Loudness control methods and devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11330370-B2
Application number	US-201916969907-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 15, 2019
Priority date	Feb 15, 2018
Publication date	May 10, 2022
Grant date	May 10, 2022

Abstract

Audio data in a first format may be processed to produce audio data in a second format, which may be a reduced or simplified version of the first format. A loudness correction process may produce loudness-corrected audio data in the second format. A first power of the audio data in the second format and a second power of the loudness-corrected audio data in the second format may be determined. A second-format loudness correction factor for the audio data in the second format may be based, at least in part, on a power ratio between the first power and the second power. A first-format loudness correction factor for the audio data in the first format may be based, at least in part, on the power ratio and a power relationship between the audio data in the first format and the audio data in the second format.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An audio processing method, comprising:
receiving audio data in a first format;
processing the audio data in the first format to produce audio data in a second format, the second format being a reduced or simplified version of the first format;
performing a loudness correction process on the audio data in the second format to produce loudness-corrected audio data in the second format;
determining a first power of the audio data in the second format;
determining a second power of the loudness-corrected audio data in the second format;
determining a second-format loudness correction factor for the audio data in the second format, the second-format loudness correction factor being based, at least in part, on a power ratio of the first power to the second power;
determining a power relationship between the audio data in the first format and the audio data in the second format;
determining a first-format loudness correction factor for the audio data in the first format, the first-format loudness correction factor being based, at least in part, on the power ratio and the power relationship; and
outputting the first-format loudness correction factor and the second-format loudness correction factor.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first format is a first channel-based format and wherein the second format is a downmix of the first channel-based format.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the power relationship corresponds to a difference between a power of the audio data in the first channel-based format and a power of the audio data of the downmix.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first format includes audio data for height speakers and wherein the second format does not include audio data for height speakers.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the power relationship corresponds to a power of the audio data for the height speakers.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the loudness correction process involves a first loudness measurement process, a loudness adjustment process and a second loudness measurement process.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the first loudness measurement process involves one or more linear processing operations, followed by a mixing operation, followed by one or more non-linear processing operations.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the linear processing operations include applying a K-weighting filter and applying a spatial gain.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein the mixing operation includes a downmixing operation that produces third audio data in a third format, the third format being a reduced or simplified version of the second format.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein the audio data in the second format includes dialogue audio data and music and audio effects (M&E) audio data.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the dialogue audio data includes dialogue audio data for a plurality of languages and wherein the linear processing operations are performed separately on the dialogue audio data for each of the plurality of languages.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the linear processing operations for the M&E audio data are performed separately from the linear processing operations for the dialogue audio data.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first format is an audio object format and wherein the second format is a simplified version of the first format.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audio data in the first format includes at least a first dialogue and M&E audio data.

15. One or more non-transitory media having software stored thereon, the software including instructions for performing the method recited in claim 1 .

16. An apparatus including a control system configured to perform the method recited in claim 1 .

17. An audio processing method, comprising:
receiving a first-format loudness correction factor for audio data in a first format and a received second-format loudness correction factor for audio data in a second format;
receiving the audio data in the first format;
receiving an indication of a revised power relationship between the audio data in the first format and the audio data in the second format; and
adjusting the received second-format loudness correction factor based, at least in part, on the first-format loudness correction factor and the revised power relationship.

18. The audio processing method of claim 17 , wherein the audio data in the second format is a downmix or a render of the audio data in the first format.

19. The audio processing method of claim 18 , wherein the revised power relationship is an alteration of an original power relationship and wherein the original power relationship indicates how a level of audio data corresponding with a channel of the first format has been altered during a downmixing process that produced the audio data in the second first format.

20. The audio processing method of claim 17 , wherein the second format is a Dolby 5.1 format and the first format is a Dolby 5.1.2 format or a Dolby 7.1.4. format.

Assignees

• Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp

Inventors

• Norcross Scott Gregory
• Grant Michael
• Cowdery James Stuart
• Nanda Sachin
• Shah Nisarg Vipul

Classifications

• H03G9/005

  of digital or coded signals · CPC title

• H03G5/165

  Equalizers; Volume or gain control in limited frequency bands · CPC title

• G10L19/173

  Transcoding, i.e. converting between two coded representations avoiding cascaded coding-decoding · CPC title

• H03G3/3005 Primary

  in amplifiers suitable for low-frequencies, e.g. audio amplifiers (H03G3/32, H03G3/34 take precedence) · CPC title

• G10L19/008

  Multichannel audio signal coding or decoding using interchannel correlation to reduce redundancy, e.g. joint-stereo, intensity-coding or matrixing · CPC title