On 15 May 2013, at 07:42, Eero Aro <[email protected]> wrote: > Ivan Vican: >> does Ambisonic have a commercial future and why? > > I would say that it is a waste of time and energy to try to get > Ambisonics as a distribution medium. > > Ambisonics has and will have use in production and processing tools. > Microphones, mixing, effects etc. > > The end user at home or in a theatre doesn't care what technique > was used to deliver or to create the sound that he/she is hearing. > Most people are not interested in which brand synthesizer or editing > software or processing plugins have been used. You ears won't > care about the trade marks either.
I would tend to differ. If BluRay & DVD-Audio were resounding successes, then one could say: heck, just deliver binaural, stereo, 5.1 etc. downmixes and not worry about distribution formats, these disks have more storage capacity than we know to fill with an album anyway. On the other hand, data volume does matter if you have online music distribution, and when you look at computer playback, would you expect the consumer to try to match the proper version to his current audio setup? As long as online music distribution grows at the rates it's growing at, and as long as everything there is stereo, something like iTunes plug-ins, and UHJ mixes have a use, and if one could form a partnership with some of the big fish out there, like e.g. Apple, then B-Format distribution would be a viable way for music distribution, because one B-format source could cover all the applications ranging from binaural, to stereo and N.M channel surround. However, that case has to be made, and people would have to be unified when trying to push such a case, and not end up bickering about how anything below 3rd order is unacceptable when we exactly know that anything as relatively complex as 3rd order will never happen as a first step. The geek factor someone else describes that makes Ambisonics inaccessible to mere mortals, is significantly reduced, because the 3/4 channels of 1st order wihout/with height are intuitively understandable, because concepts like XYZ axis are fairly common knowledge, but Nth-order spherical harmonics are not, and will just get blank stares, and once you start talking about lobes, they think you're making smart ass comments about their pierced ears. Even as a production technique, a large number of people in studios got in there over music, they are not audio engineers in the strict sense who read AES papers while brushing their teeth in the morning to relax, and have often little to no background in math. So I still believe unless HOA is completely hidden inside individual plug-ins (e.g. a surround panning plug-in) it is unsuitable in the workflow to popularize the techniques. 1st order could stand a chance, because it can be intuitively understood, and once demystified and reasonably wide-spread, HOA can be the 2.0Pro and 3.0Ultra package. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4853 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/private/sursound/attachments/20130515/2a69390a/attachment.bin> _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list [email protected] https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
