Predicting Preferred Dialogue-to-Background Loudness Difference in Dialogue-Separated Audio

Resti L, Strauß M, Torcoli M, Habets E, Edler B (2023)

Publication Type: Conference contribution, Conference Contribution

Publication year: 2023

Publisher: IEEE

Conference Proceedings Title: 2023 15th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX)

Event location: Ghent, Belgium

ISBN: 979-8-3503-1174-7

DOI: 10.1109/QoMEX58391.2023.10178553

Abstract

Dialogue Enhancement (DE) enables the rebalancing of dialogue and background sounds to fit personal preferences and needs in the context of broadcast audio. When individual audio stems are unavailable from production, Dialogue Separation (DS) can be applied to the final audio mixture to obtain esti-mates of these stems. This work focuses on Preferred Loudness Differences (PLDs) between dialogue and background sounds. While previous studies determined the PLD through a listening test employing original stems from production, stems estimated by DS are used in the present study. In addition, a larger variety of signal classes is considered. PLDs vary substantially across individuals (average interquartile range: 5.7 LU). Despite this variability, PLDs are found to be highly dependent on the signal type under consideration, and it is shown that median PLDs can be predicted using objective intelligibility metrics. Two existing baseline prediction methods - intended for use with original stems - displayed a Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 7.5 LU and 5 LU, respectively. A modified baseline (MAE: 3.2 LU) and an alternative approach (MAE: 2.5 LU) are proposed. Results support the viability of processing final broadcast mixtures with DS and offering an alternative remixing that accounts for median PLDs.

Authors with CRIS profile

Martin Strauß International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (AudioLabs) Matteo Torcoli International Audio Laboratories Erlangen (AudioLabs) Emanuël Habets Lehrstuhl für wahrnehmungsbasierte räumliche Audiosignalverarbeitung (Stiftungslehrstuhl) Bernd Edler Lehrstuhl für Audiosignalanalyse (AudioLabs) (Stiftungslehrstuhl)

Involved external institutions

Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Schaltungen (IIS) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Resti, L., Strauß, M., Torcoli, M., Habets, E., & Edler, B. (2023). Predicting Preferred Dialogue-to-Background Loudness Difference in Dialogue-Separated Audio. In 2023 15th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX). Ghent, Belgium: IEEE.

MLA:

Resti, Luca, et al. "Predicting Preferred Dialogue-to-Background Loudness Difference in Dialogue-Separated Audio." Proceedings of the 2023 15th International Conference on Quality of Multimedia Experience (QoMEX), Ghent, Belgium IEEE, 2023.

BibTeX: Download