I've been real suspect when it comes to creating 3D sound from two speakers. Beyond the technology demonstrated at NTT's R&D center, I have a hard time imagining exactly how two speakers could do the work of four (or more).

But when you think about it harder, you o­nly have two ears, right? Let's hope so. Yet you can probably place sounds - it's not like you have a set of ears o­n the back of your head and another set o­n the front.

JVC has applied the "two eared" concept to microphones for camcorders. Expect to see these introduced as early as Spring 2005.

Japan Victor Corporation announced o­n the 5th that they have developed "Biphonic 3D Surround," which will record bin-aural audio using a microphone attached to each ear, process the signal using an independently developed digital signal processor, to successfully recreate the direction and distances of sounds. As far as systems that require no special editing go, this is the world's first.

JVC has said, "Because digital video cameras are getting small and smaller, the left and right channels for a stereo microphone become too close together; this makes it difficult to recreate the stereo effect. This has been developed over many years using independent sound placement playback technology, which is based o­n fundamental tone research." It is intended for use o­n video cameras. JVC plans for commercialization of a digital video cameras containing basic implementations of this technology around Spring of 2005.

Using a newly developed high-efficiency small bin-aural microphone, audio close to what is heard by o­ne's own ears is recorded to a DV tape along with the video. Because audio must be collected near the ears, inner-ear type microphones are used. Although bin-aural recording systems themselves have existed, the fundamental principle requires the use of headphones to achieve a high level of presence - playing them back o­n speakers would result in too much crosstalk, essentially eliminating the "3-dimensionality" of the audio.

Enter JVC's new technology, dubbed "Trans-Aural Processing." The recorded audio will undergo Trans-Aural Processing inside the DSP, and a high level of precense can be represented even o­n speakers - allowing for a high stereo audio grade with little antiphasing or personal differences. JVC has said this makes the playback of distance and height, or audio o­n three dimensions, possible.

Playback requires no special system, and can be done o­n normal TVs and the stereo speakers of typical audio systems.



Inspired by:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20041006/victor.htm

News Release:
http://www.victor.co.jp/press/2004/biphonic3d.html