Immersive Sound: The Next Step in Audio
The goal of immersive sound is to convince the listener that she or he is somewhere else, explained Adam Clayton Powell III, director of the Viterbi center. “Instead of presenting the listener with a wall of sound [stereo] or an incomplete surround experience [5.1-channel ‘surround sound’], IMSC’s audio immerses the listener in a much more convincing experience.”
Powell said that while immersive sound is optimized for 10.2-channel presentation, it can improve 5.1-channel home theaters, two-channel stereo and even headphones. “After spending an afternoon in the audio lab, even a high-end stereo system sounds pretty tinny,” he said.
“With this new support, IMSC further explores the very limits of immersive sound, sound reproduction and human perception. We are very excited by the potential for this new initiative.”
The partnership with IMSC, now in its 10th year, is part of the USC Annenberg Center's focus on the impact of new communication and information technologies on politics, society and innovation.
“The USC Annenberg Center’s partnership with IMSC and the Immersive Sound project is a concrete example of our common commitment to interdisciplinary research to promote innovation in communications technology,” said Jonathan Aronson, executive director of the USC Annenberg Center for Communication.
The IMSC Immersive Sound project conducts cutting-edge research at the intersection of audio, psychoacoustics and signal processing. The project is developing algorithms for capturing and rendering sound that is indistinguishable from reality, providing an immersive experience for the listener through greater imaging and envelopment capabilities.
The hope is that this kind of immersive experience can become practical for various playback environments such as movie theaters, home theaters, headphones and the desktop computer.
Chris Kyriakakis, IMSC deputy director, will serve as principal investigator for the expanded immersive sound research initiative. He is also the founding director of the IMSC Immersive Audio Laboratory, which for the past 10 years has conducted leading interdisciplinary research efforts in the areas of multichannel audio signal processing, room acoustics and immersive musical performance capture and rendering.
Kyriakakis said immersive sound research will produce milestones in the next year in all four IMSC research clusters: scalable immersive environments, decision support, serious games and human performance engineering.
“We have an opportunity to not only pioneer a new interdisciplinary field,” Kyriakakis said, “but also to make USC the leading institution in immersive sound with research that cuts through traditional school boundaries.”
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The Chronicle of Higher Education mentioned USC’s $6 billion fundraising campaign. The story noted that USC had already raised $1 billion in a “quiet phase,” including the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College.
The Guardian (U.K.) highlighted two major gifts to USC in a list of the 10 biggest philanthropic benefactors in America. The list included the $200 million naming gift from USC Trustee and alumnus David Dornsife and wife Dana Dornsife to the USC Dornsife College, and the $110 million gift from USC Trustee and USC Viterbi School alumnus John Mork and wife Julie to create the USC Mork Family Scholars Program.
The New York Times featured the USC U.S.-China Institute documentary “Assignment: China — The Week that Changed the World.” The documentary, part of a series, examines media coverage of the 1972 Nixon trip that reshaped U.S.-China relations after a quarter century of isolation and hostility. “People look back now and take it for granted that the outcome was preordained,” said the institute’s Mike Chinoy, who produced the documentary. Voice of America also featured the story.
Los Angeles Times featured the Oscar Senti-meter, a tool developed by the USC Annenberg School, Los Angeles Times and IBM that analyzes thousands of tweets about the Academy Awards nominees. The story noted that Mexican actor Demian Bechir received an enormous boost on Twitter the day of the nominations, with a total of 6,893 tweets mentioning him, a 47-fold increase from the day before. The story noted the tool uses language-recognition technology developed in collaboration with USC Viterbi School’s Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab.
The Times of India (India) featured a three-day medical emergency training workshop organized in association with USC. At the workshop, held at GCS Medical College in India, 50 doctors and more than 100 paramedics learned how to improve emergency support systems. William Mallon of the Keck School of USC said that discussion topics included the use of portable ultrasonic devices to scan patients. “The ultrasound applications help physicians make accurate and timely decisions,” he noted. Daily News & Analysis (India) also featured the workshop.
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