Using transient suppression in blind multi-channel upmix algorithms

In the field of blind upmixing, many algorithms exist for generating multi-channel sound from mono or stereo sources. One of the important blind upmix scenarios is the ambience-based upmix. This approach aims at extracting the ambient parts of a given signal and their reproduction by taking best possible advantage of a multi-channel loudspeaker setup. Depending on the number of channels and the signal characteristics of the input signal, the quality of the extracted ambience can vary. In this paper, transient suppression is suggested as a method for improving the impression of the perceived quality of an extracted ambience signal. Two methods for suppressing transient components are proposed and contrasted to existing techniques. The ability of those methods to improve the subjective quality of the overall upmix is evaluated in a listening test. The presented listening test indicates that an improvement in the perceived impression of surround quality of the overall upmix can indeed be achieved by applying appropriate transient suppression methods to the extracted ambience signals. Entnommen aus <a_href="http://www.fiz-technik.de/db/b_tema.htm" target="_blank">TEMA</a>