ES2703606A1 - AUDIO SIGNAL CODING DEVICE (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding) - Google Patents

Abstract

Coding device for audio signals. The device allows to analyze in real time the audible spectrum, extract the information that causes the structural transmission of the sound to the adjoining enclosures and transpose it by coding it in other areas of the audible spectrum, according to the psychophysical effect of "the fundamental loss". The device also performs a recognition of the acoustic fingerprint of the song being played. The device, which is connected to the sound equipment of a musical activity, has one or several sensors located in the premises itself or in the adjacent enclosures, which obtain statistics of the real behavior of the sound against the expected theoretical value, in order to apply the necessary corrections in real time. These statistics are stored on a stable physical medium and can be transmitted to a remote server through the internet. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding)

Description

DESCRIPTION

Coding device for audio signals.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an audio signal encoding device, which is connected to the sound equipment of a musical activity and whose processing algorithm analyzes in real time the audible spectrum, extracts the information that causes the structural transmission of the sound to the adjacent enclosures and transposes coding it in other areas of the audible spectrum, according to the psychophysical effect of "the fundamental loss".

The device, which intervenes in the entire sound chain, also performs a recognition of the acoustic fingerprint of the song being played.

The device has one or several sensors located in the premises or in the adjacent enclosures, which obtain statistics of the real behavior of the sound against the expected theoretical value, in order to apply the necessary corrections in real time.

These statistics are stored on a stable physical medium and can be transmitted to a remote server through the internet. An internal clock activates or deactivates the audio output depending on the date and time or in emergency situations. In addition, a screen shows data of interest to the user.

The object of the invention is therefore to provide a device for reducing noise pollution without affecting the sound quality and also incorporating acoustic fingerprint identification means.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Musical venues located in residential areas are a source of noise pollution for adjoining venues. In these cases, pollution is transmitted mainly in the form of vibration through the building's building elements and the low frequencies of the audible spectrum are those that contribute the most to its propagation.

Although the acoustic isolation of the elements is practiced, the result will always be insufficient for the musical emission levels of these activities, especially in the low frequencies.

In this regard, local regulations have limited the levels of immission in the adjoining venues, depending on the use made of them, which seriously affects the musical levels of the venues being, in most cases, clearly insufficient for the normal functioning of the activity.

To solve this problem, in the market there are two types of products designed to prevent the transmission of sound to the adjacent enclosures: on the one hand, there are those that simply attenuate the signal delivered to the amplifying stages, up to a pre-established value that guarantees compliance with the regulations and that entails a significant loss of emission level and the impossibility of normal development of the activity.

On the other, there are those that modify the original spectrum, adapting it to the acoustic isolation of the premises measured by standardized methods, causing a variation of the original tone of the sound, a loss of dynamics and therefore of musical quality, which is not accepted by the professionals. sound.

At the same time, the intellectual property law obliges musical activities to pay an economic consideration to the authors or owners of rights for the use of their works. The purpose of the copyright management entities is the management of exploitation or other proprietary rights, for the account and in the interest of several authors or other owners of intellectual property rights. These entities, which in Spain have been constituted as associations of holders of intellectual property rights (authors, artists, producers, etc.), grant users authorizations to use the rights of the collectives of owners they represent in exchange for a fee fixed whose amount depends on the type of activity, surface, etc.

The collection obtained is distributed according to a management contract signed between the owner and the management entity, which does not take into account the number of times in which each work has been reproduced.

It would therefore be fair to identify the author of each of the issues that are issued in the premises musical and distribute the collection based on these data.

The existing products in the market destined to the detection of acoustic fingerprint, receive the signal of line coming from the sources of audio of the sound equipment, but they do not take part in the whole of the sound chain. In addition, they do not incorporate mechanisms that prevent their manipulation, which makes them highly vulnerable and unreliable.

In short, there is no device on the market aimed at reducing noise pollution, which also incorporates means of identifying acoustic fingerprint and which is equipped with anti-tampering mechanisms.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The audio signal encoding device that is advocated satisfactorily solves the aforementioned problems based on a simple but effective solution.

For this, the device of the invention is based on the analysis of the "effect of the fundamental loss", studied in psychophysics, according to which the perception of the tone of a set of harmonics is identical to the tone of the fundamental frequency from which They have been generated, although this does not really exist, that is, although the information is not in the real physical wave, the human brain is able to reconstruct it and perceive it as if it were.

More specifically, the device analyzes sound in real time, extracts the information that causes the transmission of sound to the adjacent enclosures and encodes it according to the "effect of the fundamental loss", transferring it to areas of the spectrum that are not problematic

During the listening process, the human brain is responsible for completing this information not present in the physical wave, obtaining a high quality acoustic sensation.

Up to now, this phenomenon has never been used to prevent the transmission of sound to the adjacent enclosures.

For this, the original signal is separated into two components: low and medium-high frequencies.

The low frequency component will be coded taking into account "the effect of the fundamental loss" described above, for which it undergoes a harmonic generation step and, subsequently, a filtering stage to eliminate the introduced distortion. the initial half-high frequency component is added.

Although low frequencies do not exist in the output of the device because they have been replaced by their harmonics, thus preventing the transmission of sound to the adjacent enclosures, in the listening process, the brain reconstructs the missing information, completing the spectrum with the frequencies that originated said harmonics and obtaining a sensation of full listening of great quality.

To carry out the described procedure, the invention provides a device that is connected to the sound equipment of the musical activity, between the sound sources and the power stages, intervening in the entire sound chain, in which it establishes a digital audio input, means of conversion of the signal to series, being able to incorporate an analog input in conventional balanced format, also converted to digital series.

The input in serial digital format is analyzed in real time by a processor with great calculation capacity, and is subjected to two algorithms: coding based on the effect of the fundamental loss and acoustic fingerprint recognition.

Once these algorithms are applied, the signal is sent to the output of the device that has identical formats to the input.

For this process to be carried out safely, the device has one or several sensors that record the musical activity. These sensors can be found in the premises or in the adjoining rooms in order to ensure at all times that there is no sound transmission. In addition, they have mechanisms that prevent their manipulation and that of the elements that make up the complete sound equipment. Registered information is stored on a stable physical medium and can be sent to a remote server through an internet connection port for consultation. This port is also used for connection to a remote database with information on musical themes. The device also has a screen that shows important information about the process.

As mentioned above, the device allows extracting the acoustic fingerprint of the subject that is playing.

The acoustic fingerprint is a mathematical representation in the domain of frequency and time, that is, a pattern that identifies the song. These data are sent through the Internet connection port to a database that returns all the information contained about our sample, including title, artist, year, album, etc., so that this information is sent to the copyright management entity.

The elements that make up the device give it the character of inviolability as an element of control. But they also provide additional security against manipulations that other devices on the market do not have for the detection of acoustic fingerprints.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

To complement the description that will be made below and in order to help a better understanding of the characteristics of the invention, according to a preferred embodiment of the same, a set of drawings is included as an integral part of said description. where, with illustrative and non-limiting character, the following has been represented:

Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the signal coding process carried out by the device of the present invention.

Figure 2 shows a schematic view of the device of the invention.

Figure 3 shows a block diagram of the main internal electronic elements participating in the device of the invention.

Figure 4 shows, finally, a schematic diagram of the operation of the device at the time of detecting the acoustic fingerprint of the treated signals.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

In Figure 1, the operation of the device is shown, in accordance with the following operational phases:

• Separation of the original or input signal in two components: low (2) and medium-high (1) frequencies.

• Coding of the low frequency component (2) by submitting it to a harmonic generation stage (3) and, subsequently, to a filtering stage to eliminate the introduced distortion (4).

• Sum (5) of the medium-high signal (1) to the low frequency signal (2) previously treated.

In this way, and although at the output of the device there are no low frequencies because they have been replaced by their harmonics, thus preventing the transmission of sound to the adjacent enclosures, in the listening process, the brain reconstructs the missing information, completing the spectrum with the frequencies that originated said harmonics and obtaining a sensation of full listening of great quality.

For this, the device will be constituted from a housing (8) in which a processor (15) with a large calculation capacity is established, to which a digital audio input (11) is associated, in which they can be coded several audio signals in the specific sound protocols AES / EBU, S / PDIF, ETHERSOUND or other equivalents that is converted to series through a converter (12), and can additionally incorporate an analog input (13) in balanced XLR conventional format , which is converted to digital series through the corresponding converter (14).

The input in serial digital format is analyzed in real time by the processor (15), and is subjected to two algorithms: coding based on the effect of the fundamental loss and acoustic fingerprint recognition.

Once applied these algorithms, the signal is sent to the output (16) of the device that has identical formats to the input: digital with several signals in protocols AES / EBU, S / PDIF, ETHERSOUND or other equivalents, as well as optionally an analog output (17) in conventional balanced XLR format. The latency time of the system must be minimal.

For its part, the device has one or several sensors that record the musical activity (18).

As mentioned above, these sensors can be found in the premises or in the adjoining rooms in order to ensure at all times that there is no sound transmission. In addition, they have physical and electronic anti-tampering systems.

The recorded information is stored in a stable physical medium (19) and can be sent to a remote server through an internet connection port (20) for consultation.

This port is also used for connection to a remote database (7) with information on musical themes.

The device will have a screen (21), visible in figures 2 and 4, in which important information of the process is shown.

Regarding the control of the acoustic fingerprint, the emitted signals are sent through the internet connection port to a database (7), audio, which returns all the information contained about our sample, including title, artist, year, album, etc. This information is sent to the entity (6) of copyright management, in order to achieve a much fairer pricing.

It only remains to note finally that an internal clock activates or deactivates the audio output depending on the date and time or in emergency situations.

Claims (6)

Device for coding audio signals, characterized in that it is constituted from a housing (8) in which a processor (15) is established, to which at least one digital audio input (11) is associated, including the processor (15) means for detecting and encoding the low-frequency component (2) of the audio input signal that causes the transmission of sound to neighboring enclosures, by subjecting it to a step of generating harmonics (3) and , later, to a filtering to eliminate the distortion introduced (4), according to the effect of the fundamental loss, transferring it to areas of the acoustic spectrum that do not contribute to the transmission of sound, as well as means of recognition of the acoustic fingerprint of the input signal, it being provided that the processor (15) is associated to at least one digital output (16), the device being associated with one or more sensors of the acti musicality (18) established in the premises or in the enclosures adjacent to the installation, with the particularity that the device has stable physical support (19) storage, means of connection to a remote server through a port of Internet connection (20) as well as physical and electronic anti-tampering systems. Device for encoding audio signals, according to claim 1, characterized in that it includes a screen (21), for displaying information of the coding process. 3. Device for encoding audio signals, according to claim 1, characterized in that it includes an analog input (13) in conventional balanced XLR format. 4. Device for encoding audio signals, according to claim 1, characterized in that the digital input (11) is associated with a serial converter (12). 5 a.- Device for encoding audio signals, according to claim 3 , characterized in that the analog input (13) is associated with a digital converter (14). Device for coding audio signals, according to claim 1, characterized in that it includes an analog output (17) in conventional balanced XLR format.