It has certainly been a while since I last posted on here.

For the past few months I have been working on my dissertation for the masters degree I have I have been on for the past two years (who’s bright idea was it to do it part time…?).

I have chosen to work on an aspect of post production; I am looking at in particular the way in which speaker systems (stereo, 5.1) can be reproduced through headphones.

An increasing number of people are consuming media through smartphones and tablet devices, the visuals are rendered specifically for the device it is on, yet the audio is kept in stereo. In order to develop this further the use of binaural rendering can be used to reproduce the speaker layout.

Scientifically this type of reproduction has been achieved and tested, but the developments haven’t really made it into the commercial realm. Literature suggests that the reason is is that we are so used to the typical stereo field that surround and 3D audio can be jarring. The thing is, we are just not used to hearing things in the 3D realm.

Companies have experimented and tried working with this type of post production;  Sennheiser produced a complete binaural film using their Ambeo Smart Headset and Ambeo plug in.The BBC have been working on binaural broadcasting since 2012 and have even included Dr Who in the experiment with the binaural episode “Knock Knock”.

Bringing this type of audio listening to the public attention is slowly creeping in and if done right, could change the way we engage with AV media.

The purpose of my dissertation is to test different reproduction techniques to determine the immersive qualities of binaural reproduction for use in mobile entertainment, inflight entertainment and personal listening in general. Over the past few months I have gone from wanting to create a binaural piece, to experimenting with static binaural rendering to finally looking at head-tracked binaural rendering.

My research so far has seen me testing and using different plug-ins, experimenting with head tracking software and rendering work out to different speaker configurations for headphone listening. I am still a bit off perfecting everything but through the chaos of working full time; I am slowly getting round to reading and producing material and hope to begin testing after Easter.

I am going to start updating this blog a bit more with things for people to check out and explore themselves, not only to get the idea across and interact with others but also to keep me motivated.

Remember-Headphones are essential.