Abstract: Immersive environments for teleconferencing, collaborative shared spaces and entertainment require spatial audio. Such environments may have non-ideal sound reproduction conditions (loudspeaker positioning, listener placement or listening room geometry) where wavefront-synthesis techniques, such as ambisonics, will not give listeners the correct audio spatialization. A method disclosed for generating a sound field from a spatialized original audio signal, wherein the original signal is configured to produce an optimal sound percept at one predetermined ideal location. A plurality of output signal components are generated, each for reproduction by one of an array of loudspeakers. Antiphase output components are attenuated such that their contribution to the spatial sound percept is reduced for locations other than the predetermined ideal location.

Abstract: Communications equipment is tested for perceptually relevant distortions introduced by the equipment by generating indications of the extent to which such distortion would be perceptible to a human observer, and processing high-level application data received with the input stimulus and/or generated locally relating to the intended content of the input stimulus. This allows the perceptual relevance of different distortion types to be weighted in the final output from the perceptual layer according to the nature of the signal being transmitted. The high-level information may be of a general nature, defining the type of information content in the input signal (e.g. music or speech) or may be highly defined, e.g. the input signal accompanying a video input specifying which of a limited set of objects in a virtual world is to be depicted, such that a reference copy of the image, or characteristic features of such objects can be retrieved from a store.

Abstract: An apparatus for improving signal quality in a communications link includes apparatus for regenerating only the speech-like characteristics of signals received over the communications link so that an estimate of the original speech signal can be retransmitted. The apparatus may include a vocal tract model coupled to a synthesizer.

Abstract: A test signal data structure for supporting the data manipulation functions during testing of a telecommunications apparatus includes a succession of segments of real or synthetic speech which includes different successions of the same sounds; rarely occurring sounds; and sounds at extremes of level, pitch and duration, so as to be similar to natural speech with redundancy removed. In analyzing the performance of the telecommunications apparatus the analyzer takes into account the frequency of occurrence of each sound in natural speech.

Abstract: A test signal for a telecommunications apparatus includes a succession of segments of real or synthetic speech which includes different successions of the same sounds; rarely occurring sounds; and sounds at extremes of level, pitch and duration, so as to be similar to natural speech with redundancy removed. In analyzing the performance of the telecommunications apparatus the analyzer takes into account the frequency of occurrence of each sound in natural speech.

Abstract: An apparatus for monitoring signal quality in a communications link is provided which recognizes speech elements in signals received over the communications link and generates therefrom an estimate of the original speech signal, and compares the estimated signal with the actual received signal to provide an output based on the comparison.

Abstract: Telecommunications testing apparatus includes an analyzer arranged to receive a distorted signal which corresponds to a test signal when distorted by telecommunications aparatus to be tested. The analyzer periodically derives, from the distorted signal, a plurality of spectral component signals responsive to the distortion in each of a plurality of spectral bands, over a succession of time intervals. The analyzer generates a measure of the subjective impact of the distortion due to the telecommunications apparatus, the measure of subjective impact being calculated to depend upon the spread of the distortion over time and/or over the spectral bands.