A review of DTV Audio Group's 2013 AES program
by Chris Sanchez
The DTV Audio Group is a trade organization whose mission is to help the industry meet the potential of digital television audio. Its membership is comprised of network operations and technology managers and the engineers and consultants who support them. At the 2013 NY AES show, DTV A/G held a 5-part symposium that examined some changes that we can anticipate in the broadcast-audio landscape in the coming years.
Tom Sahara of Turner Sports opened with a keynote address that offered a well-collected set of data to confirm what we are all feeling: TV viewing habits are changing due to the intense proliferation of screens; and not only are there more screens, but there is a real heterogeneity to these screens, and they are changing not only what consumers watch, but where they watch it in the home. To wit: we may soon have the ability to package ten discrete audio channels to the consumer, but to what end when they are most often watching the programs (and adverts) on a tablet or smartphone while lying in bed?
Segment two was concerned with the fact that the RF-bands previously used by wireless-microphones are going to be re-allocated in the next year in order to serve the public's increasing demand for wireless-data-delivery. Although the wireless microphone is a humble device, it has become absolutely integral to high-quality audio capture (and playback: in-ear monitors, anyone?) on sets and stages. Representatives from Shure, CP, and Sennheiser were on-hand, and although they revealed VERY little about what sort of new product-offerings were planned to address the new limitations, there seemed to be agreement that the next generation of wireless-audio products will be more specific-application-focused than prior kit. E.G., certain bodypacks might be offered specifically for ENG interview applications, which Mick and Keef would probably need a different unit designed for longer throw and possible obstruction; the differences would be motivated by where on the spectrum the particular units operated.
Segments three and four were the most compelling; they delved into some of the more interesting details that Sahara introduced in the keynote. The discussion got quite heated at times, and the overall friction was as old as the bass+treble knobs themselves: how much control do consumers really want/need over their audio programs, and just because we CAN offer some sort of 'enhanced' audio 'experience' to consumers, is there any compelling reason that we actually should.
I can parse the new 'potential technologies' into two categories. 1: enhanced multichannel, specifically, multichannel that offers, for the first time, control and placement over the vertical (height) domain, as opposed to current consumer state-of-the-art 5.1, which specifies that all full-range drivers be at ear-height. What this would mean, practically, is anything from 9.1 (similar to 5.1 with the addition of 4 room-corner speakers at the ceiling-corners) to 22.2 (good lord). Apparently, 2015 model-year German luxury cars will begin to offer this capability, and Fraunhofer (creators and licensors of MP3 and AAC technology) has already developed a codec (MPEG-H) that can package this enhanced data stream into a manageable bit rate. So that's the first 'new potential': 9.1 (or more) surround with discrete height-placement of sounds.
The second potential game-changer in broadcast audio is the concept of delivering the audio portion of a program as Audio Objects plus Metadata, rather than a mixed program. You can think of Audio Objects as stems or DAW tracks, and Metadata is a set of instructions that tells the playback-apparatus on which speaker to put any particular object, and at what volume level. Delivering audio in this manner would be a revolutionary change for the industry. The potential upsides are impossible to fully predict, but a few obvious ideas: the consumer would be able to easily dial in 'more dialogue!' for the hard-of hearing; also, the 'mix' could be automatically custom-tailored to the playback device itself - imagine a unique mix, made automatically, for every single Smartphone/tablet/laptop, etc., made within the device itself, based on a single data stream that the producer generates: a data stream comprised not of any particular 'mix' or combination of 'mixes,' but of a fixed-set of Audio-Objects and some Metadata.
The potential upsides to enhanced multi-channel and Audio Object Delivery are as obvious as their pitfalls; IE, consumers have a hard enough time placing 6 speakers accurately, so what now, 10??? And we all know how great the navigation on the Roku already works (not well, IMO) - so do we really expect consumers to embrace a freaking audio-mixer-window where they make the mix? I, for one, would politely decline this invitation.
Nonetheless, there were a few interesting points made in favor of broadcasters going-forward and embracing these new potentials. The first was made by an audience-member whose name I missed. He suggested that although to the assembled audience (average age: 55) it might seem ludicrous to expect current consumers to wade through menus to 'create their own mix,' our children and grandchildren will posses a greater fluency with digital devices and will not feel hassled by these new options.
The other interesting point in favor of adopting these new potentials was made by Sahara; he suggested that enhancements such as 9.1 and Audio Objects can be some of the Value-Adds that elevate 'real broadcasters' above the "your cousin and her camera’s (x1,000,000,000) that populate YouTube, Facebook, etc. I think that this is a compelling argument; it certainly underscores that fact that 'real broadcasters' face 'real competition' from amateur moving-image-makers in ways unimaginable in prior decades.
image courtesy of Google
