Personalization of object-based audio for accessibility using narrative importance

Shirley, B; Ward, L; Chourdakis, ET

Abstract

An increasing incidence of hearing impairment and of re- ported problems with broadcast audio is leading to an in- creased demand for personalized audio services. Previous research has treated these issues as a ‘speech in noise’ prob- lem; sounds are viewed as speech (good) or as competing masker (bad). This binary approach to accessible audio dis- regards the important role of some non-speech sounds in facilitating understanding of broadcast programme narra- tive. This work, as part of the S3A project, has taken a more holistic approach to audio personalization using categories of narrative importance to provide complex manipulations of broadcast audio based on narrative comprehension, instead of simply intelligibility. A simple, intuitive user-interface allows the user to adjust the complexity of audio scenes based on their personal hearing needs, metadata is generated at pro- duction using plugins to generate appropriate metadata and audio previews of user-narrative importance settings. This paper outlines the concept of narrative importance, the pro- duction tools and the end-user interface designed to deliver it. Response to these tools from target users and production staff are discussed as well as ongoing work.

Citation

Shirley, B., Ward, L., & Chourdakis, E. Personalization of object-based audio for accessibility using narrative importance. Presented at TVX 2019 - ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video, Media City, Salford UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: TVX 2019 - ACM International Conference on Interactive Experiences for Television and Online Video
• Conference Location: Media City, Salford UK
• End Date: Jun 7, 2019
• Publication Date: Jun 5, 2019
• Deposit Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 1, 2021
• Publisher URL: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2423/
• Related Public URLs: https://tvx.acm.org/2019/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); Projects : S3A; Grant Number: EP/L000539/1