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OBJECT-BASED AUDIO A Q & A with Bell Media ’ s Michael Nunan Part 1
While at a one-day conference on immersive audio and audio for VR / AR at the Screen Industries Research and Training Centre in Toronto , which was co-hosted by the Toronto sections of AES and SMPTE , Professional Sound spoke with Michael Nunan , the senior manager of audio broadcast operations for Bell Media . At the event , Nunan gave the opening remarks , which focused on the future of object-based audio in film and television .
PS : What could object-based audio look like for TV viewers ?
Michael Nunan : One of the big selling points that the various manufacturers and vendors that are involved in this space are using is words like “ personalization ” and “ experience .” Really , that has to do with affording the viewer some ability to interact with the content and personalize or customize their experience of it .
A good example of that would be someone who maybe has a slight hearing impairment and , for them , they would like the dialogue to be much louder than the music and effects and everything else than maybe the mixer and producer of the event chose to make it . Well , in the current reality of channel-based delivery , there is nothing we can do about that . We either unilaterally decide to change the way we mix a program so that it satisfies everyone , or we suffer the fact that some viewers , someone with some sort of a hearing impairment who doesn ’ t have their hearing aids in , is going to struggle to understand some of the dialogue in the program . Well , in an object-based world , it would be possible for us to allow the viewer , like they have a volume up and down button on their television , but we could also give them the capability of turning just the dialogue up and down . So maybe they want to always listen to dialogue at + 3dB relative to everything else . Well right away that has enormous value .
PS : What does the foreseeable future hold for object-based audio in Canadian broadcasting ?
MN : Like every other broadcaster , we ’ re [ currently ] decidedly under , sort of , ATSC 2 , let ’ s call it , which means the state of the art is still Dolby Enhanced AC-3 . So the answer to your question – as far as “ what ’ s the future of object-based audio in broadcast ?” – the glib answer is there isn ’ t one in this country . But that is because I am answering the question literally . I don ’ t think , if I had to guess , that we will see true broadcast , that is to say overthe-air terrestrial broadcasting , of ATSC 3.0 signals in this country .
Now , something could change and , ultimately , I don ’ t think it ’ s going to matter for us upstream teams preparing the content because despite the fact that we may actually never broadcast a full 4K high dynamic range 3.0 signals attendant with an AC4 audio payload , which includes object-based , even though that may never actually emit from the top of the CN Tower , we ’ ll nevertheless be preparing content in that form to deliver however we are delivering it , whether that ’ s over-the-top or , for the foreseeable future , through our BDU partners – the cable companies and ourselves at Bell TV . So yeah , that ’ s a curious way to answer the question .
So it ’ s unclear what the delivery mechanisms are going to be , let ’ s say , in terms of how Canadian consumers may ultimately receive this content . But it ’ s the case today that all , for instance , 4K UHD work in the country has really traded on the consumer electronics standards – the Blu-ray standards . The reason is we all sort of jumped into working in 4K or UHD , notably on sports , before there was a ratified 3.0 standard . So the only thing available was to trade on those existing consumer electronics specs and those specs , from an audio perspective , stopped at Enhanced AC-3 . AC-4 was still some way down the road before we jumped . So that ’ s kind of where we are now , but we ’ ve been busy for the last couple of years experimenting with both specific technologies and ecosystems and , more generically , with the whole idea of plus-height formats . We want to understand how to exploit that extra dimension when it comes to the kinds of television we make for a living , and then , more specifically , starting to understand object-based workflows …
But for career-long conventional audio practitioners , this is a real brain buster . To say that all of the tools and tricks and little work-arounds and dodgy little maneuvers that you do – like , “ Oh , I like to set up my compressor this way on the dialogue sub group ” – when all of that stuff goes away and now you ’ re forced to confront this idea that , “ Yes , I am still the author of my mix decisions , but procedurally I don ’ t have to deal with summing and that also means I don ’ t get to rely on summing , so I can ’ t count on it as a safety net …”
That ’ s very much an in-progress story and that was very much my message this morning . It was to suggest that , yes , you can see the title , Immersive Audio & AR / VR , and think that it ’ s really interesting , but … my message is I think you ignore all of this stuff at your own peril .
56 PROFESSIONAL SOUND