JP2000059897A - Sound reproduction device and sound reproduction method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide natural presence by attenuating and delaying an input of a center channel so as to allow a center speaker placed to an upper part in the middle to reproduce the signal and attenuating the input of the center channel so as to reproduce the signal from speakers of the left and right channels distributingly thereby localizing the sound image in the middle in the vertical direction even when the center speaker cannot be placed in the middle. SOLUTION: A delay attenuation means 4 attenuates an input of the center channel from an input terminal 1 and delays it for a prescribed time, an amplifier 5 receiving the input amplifies it and the amplified signal is reproduced from the center speaker 6 placed on an upper part of a central television screen and the input of the central channel is attenuated respectively by attenuation circuits 7L, 7R and adder circuits 8L, 8R add the attenuated signal to signals from a left channel input terminal 2 and a right channel input terminal 3 and left right channel speakers 10L, 10R reproduce the summed signals distributingly so as to localize a sound image in the television screen in the middle thereby allowing the listener to obtain natural presence.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an audio reproducing apparatus suitable for reproducing audio corresponding to video and a method thereof.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, as the transmission quality and recording / reproduction quality of video and audio have become higher, more faithful audio reproduction has been demanded. Channel playback is being performed. FIG. 3 shows a front view of a conventional audio reproducing apparatus. A speaker 20L for reproducing left-channel audio is provided on the left side of the large-screen television 21 disposed at the center, a speaker 20R for reproducing right-channel audio is provided on the right side, and a central channel audio is provided on the television 21. Speaker 16 is disposed. FIG. 3 shows the case of three channels, but includes a case where a speaker is arranged at the rear, and the description of the rear channel is omitted.

[0003]

In the conventional reproducing apparatus arranged as described above, the sound corresponding to the screen of the television 21 is reproduced stereoscopically to the left and right by the speakers 20L and 20R. Is located above the television 21, so that the sound of the center channel can be heard from the top of the screen, and especially the voice of a person can be heard from above even if the person speaking is in the center of the screen. , And the feeling of being incongruous was impaired.

[0004] A reproducing apparatus and a reproducing method of the present invention have been made in order to improve such conventional problems and to reproduce sound with a sense of realism.

[0005]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a reproducing apparatus comprising: a first input terminal for inputting a signal to be reproduced from a center; A second input terminal for inputting a signal, a third input terminal for inputting a signal to be reproduced from the right, a delay attenuating means for delaying and attenuating an input signal from the first input terminal, First and second attenuating means for attenuating the input of the input terminal; first adding means for adding the attenuated output of the first attenuating means to a signal from the second input terminal;
Second adding means for adding the attenuated output of the attenuating means to the signal from the third input terminal, first sound reproducing means for reproducing the output of the delay attenuating means to obtain an acoustic output, and first adding A second audio reproducing means for reproducing an output of the means to obtain an audio output, and a third audio reproducing means for reproducing an output of the second adding means to obtain an audio output; The attenuation degree of the attenuation means is substantially equal and the output sound pressure of the first audio reproduction means is attenuated by the delay attenuation means and added to the first and second audio reproduction means by the first and second attenuation means. The signal is configured such that the total amount of the output sound pressures of the first and second sound reproducing means is substantially equal by the signal.

According to such a configuration, even when the speaker of the center channel is placed on a television or the like and placed at a high place, the input of the center channel is attenuated and delayed for a predetermined time, so that the center television is delayed. By playing back from the center speaker placed at the top of the screen and attenuating the input of the center channel and distributing and playing back from the left and right channel speakers, the problem that the sound of the center channel cannot be localized on the screen of the television is solved. Thus, the sound image is localized in the center television screen to obtain a natural sense of reality.

A second aspect of the present invention is the configuration of the first aspect, wherein the attenuation of the first delay attenuator is approximately 3 dB, and the attenuation of the first and second attenuators is approximately 6 dB each. Yes, with such a configuration, the volume of the center channel can be maintained at the same level as before the implementation.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the configuration of the first aspect, the delay amount and the attenuation amount of the delay attenuating means can be respectively varied. With this configuration, the sense of realism can be changed or the sound image localization of the center channel can be achieved. It works so that the position can be changed up and down and the difference between amplifiers and speakers can be adjusted.

Next, a sound reproducing method according to a fourth aspect of the present invention comprises a central input signal to be reproduced from a central speaker, a left input signal to be reproduced from a left speaker, and a right input signal to be reproduced from a right speaker. The center input signal is delayed for a predetermined time and attenuated by a first predetermined value to be reproduced from the center speaker, and the center input signal is attenuated by a second predetermined value that is substantially equal to each other to obtain a left input signal and a right input signal. The sound image of the central input signal is localized at approximately the center of the left and right speakers by applying the signals to the left and right speakers without delaying the signals and reproducing them from the left speaker and the right speaker. It can be applied to the case where the components are combined and the arrangement is to be variously changed, and it works so that the sound image localization of the center channel speaker can be freely changed.

[0010]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a front view of the audio reproducing apparatus shown in FIG. The outputs of the center, left, and right channels of a surround decoder (not shown) are connected to the input terminal 1 of the center channel, the input terminal 2 of the left channel, and the input terminal 3 of the right channel. The input terminal 1 is connected to delay attenuation means 4 including a delay circuit 4a and an attenuation circuit 4b.
The attenuation circuit 4b may be connected before the delay circuit 4a.
The output of the delay attenuation means 4 is connected to the input of an amplifier 5, and the output of the amplifier 5 is connected to a speaker 6.

The input of the input terminal 1 is further input to attenuation circuits 7L and 7R as first and second attenuation means. The output of the attenuation circuit 7L is an adder 8L having one of its inputs connected to the left channel input terminal 2. Has been entered. The output of the adder 8L is connected to the input of the amplifier 9L, and the output of the amplifier 9L is connected to the left channel speaker 10L.

The output of the attenuation circuit 7R is input to an adder 8R having one of its inputs connected to the right channel input terminal 3. The output of the adder 8R is connected to the input of the amplifier 9R,
The output of the amplifier 9R is connected to the right channel speaker 10R. For simplicity, it is assumed that the amplifiers 5, 9L, and 9R have the same amplification, and the speakers 6, 10L, and 10R have the same efficiency. Although each of the speakers 6, 10L, and 10R is illustrated as a single speaker, a multi-speaker including a plurality of speakers may be used.

The configuration and operation will be described below. As an example, the delay time of the delay circuit 4a is set to 50 milliseconds, the attenuation amount of the attenuation circuit 4b is set to 3 dB, and the attenuation amounts of the attenuation circuits 7L and 7R are each set to 6 dB.

The original center channel audio signal input from the input terminal 1 is delayed by 50 milliseconds by the delay circuit 4a.
Further, since the voltage is attenuated by 3 dB by the voltage gain in the attenuating circuit 4b and amplified by the amplifier 5, the sound pressure from the speaker 6 is reduced to half of the original sound pressure.

The original center channel audio signal is added to the left channel signal input from the input terminal 2 by the adder 8L and attenuated by 6 dB in the voltage gain by the attenuation circuit 7L and amplified by the amplifier 7L. One fourth of the sound pressure of the signal is reproduced from the speaker 10L.

Similarly, the original center channel audio signal is added to the right channel signal input from the input terminal 3 by the adder 8R, attenuated by 6 dB in the voltage gain by the attenuation circuit 7R and amplified by the amplifier 7R. When a quarter of the sound pressure of the audio signal is reproduced from the speaker 10R and the outputs of the left and right speakers 10L and 10R are added, half of the sound pressure of the audio signal of the center channel is reproduced. Therefore, the sound pressure obtained by integrating the outputs of the three speakers is the same as that without these attenuation circuits.

Here, the left and right speakers 10 in FIG.
The audio signals of the center channel from L and 10R are not delayed and have the same volume, so that they are localized in the range 12 substantially at the center of the screen of the television 11. Since the reproduced sound of the speaker 6 is delayed by 50 milliseconds, the sound image localization is greatly affected by the sound from the left and right speakers 10L and 10R that reach the ears earlier due to the Haas effect, and as a result, the sound localization of the center channel is The center channel sound that is largely shifted to the range 12 but not to the position of the speaker 6 and output from the speakers 6, 10L, and 10R is localized within the range 13 as a whole. Then, the volume from the speaker 6 is added to the volume from the speakers 10L and 10R.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the input of the center channel is attenuated and delayed for a predetermined time to be reproduced from the center speaker 6 arranged above the center television screen, and the input of the center channel is attenuated. By distributing and reproducing from the left and right channel speakers, it is possible to localize the sound image in the center television screen and obtain a natural presence.

The sound image localization range 13 can be raised upward toward the speaker 6 by increasing the attenuation of each of the attenuation circuits 7L and 7R from the illustrated values and decreasing the attenuation of the attenuation circuit 4b. it can. This means that the position of the mouth of the person appearing on the screen is usually not at the center of the screen but rather slightly above the screen, so that reproduction can be made more realistically. The most natural localization can be obtained by adjusting the delay time of the delay circuit 4a.

The above-described configuration is naturally used not only when a specific device is used in a specific combination in advance but also when a single device is combined so as to have the above arrangement.

The values of the delay and the attenuation are merely examples,
Can be changed according to the actual situation. For example, if the sensitivities of the left and right channel speakers and the center channel speaker are different, or the sensitivities and outputs of the amplifiers are different, fine adjustment may be made respectively.

Further, the above description has been made on the case where the speaker of the center channel is placed on the television, but the present invention is also applied to the case where it is placed below, in which case the center of the sound image of the left and right speakers is slightly above the center of the screen. By doing so, the sound of the center channel can be localized at the center of the top and bottom of the screen.

[0023]

As described above, according to the audio reproducing apparatus and the audio reproducing method of the present invention, the input of the central channel is attenuated and delayed to reproduce from the central speaker arranged at the upper center, and the input of the central channel is performed. Are attenuated and distributed and reproduced from the left and right channel speakers, so that even when the center speaker cannot be placed at the center, the sound image is localized at the upper and lower centers, and a natural sense of realism can be obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an audio reproducing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a front view of the audio reproducing apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a front view of a conventional audio reproducing apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Input terminal of center channel 2 Input terminal of left channel 3 Input terminal of right channel 4 Delay attenuation means 4a Delay circuit 4b Attenuation circuit 5 Amplifier of central channel 6 Speaker of central channel 7L, 7R Attenuation circuit 8L, 8R Addition circuit 9L, 9R Amplifier 10L, 10R Speaker 11 Television 12, 13 Range where sound image is localized

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Takeshi Sato 1006 Kazuma Kadoma, Kadoma City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. F-term (reference) 5D062 CC13

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A first input terminal for inputting a signal to be reproduced from the center, a second input terminal for inputting a signal to be reproduced from the left, and a third input for inputting a signal to be reproduced from the right. A terminal, delay attenuating means for delaying and attenuating an input signal from the first input terminal, first and second attenuating means for attenuating the input of the first input terminal, and the first attenuation First adding means for adding the attenuation output of the means to the signal from the second input terminal, and second addition for adding the attenuation output of the second attenuation means to the signal from the third input terminal. Means, a first sound reproducing means for reproducing an output of the delay attenuation means to obtain an audio output, a second sound reproducing means for reproducing an output of the first adding means to obtain an audio output, A third sound which reproduces the output of the second adding means to obtain an acoustic output Voice reproducing means, wherein the degree of attenuation of the second and third attenuating means is substantially equal and the amount of output sound pressure of the first sound reproducing means attenuated by the delay attenuating means is determined by the first and second The total amount of output sound pressures of the first and second sound reproducing means is substantially equal to each other by a signal applied to the first and second sound reproducing means by the attenuating means. Audio playback device. 2. The audio reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the amount of attenuation of the first delay attenuator is approximately 3 dB, and the amount of attenuation of the first and second attenuators is approximately 6 dB. 3. The audio reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the delay amount and the attenuation amount of the delay attenuating means are respectively variable. 4. A central input signal to be reproduced from a center speaker, a left input signal to be reproduced from a left speaker, and a right input signal to be reproduced from a right speaker, and the central input signal is determined by a predetermined method. Delayed by time and attenuated by a first predetermined value to reproduce from the center speaker, and attenuated the central input signal by a second predetermined value which is substantially equal to each other and delayed to the left input signal and the right input signal, respectively. A sound reproduction method characterized in that a sound image of a central input signal is localized substantially at the center of the left and right speakers by applying the sound signal and reproducing the sound from a left speaker and a right speaker.