Speaker Channel Layouts

A while ago we had a discussion on whether/how we should deal with “named” speaker layout, especially wrt channel ordering and up/down mixing. As a result, our spec currently only supports channel layouts up to 5.1, and we have some normative text in 
http://webaudio.github.io/web-audio-api/#ChannelLayouts

I was recently made aware of work at the ITU which may be very interesting:
http://www.itu.int/pub/R-REP-BS.2266

The spec (about to be updated and which I gather should have a stable, ITU rec status in a matter of months) includes a “List of possible speaker positions for advanced sound systems” up to 22.2. It also defines a naming scheme for any speaker positioning at key elevations. 

Unlike our current spec, the ITU work in progress does not, however, include mono (assumed to be trivial) or quad. 

That said, it seems to me that this table would make it possible to support any speaker layout (assuming that the API can access the layout as a list of speakers using the standard scheme) and an up/down mixing algorithm based on positioning and adaptable to any setup.

I would appreciate an expert eye on whether this would be backward compatible with the up/down mixing algorithm we currently have in the spec. And more generally, opinions on whether adopting (and normatively referring to) the ITU standard would be a good thing in the (near, v2, later) future.

Thanks,
-- 
Olivier





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Received on Wednesday, 27 November 2013 09:44:09 UTC