Surround sound

Surround sound is the concept of expanding the spatial imaging of audio playback from 1 dimension (mono/Left-Right) to two or three dimensions.

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This is often performed for a more realistic audio environment, actively implemented in cinema sound systems, technical theatre, home entertainment, video arcades, computer gaming, and a growing number of other applications.

Related Topics:
Cinema - Technical theatre - Home entertainment - Video arcade - Computer gaming

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Many popular surround sound formats have evolved over the years. They include ambisonics, quadraphonic, Dolby 5.1 Surround sound, DTS, and MP3 Surround.

Related Topics:
Ambisonics - Quadraphonic - Dolby 5.1 Surround - DTS - MP3 Surround

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Surround sound can be created using several methods. The simplest to understand uses several speakers around the listener to play audio coming from different directions. Another approach involves processing the audio using psychoacoustic sound localization methods to simulate a 3D sound field using headphones. The third approach, wave field synthesis, uses a very large number of speakers to generate the "audio hologram" of the original audio in the whole room (as of 2004 the only commercial implementation of this is Iosono).

Related Topics:
Psychoacoustic - Sound localization - Wave field synthesis - As of 2004 - Iosono

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Surround sound is not limited to placement of speakers along a flat (2-dimensional) plane. Vertically-located audio sources can be considered.

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Though generally the province of big-budget movie productions and sophisticated video games, some consumer camcorders (particularly models from Sony) have four-channel surround sound capability either built-in or available as an add-on. Though considered by camcorder reviewers to be of dubious utility, it is nevertheless one of the only ways that someone not using professional equipment can create surround sound. (The MiniDV spec does allow up to four channels of sound, making it theoretically possible for such camcorders, but it is seldom implemented that way.)

Related Topics:
Camcorder - MiniDV

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