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3D Sound by Creator of MP3

im333mfg writes "News.com has an article detailing the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Technology's latest and greatest audio solution, Iosono, or as they're putting it 'true three dimensional audio, which can give the impression of, for example, a horse galloping through the center aisle of a movie theater, or pinpoint a noise so that it sounds exactly like a person shouting from outside theater walls. The best existing surround sound speakers can approximate this only for a small sweet spot, perhaps a few feet wide, while the Iosono system would create the same realistic illusion for everyone in the room.'"

11 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Please... by extra+the+woos · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will someone in the porn industry pick this up? I can't wait to download convincing lesbian orgy movies and feel like i'm right in the middle of the action.

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  2. A pizza... by spare.dave · · Score: 4, Funny

    The first person to tie this to a worldwide conspiracy against OGG gets a pizza.

  3. 300 speakers? by nuggz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To do this, they use an array of small speakers, sometimes as many as 300 or 400.

    Not very surprising that 300 speakers will give you a better surround experience.

    1. Re:300 speakers? by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which also means this technology will work in 0% of today's theaters without retrofitting, and will likely never be sold at the consumer level.

      Nice idea... but I don't think this one's getting off the chalkboard.

  4. Phased array sound by nickovs · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article says "To do this, they use an array of small speakers, sometimes as many as 300 or 400. A complicated algorithm works out exactly what the sound waves all through a room would be...". This sounds very like the phased array speaker technology that 1 Limited have been using from some years to deliver true surround sound from a flat panel speaker.

    --
    If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
  5. (Submarine) patents? by art6217 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Is not this the same institute that had the submarine MP3 patents? I might be wrong and their work is probably very interesting, but obvious "patents" might perhaps turn it into another GIF/MP3/...-like story.

    Byt the way, anyone knows how is it related to this: Single Speaker Unit Delivers Surround Sound?

  6. Re:Size of theater matter? by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is an exact distance required between each speaker, and also a lot of speakers involved as well. According to the article, we're talking 300 to 400 small speakers in a grid spread out over the space of the entire theater room.

    Of course it's much easier to make a virtual point from which the sound is coming from when you have so many real points that the sound can start at to play with.

  7. I don't speak German by phantasma6 · · Score: 4, Informative

    you insensitive clod...

    Wouldn't it be better if the main thing contained a link to the English part of the site rather than the German? http://www.iosono-sound.com/eng/index.html

  8. Re:So do they hand you your headphones... by PenguiN42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quality headphones and a subwoofer, OTOH, can always do better, with no extra requirements beyond not having too much background noise.

    Ah, but headphones can only easily position sound relative to your head's position and orientation -- whereas this room wafefront synthesis system positions sound relative to the *room*. A sound 50 feet behind the right wall will sound 50 feed behind the right wall to a listener no matter where they are sitting in the theater and no matter which way they're looking.

    To emulate this with headphones, you'd need some sort of position/orientation tracking system on each pair of headphones. So now the question is, which is more complex: hundreds of fixed speakers playing phase-synchronized sounds in a coordinated fashion, or hundreds of individual headphone units with tracking devices each playing one version of the virtual "source" material customized for each listener?

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    The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
  9. Cheaper alternative by polyp2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    There is a much cheaper way to do this.
    Simply purchase a polystyrene head (of the sort used for placing wigs and hairpeices)

    Slice down the middle with a hot wire and hollow out the ear canals for two microphones and embed these in the head. Glue back together and jack the trailing leads from your head's "ears" into your favorite recording equipments. And .... Play ...

    It works , its cheap and simple, and best of all no fraunhoffer licensing fee's

    here are some examples (including mp3's) of the technique...

    Binauraul Holophonic Sound

    Nick ...

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    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  10. Re:So do they hand you your headphones... by polyp2000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, but headphones can only easily position sound relative to your head's position and orientation -- whereas this room wafefront synthesis system positions sound relative to the *room*.

    Is this really what someone watching a film wants? This technology might be cool for theme events etc but when you are in the cinema you are sitting in one position and not moving around. I myself as a film goer would prefer to know that wherever i sat in the auditorium i'd be getting the same experience as everyone else. And from a movie producers point of view id want everyone who saw my film to have an equal experience.

    when you are watching something on a movie screen you want the audio relative to the movie ; what you are watching. Not to the room in which you are watching.

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp