Reality Technologies Australia

Braeside, Victoria

Phone: +61-3-85817638

Fax: +61-3-9587-4986

Email: info@reality-design.com.au

Website © 2011 Reality Technologies Australia

3D is a term often used in the audio world as a marketing tool to sell 2D surround sound systems. This is not only misleading by the marketing teams but confusing to the public. In our view 3D means surround sound PLUS a 3rd dimension of height.

There are some 3D theatres today which have allowed the height dimension to be added by means of many speakers placed over the head of the audience. Where they have been installed they require large numbers of speakers, usually hundreds and further require a very large number of audio channels with their attendant complex control and delivery systems.  These are expensive to purchase and equally expensive to install.  They are still set up for the one hero seat and everybody else gets something less. In our view these systems are completely impractical in the real world; for most theatres they are far too expensive and for most homes, including those with home theatres, they are not practical at any level.

A further major stumbling block exists to 3D audio of the future. Current systems use up to 4 audio tracks and adding more causes a very significant range of issues. In our view 3D of the future will be provided using only four tracks as this is sufficient to provide all the information need and limits the bandwidth necessary to broadcast 3D television and 3D movies etc.

There have been a few attempts to bring some sort of height perception to surround sound.

The first real consumer attempt was by Dolby with yet another band-aid solution in the form of Pro-Logic IIz. This added a pair of speakers above the front left and right, and uses extraction techniques to decide what audio should be in there. This isn’t really a true height dimension; it only exists at the front and isn’t deliberately intended height information.

Another technique comes in the form of wave-field synthesis to reproduce a spherical sound field. This can be quite accurate for the person sitting perfectly in the centre of the array.  In professional setups these can range from low end 24 channel setups that don’t address height, to full theatre setups that utilize well over 300 channels.  The trouble then is, how do you bring that into the home on a practical level. Surely an effective 3D standard should be reproducible and scalable in a practical way in any situation, from a small open-plan lounge to a concert hall?

The answer to providing genuine 3D sound lies in a combined technology known as Reality 3D.

How does this work?

Firstly, by using the Involve technology which is a fully circular surround sound system and extracting

sounds emanating in the height plane they can be reproduced in the same vertical dimension. It is

important to note however than the original tracks must have the recording information as to height

and use of the Involve recording system allows for the best possible encode of this information.

Secondly it is important, but not essential; to use a Total Perspective enabled system to allow for all

listeners to perceive the height dimension.

The critical features of this system and any other system seriously proposed as a 3D system are and

should be:

1. 3D sound can be recorded and played back without changing the hardware formats of

today. Specifically, this system uses only four recording tracks and is and must be fully

compatible with all the DVD/Blu-ray systems available today.

2. It is critical that 2D sound systems of today can use the disks without loss of quality even

though the height dimension is not extracted and played back. This is the same principle

as displayed in 3D televisions where a 3D enabled TV can be used fully to display 2D vision.

3. The system must not be reliant on a very large number of speakers as the costs and

aesthetic issues make such a system impractical in both the theatre and domestic world.

An extension of this is the ability to then create a fully 3-dimensional sound environment, with a channel in each corner, and those 8 channels can then be encoded into 4 channels using our Involve encoding process, making it compatible with the existing audio-stream capabilities of digital audio on DVD’s, etc.

Best of all, when combined with our Total Perspective technology, everyone in the room can experience the same immersing sound environment.

• Companies associated with the recording Industry and the movie/television industry.
• Any organisation who is currently looking or attempting to set audio standards.
• Any organisation who is currently interested in improving the actual reproduction of audio and their by improving the end user experience, particularly those companies offering hardware to the consumer market.
• Any company wishing to work towards establishing a true 3D standard in audio to match the 3D movie revolution.

For more information or to inquire about a demonstration, contact our Australian office below, or using the contact page.