Hybrid natural and structured audio coding for 3D scenes

Natural and structured audio representations can be characterized by the lack or presence of a model describing the sound, respectively; combination of the two approaches can lead to efficient and improved storage and transmission of both speech and music, mixing less efficient but general technologies with more compact and specialized models. Integration of natural audio tracks with structured sound and 3D spatial processing is a challenging effort, especially when the audio, scene requires high quality and precise synchronization with video and graphic information, as it is the case in professional multimedia and virtual reality frameworks. In this paper natural and structured sound are surveyed and a new player is presented, which supports all the mentioned technologies in a normative context.