Pushing television to new horizons, AR, VR, and 3D constantly looks to new applications to find unique opportunities and genres ready for change. Discover how the technology is progressing and who is driving it.
Will alternative immersive channels create an imperative for broadcasters? Veronique Larcher, Director of AMBEO Immersive Audio, Sennheiser, explores immersive content outside of the commercial broadcast space, including virtual, augmented, and mixed realities.
HRTF stands for Head Related Transfer Function and, simply put, is a catch-all term for the characteristics a human head imparts on sound before it enters the ear canal. Everything from level tonal changes caused by our head, shoulders, and pinna (external ear parts), to arrival-time differences (Interaural Time Difference, or ITD) between the two ears have an effect on our perception of the direction and distance of sources.
The familiar “Faster, Higher, Stronger” motto is not just for Olympic athletes but also applies to the common man (and woman): The first black-and-white television sets were considered a sensation until color TV came along, opening a whole new dimension to the viewing audience. In parallel, cinema screens grew ever taller and wider. This went hand in hand with the switch from mono to stereo and a stunning series of dramatic boosts regarding picture quality. While 4K is still in the process of being implemented, more daring early adopters are already grooming their 8K offering.
Sennheiser examines the theory, implementation, and uses of the Ambisonic soundfield, and its important role in the immersive audio world.
The Farm is a leading full-service post production group that started in Soho, London, subsequently opening facilities in Manchester and Bristol in the UK, and West Hollywood in Los Angeles. The Farm is well known for its ground-breaking creative approaches and its willingness to embrace all that technology has to offer to further that cause. The Farm team has been responsible for some of the most popular television projects of the last 20 years and has an array of awards to prove it.
Felix Krückels is a certified audio engineer who graduated from the Detmold University of Music and has been involved in immersive audio since 2012. He was there when NHK launched its Super Hi-Vision project with the help of Lawo.
Twenty years ago, there was a clear divide between how you shot and finished a project for Cinema compared to the typical workflows used in broadcast TV. With the advent of streaming services that provide 4K/UHD to a broad audience the lines are now blurred between these two worlds.
High dynamic range and wide color gamut combined with 4K resolution and progressive frame rates have catapulted broadcast television to new levels of immersive experience for the viewer. As HDR and WCG are relatively new to television, we need to both understand their application and how we monitor them to enable us to surpass the levels of quality and immersive experience cinematographers demand.