AudioBIFS: Describing audio scenes with the MPEG-4 multimedia standard

Author

Scheirer, Eric D. ; Väänänen, Riitta ; Huopaniemi, Jyri

Author_Institution

Media Lab., MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

1

Issue

3

fYear

1999

fDate

9/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

237

Lastpage

250

Abstract

We present an overview of the AudioBIFS system, part of the Binary Format for Scene Description (BIFS) tool in the MPEG-4 International Standard. AudioBIFS is the tool that integrates the synthetic and natural sound coding functions in MPEG-4. It allows the flexible construction of soundtracks and sound scenes using compressed sound, sound synthesis, streaming audio, interactive and terminal-dependent presentation, three-dimensional (3-D) spatialization, environmental auralization, and dynamic download of custom signal-processing effects algorithms. MPEG-4 sound scenes are based on a model that is a superset of the model in VRML 2.0, and we describe how MPEG-4 is built upon VRML and the new capabilities provided by MPEG-4. We discuss the use of structured audio orchestra language, the MPEG-4 SAOL, for writing downloadable effects, present an example sound scene built with AudioBIFS, and describe the current state of implementations of the standard

Keywords

audio coding; multimedia computing; standards; virtual reality languages; AudioBIFS system; Binary Format for Scene Description; MPEG-4; MPEG-4 SAOL; compressed sound; multimedia standard; sound coding functions; sound scenes; sound synthesis; soundtracks; streaming audio; structured audio orchestra language; Audio coding; Helium; ISO standards; Laboratories; Layout; MPEG 4 Standard; Multimedia systems; Signal synthesis; Streaming media; Writing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Multimedia, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1520-9210

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/6046.784463

Filename

784463