Background adaptation for improved listening experience in broadcasting

Tang, Y; Cox, TJ; Fazenda, BM; Liu, Q; Wang, W

Abstract

The intelligibility of speech in noise can be improved by modifying the speech. But with object-based audio, there is the possibility of altering the background sound while leaving the speech unaltered. This may prove a less intrusive approach, affording good speech intelligibility without overly compromising the perceived sound quality. In this study, the technique of spectral weighting was applied to the background. The frequency-dependent weightings for adaptation were learnt by maximising a weighted combination of two perceptual objective metrics for speech intelligibility and audio quality. The balance between the two objective metrics was determined by the perceptual relationship between intelligibility and quality. A neural network was trained to provide a fast solution for real-time processing. Tested in a variety of background sounds and speech-to-background ratios (SBRs), the proposed method led to a large intelligibility gain over the unprocessed baseline. Compared to an approach using constant weightings, the proposed method was able to dynamically preserve the overall audio quality better with respect to SBR changes.

Citation

Tang, Y., Cox, T., Fazenda, B., Liu, Q., & Wang, W. (2019, May). Background adaptation for improved listening experience in broadcasting. Presented at 44th International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, ICASSP 2019, Brighton, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 44th International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, ICASSP 2019
• Conference Location: Brighton, UK
• Start Date: May 12, 2019
• End Date: May 17, 2019
• Acceptance Date: Feb 1, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Apr 17, 2019
• Publication Date: Apr 17, 2019
• Deposit Date: May 13, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: May 13, 2019
• Book Title: ICASSP 2019 - 2019 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)
• ISBN: 9781479981311
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASSP.2019.8682687
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASSP.2019.8682687
• Related Public URLs: https://2019.ieeeicassp.org/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Funders : Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); Projects : Programme Grant S3A: Future Spatial Audio for an Immersive Listener Experience at Home; Grant Number: EP/L000539/1