A smart space architecture for location-based spatial audio scenario orchestration

Abstract

Usual multimedia contents are represented as scenarios with markup language such as SMrL, and then delivered to be played back in terminal machines, e.g., PC or STB(Set-Top Box). However, these multimedia presentations are likely limited within single machine presentation where the speakers and display devices are attached together, so the spatial reality is degraded consequently. In order to enhance the spatial reality of an audio scenario presentation, each audio clip in the scenario should be assigned to the separate speaker node located close to the location where the author intended. In this paper, we propose a new architecture called L-DEAR (Location-based Device Ensemble Architecture) to organize a smart space using location information of each node in a local area network environment. The core of the L-DEAR is IBEE(Immediate-But-Ephemeral device Ensemble) which is a set of nodes picked out from the environment for playing assigned audio clips at a given time duration among the whole presentation. We will present the functional modules of L-DEAR and procedures for building IBEE, as well as functional requirements for L-DEAR such as extending the SMIL and using global clock, and show the results of our experimental implementations. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.