AES E-Library

Low-Delay Directional Audio Coding for Real-Time Human-Computer Interaction

Games and virtual worlds require low-cost, good-quality and low-delay audio engines. The short-time Fourier transform (STFT) -based implementation of Directional Audio Coding (DirAC) for virtual worlds fulfills the two first demands. Unfortunately, the delay can be perceivably large. In this paper, a modification to DirAC is introduced that uses different time-frequency resolutions for STFT concurrently, which are not aligned in time in reproduction. This leads to the high-frequency non-diffuse content being reproduced as soon as possible and thus reduces the perceived delay. Informal tests show that the delay was short enough for a musician to play an instrument through the processing. Moreover, the results of formal listening tests show that the reduction in quality is perceptible but not annoying.

Authors: Pihlajamäki, Tapani; Pulkki, Ville
Affiliation: Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Espoo, Finland
AES Convention:130 (May 2011) Paper Number:8413 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Posters: Speech and Coding

Click to purchase paper or login as an AES member. If your company or school subscribes to the E-Library then switch to the institutional version. If you are not an AES member and would like to subscribe to the E-Library then Join the AES!

This paper costs $20 for non-members, $5 for AES members and is free for E-Library subscribers.

Learn more about the AES E-Library

E-Library Location: (CD 130Papers)   /130/8413.pdf

Start a discussion about this paper!