All Outputs (35)

Background ducking to produce esthetically pleasing audio for TV with clear speech (2019)
Presentation / Conference
audio for TV with clear speech. Presented at Audio Engineering Society Convention 146, Dublin

In audio production, background ducking facilitates speech intelligibility, while keeping the background track enjoyable. Technical details for recommendable ducking practices are not currently documented in literature. Hence, we first analyze comm... Read More about Background ducking to produce esthetically pleasing audio for TV with clear speech.

Speech-to-screen : spatial separation of dialogue from noise towards improved speech intelligibility for the small screen (2018)
Presentation / Conference
Demonte, P., Tang, Y., Hughes, R., Cox, T., Fazenda, B., & Shirley, B. (2018, May). Speech-to-screen : spatial separation of dialogue from noise towards improved speech intelligibility for the small screen. Presented at 144th International Pro Audio Convention (AES Milan 2018), Milan, Italy

Can externalizing dialogue when in the presence of stereo background noise improve speech intelligibility? This has been investigated for audio over headphones using head-tracking in order to explore potential future developments for small-screen dev... Read More about Speech-to-screen : spatial separation of dialogue from noise towards improved speech intelligibility for the small screen.

Big pictures and small screens; how television sound research can work with, and for, hard of hearing viewers (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Shirley, B., & Davies, W. (2017, November). Big pictures and small screens; how television sound research can work with, and for, hard of hearing viewers. Presented at Reproduced Sound 2017, Nottingham, UK

Hearing loss affects one in six people in the United Kingdom and, given an ageing population, this figure is increasing.1 Numerous studies highlight that improvements in the intelligibility of television sound are required to increase television’s... Read More about Big pictures and small screens; how television sound research can work with, and for, hard of hearing viewers.

Turning up the background noise; The effects of salient non-speech audio elements on dialogue intelligibility in complex acoustic scenes (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Shirley, B., & Davies, W. (2017, November). Turning up the background noise; The effects of salient non-speech audio elements on dialogue intelligibility in complex acoustic scenes. Presented at Reproduced Sound, Southampton, UK

As an acoustic scene becomes more complex listeners increasingly rely on complementary intelligibility cues, such as context and language structure, to understand speech. Despite the role salient non-speech audio elements, like sound effects, play in... Read More about Turning up the background noise; The effects of salient non-speech audio elements on dialogue intelligibility in complex acoustic scenes.

The effect of situation-specific non-speech acoustic cues on the intelligibility of speech in noise (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Shirley, B., Tang, Y., & Davies, W. (2017, August). The effect of situation-specific non-speech acoustic cues on the intelligibility of speech in noise. Presented at INTERSPEECH 2017, 18th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, Stockholm, Sweden

In everyday life, speech is often accompanied by a situation-specific acoustic cue; a hungry bark as you ask ‘Has anyone fed the dog?’. This paper investigates the effect such cues have on speech intelligibility in noise and evaluates their interactio... Read More about The effect of situation-specific non-speech acoustic cues on the intelligibility of speech in noise.

Snap, crackle and pop : how sound effects help, and hinder, hearing in broadcast audio (2017)
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Shirley, B., & Davies, W. (2017, June). Snap, crackle and pop : how sound effects help, and hinder, hearing in broadcast audio. Presented at SPARC 2017 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference, University of Salford, UK

Complaints about the intelligibility of television speech have become increasingly common, both for normal hearing and hard of hearing listeners alike. The debate these complaints have sparked have stretched from angry viewers on Twitter right up t... Read More about Snap, crackle and pop : how sound effects help, and hinder, hearing in broadcast audio.

Intelligibility vs comprehension : understanding quality of accessible next-generation audio broadcast (2016)
Presentation / Conference
Shirley, B., & Ward, L. (2016, June). Intelligibility vs comprehension : understanding quality of accessible next-generation audio broadcast. Presented at Understanding Media Accessibility Quality, Barcelona, Spain

For traditional broadcasting formats, implementation of accessible audio strategies for hard of hearing people have used a binary, intelligibility-based approach. In this approach sounds are categorized either as speech, contributing to comprehension... Read More about Intelligibility vs comprehension : understanding quality of accessible next-generation audio broadcast.

Application of object-based audio for automated mixing of live football broadcast (2015)
Presentation / Conference
Oldfield, R., Shirley, B., & Satongar, D. (2015, October). Application of object-based audio for automated mixing of live football broadcast. Presented at 139th AES Convention, New York, USA

The challenge of creating a live sound mix for a sports event such as a football/soccer match cannot be underestimated. The mixing engineer needs to constantly raise and lower the levels of the faders corresponding to the pitch-side microphones that... Read More about Application of object-based audio for automated mixing of live football broadcast.

An object-based audio system for interactive broadcasting (2014)
Presentation / Conference
Oldfield, R., Shirley, B., & Spille, J. (2014, October). An object-based audio system for interactive broadcasting. Poster presented at 137th Audio Engineering Society Convention, Los Angeles, USA

This paper describes audio recording, delivery, and rendering for an end-to-end broadcast system allowing users free navigation of panoramic video content with matching interactive audio. The system is based on one developed as part of the EU FP7 fun... Read More about An object-based audio system for interactive broadcasting.

Demo paper: Audio object extraction for live sports broadcast (2013)
Presentation / Conference
Oldfield, R., Shirley, B., & Cullen, N. (2013, July). Demo paper: Audio object extraction for live sports broadcast. Presented at Multimedia and Expo Workshops (ICMEW), 2013 IEEE International Conference on, San Jose, Ca, USA

Recent interest in object-based audio systems for cinema opens interesting possibilities to extend the reach of an object-based approach to television broadcast of live events. For events where microphones may be placed close to the source of each so... Read More about Demo paper: Audio object extraction for live sports broadcast.

Format-Agnostic approach for 3d audio (2011)
Presentation / Conference
Kropp, H., Spille, J., Batke, J., Abeling, S., Keiler, F., Oldfield, R., & Shirley, B. (2011, September). Format-Agnostic approach for 3d audio. Presented at IBC, Amsterdam

In the market exists a large variety of media devices, reaching from mobile handsets equipped with headphones up to an ultra-high resolution display connected with a large loudspeaker setup. This makes it difficult for the broadcast industry to provi... Read More about Format-Agnostic approach for 3d audio.

Recording spatial audio signals for interactive broadcast systems (2011)
Presentation / Conference
Batke, J., Spille, J., Kropp, H., Kordon, S., Abeling, S., Shirley, B., & Oldfield, R. (2011, June). Recording spatial audio signals for interactive broadcast systems. Presented at 6th Forum Acusticum, organized by the European Acoustics Association (EAA), Aalborg, Denmark

Spatial audio processing is a key feature of the European funded FascinatE project. The FascinatE project will develop a system to allow end-users to interactively navigate and view around an ultra-high resolution video panorama showing a live event,... Read More about Recording spatial audio signals for interactive broadcast systems.

Spatial audio processing for interactive TV services (2011)
Presentation / Conference
Batke, J., Spille, J., Kropp, H., Abeling, S., Shirley, B., & Oldfield, R. (2011, May). Spatial audio processing for interactive TV services. Presented at 130th AES Convention, London

FascinatE is a European funded project that aims at developing a system to allow end users to interactively navigate around a video panorama showing a live event, with the accompanying audio automatically changing to match the selected view. The audi... Read More about Spatial audio processing for interactive TV services.

Performance of independent component analysis when used to separate competing acoustic sources in anechoic and reverberant conditions (2008)
Presentation / Conference
Shirley, B., & Kendrick, P. (2008, May). Performance of independent component analysis when used to separate competing acoustic sources in anechoic and reverberant conditions. Presented at AES 124th Convention, Amsterdam

A review of existing methods for independent component analysis was carried out and a series of experiments conducted assessing the use of existing independent component analysis (ICA) methods to separate microphone sources in varied acoustic environ... Read More about Performance of independent component analysis when used to separate competing acoustic sources in anechoic and reverberant conditions.

R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test
Presentation / Conference
Ward, L., Robinson, C., Paradis, M., Tucker, K., & Shirley, B. R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test. Presented at 20th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association

Speech in noise tests are an important clinical and research toolfor understanding speech perception in realistic, adverse listen-ing conditions. Though relatively simple to implement, theirdevelopment is time and resource intensive. As a result,... Read More about R2SPIN : re-recording the Revised Speech Perception in Noise Test.

The room-in-room effect and its influence on perceived room size in spatial audio reproduction
Presentation / Conference
Hughes, R., Cox, T., Shirley, B., & Power, P. The room-in-room effect and its influence on perceived room size in spatial audio reproduction. Presented at 141st Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Los Angeles, USA

In spatial audio it can be desirable to give the impression of a target space (e.g. a church). Often the reproduction environment is assumed acoustically dead; in practice most listening spaces (e.g. domestic living rooms) introduce significant refle... Read More about The room-in-room effect and its influence on perceived room size in spatial audio reproduction.

Dual frequency band amplitude panning for multichannel audio systems
Presentation / Conference
Hughes, R., Franck, A., Cox, T., Shirley, B., & Fazi, F. Dual frequency band amplitude panning for multichannel audio systems. Presented at 2018 AES International Conference on Spatial Reproduction - Aesthetics and Science, Tokyo, Japan

Panning laws for multi-loudspeaker setups, for example vector base amplitude panning, are typically derived based on either low or high frequency assumptions. It is well known, however, that auditory cues for both localization and loudness differ at... Read More about Dual frequency band amplitude panning for multichannel audio systems.

Towards a format-agnostic approach for production, delivery and rendering of immersive media
Presentation / Conference
Niamut, O., Kaiser, R., Kienast, G., Kochdale, A., Spille, J., Schreer, O., …Shirley, B. Towards a format-agnostic approach for production, delivery and rendering of immersive media. Presented at 4th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference

The media industry is currently being pulled in the often-opposing directions of increased realism (high resolution, stereoscopic, large screen) and personalization (selection and control of content, availability on many devices). We investigate the... Read More about Towards a format-agnostic approach for production, delivery and rendering of immersive media.

VoIPText: Voice chat for deaf and hard of hearing people
Presentation / Conference
Shirley, B., Thomas, J., & Roche, P. VoIPText: Voice chat for deaf and hard of hearing people. Presented at Consumer Electronics - Berlin (ICCE-Berlin), 2012 IEEE International Conference on, 3-5 Sept. 2012

The spread of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, equipment and clients is transforming telephony worldwide. In addition to providing inexpensive, or even free, international telephone calls there is potentially additional benefit in using... Read More about VoIPText: Voice chat for deaf and hard of hearing people.

Automatic mixing and tracking of on-pitch football action for television broadcasts
Presentation / Conference
Oldfield, R., & Shirley, B. Automatic mixing and tracking of on-pitch football action for television broadcasts. Presented at 130th AES Convention

For the television broadcast of football in Europe, the sound engineer will typically have an arrangement of 12 shotgun microphones around the pitch to pick up on-pitch sounds such as whistle blows, players talking and ball kicks etc. Typically, duri... Read More about Automatic mixing and tracking of on-pitch football action for television broadcasts.