Loudness adjustment for downmixed audio content

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9521501-B2
Application number	US-201414916522-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 9, 2014
Priority date	Sep 12, 2013
Publication date	Dec 13, 2016
Grant date	Dec 13, 2016

Abstract

Audio content coded for a reference speaker configuration is downmixed to downmix audio content coded for a specific speaker configuration. One or more gain adjustments are performed on individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration. Loudness measurements are then performed on the individual portions of the downmix audio content. An audio signal that comprises the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration and downmix loudness metadata is generated. The downmix loudness metadata is created based at least in part on the loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method, comprising:
generating audio content coded for a reference speaker configuration;
downmixing the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration to downmix audio content coded for a specific speaker configuration;
performing one or more gain adjustments on individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration, wherein the one or more gain adjustments use different gain adjustment parameter values for at least two different portions of the individual portions of the downmixed audio content;
performing loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content; and
generating an audio signal that comprises the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration and downmix loudness metadata created based at least in part on the loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices and the one or more gain adjustments comprise at least one gain adjustment relating to one or more of dialogue normalization, dynamic range compression, or fixed attenuation to protect against downmix overload.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the reference speaker configuration is a surround speaker configuration, and wherein the specific speaker configuration is a two-channel configuration.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration is downmixed to the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration based on one or more downmix equations.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the downmix loudness metadata comprises one or more sets of downmix loudness parameters, each set of the two or more sets of downmix loudness parameters corresponding to an individual type of downmixing operation among one or more types of downmix operations to which the one or more sets of downmix loudness parameters correspond.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the one or more types of downmixing operations comprise at least one of LtRt dowmixing operation or LoRo downmixing operation.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein downmixing the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration to downmix audio content coded for a specific speaker configuration is based on one or more types of downmixing operations, and wherein performing loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content includes performing loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content relating to each of the one or more types of downmixing operations.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the loudness measurements on the individual portions of the downmix audio content are performed after the one or more gain adjustments are applied to the individual portions of the downmix audio content.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least two different portions of the individual portions of the audio content represent audio content portions at least two different times.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising preventing the downmixed audio content for the specific speaker configuration from being encoded in the audio signal.

10. A method, comprising:
receiving, by an audio decoder operating with a specific speaker configuration, an audio signal that comprises audio content coded for a reference speaker configuration and downmix loudness metadata;
downmixing the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration to downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration;
performing one or more gain adjustments on individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration, the one or more gain adjustment not being based on the downmix loudness metadata, wherein the one or more gain adjustments use different gain adjustment parameter values for at least two different portions of the individual portions of the downmixed audio content; and
performing one or more additional gain adjustments on the individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration, the one or more additional gain adjustment being based on the downmix loudness metadata;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices and the one or more gain adjustments comprise at least one gain adjustment relating to one or more of dialogue normalization, dynamic range compression, or fixed attenuation to protect against downmix overload.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the reference speaker configuration is a surround speaker configuration, and wherein the specific speaker configuration is a two-channel configuration.

12. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
determining a specific type of downmixing operation based on one or more selection factors;
applying the specific type of downmixing operation in downmixing the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration to the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration;
determining, from one or more sets of downmixing loudness parameters in the downmix loudness metadata, a specific set of downmix loudness parameters to which the specific type of downmixing operation correspond; and
performing the one or more additional gain adjustments on the individual portions of the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration based at least in part on the specific set of downmix loudness parameters.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the audio content coded for the reference speaker configuration is downmixed to the downmix audio content coded for the specific speaker configuration based on one or more downmix equations, and wherein the one or more downmix equations are the same downmix equation used by an audio encoder that generates the audio signal.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more gain adjustments represent a specific set of gain adjustments determined from one or more of a set of null gains, sets of gain adjustments including gain adjustments relating to dynamic range compression (DRC), sets of gain adjustments excluding gain adjustments relating to DRC, sets of gain adjustments including gain adjustments relating to dialog normalization, sets of gain adjustments excluding gain adjustments relating to dialog normalization, or sets of gain adjustments including gain adjustments relating to both DRC and dialog normalization.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the downmix loudness metadata represents a part of overall audio metadata encoded in the audio signal.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the downmix loudness metadata comprises a data field to indicate a downmix loudness offset, and wherein the one or more additional gain adjustments are made based at least in part on the downmix loudness offset.

17. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more gain adjustments do not produce an expected loudness in a downmix sound output for at least one individual portion of the one or more individual portions of the downmix audio content, wherein the one or more additional gain adjustments are performed to produce an expected loudness in a downmix sound output for the at least one individual portion of the one or more individual portions of the downmix audio content.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the one or more gain adjustments correspond to one or more gain adjustments performed by an upstream audio encoder, before generating the downmix loudness metadata by the upstream audio encoder.

Assignees

• Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp
• Dolby Int Ab

Inventors

• Ward Michael
• Riedmiller Jeffrey
• Norcross Scott Gregory
• Groeschel Alexander

Classifications

• H04S2400/13

  Aspects of volume control, not necessarily automatic, in stereophonic sound systems · CPC title

• H04S7/30 Primary

  Control circuits for electronic adaptation of the sound field · CPC title

• H04S2400/03

  Aspects of down-mixing multi-channel audio to configurations with lower numbers of playback channels, e.g. 7.1 -> 5.1 (H04S2400/01 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G10L21/0324

  Details of processing therefor · CPC title

• G10L19/008 Primary

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