio signal in real time; and an adjusting unit for adjusting a volume leveler in a continuous manner based on the content type as identified. The adjusting unit may configured to positively correlate the dynamic gain of the volume leveler with informative content types of the audio signal, and…
Method and device for decoding an audio soundfield representation
Granted: January 4, 2022
Patent Number:
11217258
Soundfield signals such as e.g. Ambisonics carry a representation of a desired sound field. The Ambisonics format is based on spherical harmonic decomposition of the soundfield, and Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) uses spherical harmonics of at least 2nd order. However, commonly used loudspeaker setups are irregular and lead to problems in decoder design. A method for improved decoding an audio soundfield representation for audio playback comprises calculating a panning function (W) using…
Generating binaural audio in response to multi-channel audio using at least one feedback delay network
Granted: December 28, 2021
Patent Number:
11212638
In some embodiments, virtualization methods for generating a binaural signal in response to channels of a multi-channel audio signal, which apply a binaural room impulse response (BRIR) to each channel including by using at least one feedback delay network (FDN) to apply a common late reverberation to a downmix of the channels. In some embodiments, input signal channels are processed in a first processing path to apply to each channel a direct response and early reflection portion of a…
Method and apparatus for decoding a bitstream including encoded higher order ambisonics representations
Granted: December 28, 2021
Patent Number:
11211078
Higher Order Ambisonics represents three-dimensional sound independent of a specific loudspeaker set-up. However, transmission of an HOA representation results in a very high bit rate. Therefore compression with a fixed number of channels is used, in which directional and ambient signal components are processed differently. For coding, portions of the original HOA representation are predicted from the directional signal components. This prediction provides side information which is…
Camera system
Granted: December 28, 2021
Patent Number:
D939605
Projector controller and associated method
Granted: December 21, 2021
Patent Number:
11206380
A projector controller includes an object detector and control electronics, and is configured to protect audience members from intense light imposing an exclusion zone in front of a projector. The object detector is configured to optically sense a presence of an object in a detection region beneath the exclusion zone and above the audience members. The control electronics is configured to control the projector when the object detector indicates the presence of the object in the detection…
Global light compensation in a variety of displays
Granted: December 7, 2021
Patent Number:
11195483
A non-uniform illumination pattern is determined with a display panel of a display device. The non-uniform illumination pattern comprises different values of the one or more illumination properties in first and second spatial regions of the display panel. An illumination compensation pattern is generated based at least in part on the non-uniform illumination pattern. The illumination compensation pattern is configured to homogenize values of the illumination properties in a plurality of…
Forced gap insertion for pervasive listening
Granted: December 7, 2021
Patent Number:
11195539
A pervasive listening method including steps of inserting at least one forced gap in a playback signal (thus generating a modified playback signal), and during playback of the modified playback signal, monitoring non-playback content (e.g., including by generating an estimate of background noise) in a playback environment using output of a microphone in the playback environment. Optionally, the method includes generation of the playback signal, including by processing of (e.g.,…
Method and system for creating object-based audio content
Granted: December 7, 2021
Patent Number:
11195511
Described herein is a method for creating object-based audio content from a text input for use in audio books and/or audio play, the method including the steps of: a) receiving the text input; b) performing a semantic analysis of the received text input; c) synthesizing speech and effects based on one or more results of the semantic analysis to generate one or more audio objects; d) generating metadata for the one or more audio objects; and e) creating the object-based audio content…
