Patents by Inventor Spencer Hooks

Spencer Hooks has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20150350804
    Abstract: Embodiments are described for rendering spatial audio content through a system that is configured to reflect audio off of one or more surfaces of a listening environment. The system includes an array of audio drivers distributed around a room, wherein at least one driver of the array of drivers is configured to project sound waves toward one or more surfaces of the listening environment for reflection to a listening area within the listening environment and a renderer configured to receive and process audio streams and one or more metadata sets that are associated with each of the audio streams and that specify a playback location in the listening environment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 28, 2013
    Publication date: December 3, 2015
    Applicant: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Brett G. CROCKETT, Spencer HOOKS, Alan SEEFELDT, Joshua B. LANDO, C. Phillip BROWN, Sripal S. MEHTA, Stewart MURRIE
  • Publication number: 20150235645
    Abstract: In some embodiments, a method (typically performed by a game console) for generating an object based audio program indicative of game audio content (audio content pertaining to play of or events in a game, and optionally also other information regarding the game), and including at least one audio object channel and at least one speaker channel. In other embodiments, a game console configured to generate such an object based audio program. Some embodiments implement object clustering in which audio content of input objects is mixed to generate at least one clustered audio object, or audio content of at least one input object is mixed with speaker channel audio. In response to the program, a spatial rendering system (e.g., external to the game console) may operate with knowledge of playback speaker configuration to generate speaker feeds indicative of a spatial mix of the program's speaker and object channel content.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 6, 2013
    Publication date: August 20, 2015
    Applicant: DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION
    Inventors: S. Spencer Hooks, Nicolas R. Tsingos
  • Publication number: 20150228286
    Abstract: Methods and apparatuses are disclosed that can combine audio content from two encoded input signals into a new encoded output signal without requiring a decode or re-encode of audio content in either encoded input signal. Encoded data representing audio content and spatial location of audio objects in two different input encoded signals are combined to generate an encoded output signal that has encoded data representing audio objects from both of the input encoded signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 26, 2013
    Publication date: August 13, 2015
    Applicant: DOLBY LABORATORIES LICENSING CORPORATION
    Inventors: S. Spencer Hooks, Freddie Sanchez
  • Publication number: 20150223002
    Abstract: Embodiments are described for a system of rendering object-based audio content through a system that includes individually addressable drivers, including at least one driver that is configured to project sound waves toward one or more surfaces within a listening environment for reflection to a listening area within the listening environment; a renderer configured to receive and process audio streams and one or more metadata sets associated with each of the audio streams and specifying a playback location of a respective audio stream; and a playback system coupled to the renderer and configured to render the audio streams to a plurality of audio feeds corresponding to the array of audio drivers in accordance with the one or more metadata sets.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 28, 2013
    Publication date: August 6, 2015
    Applicant: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Sripal S. Mehta, Brett G. Crockett, Spencer Hooks, Alan Seefeldt, Christophe Chabanne, C. Phillip Brown, Joshua B. Lando, Brad Basler, Stewart Murrie
  • Publication number: 20150146873
    Abstract: Embodiments are described for a method and system of rendering and playing back spatial audio content using a channel-based format. Spatial audio content that is played back through legacy channel-based equipment is transformed into the appropriate channel-based format resulting in the loss of certain positional information within the audio objects and positional metadata comprising the spatial audio content. To retain this information for use in spatial audio equipment even after the audio content is rendered as channel-based audio, certain metadata generated by the spatial audio processor is incorporated into the channel-based data. The channel-based audio can then be sent to a channel-based audio decoder or a spatial audio decoder. The spatial audio decoder processes the metadata to recover at least some positional information that was lost during the down-mix operation by upmixing the channel-based audio content back to the spatial audio content for optimal playback in a spatial audio environment.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 17, 2013
    Publication date: May 28, 2015
    Applicant: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Christophe Chabanne, Brett Crockett, Spencer Hooks, Alan Seefeldt, Nicolas R. Tsingos, Mark Tuffy, Rhonda Wilson
  • Publication number: 20150057779
    Abstract: Non-media data relating to real-world objects or persons are collected from a scene while media data from the same scene are collected. The media data comprise audio data only or audiovisual data, whereas the non-media data comprise telemetry data and/or non-telemetry data. Based at least in part on the non-media data relating to the real-world objects or persons in the scene, emitter-listener relationships between a listener and some or all of the real-world objects or persons are determined Audio objects comprising audio content portions and non-audio data portions are generated. At least one audio object is generated based at least in part on the emitter-listener relationships.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 16, 2014
    Publication date: February 26, 2015
    Applicant: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventors: Prinyar Saungsomboon, S. Spencer Hooks, Joshua Brandon Lando, Stewart Murrie, Eric Whelan Yeargan