Improving listeners' experience for movie playback through enhancing dialogue clarity in soundtracks

摘要

This paper presents a method for improving users' quality of experience through processing of movie soundtracks. The dialogue clarity enhancement algorithms were introduced for detecting dialogue in movie soundtrack mixes and then for amplifying the dialogue components. The front channel signals (left, right, center) are analyzed in the frequency domain. The selected partials in the center channel signal, which yield high disparity between left and right channels, are detected as dialogue. Subsequently, the dialogue frequency components are boosted to achieve an increased dialogue intelligibility. Techniques for reduction of artifacts in the processed signal are also introduced. It is done through smoothing in the time domain and in the frequency domain, applied to reduce unpleasant artifacts. The results of objective and subjective tests are provided, which prove that an increased dialogue intelligibility is achieved with the aid of the proposed algorithm. The algorithm is particularly applicable in mobile devices while listening in changing conditions and in the presence of noise. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc All rights reserved.