[excerpts]

Some decades ago, a salesguy in a high-end audio shop badly misjudged my socioeconomic status and treated me to an ultrahigh-quality recording of an obscure jazz ensemble, played on a $10,000 audio system in an acoustically perfect room. I staggered out goose-bumped and hair-raised, a newly minted audiophile wannabe. …

Turned around, this “object-based compression,” as it’s called, could provide much higher fidelity than that of a typical 16-bit MP3 in an equal-size file. Apple, meanwhile, is reportedly developing a new digital music player that can handle higher-resolution, 24-bit recordings, but who wants pricier, slower downloads that will make your existing music player obsolete? If Thibault’s compression scheme becomes standard, as he hopes it will, we could keep our 16-bit music players, and headphones could easily catch up; a decent pair of $50 earbuds already well exceed the potential of the music that gets poured into them. My kids may go into audio shock when they find out what they’ve been missing. …

So I got in touch with Karlheinz Brandenburg, who, in addition to being director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology in Ilmenau, Germany, is also the audio technology legend who largely developed the MP3 file.  …

I would invite you, then, to visit Disney World’s Haunted Mansion, which features one of the most advanced 3-D sound systems in the world. The technology, based on the work of Brandenburg’s lab, surrounds a crowd of listeners with a ring of loudspeakers placed at intervals of a few feet. Each speaker puts out a slightly different version 
of the sound, acoustically re-
creating the direction-dependent environment in which it was recorded.  …

Meanwhile, Roginska’s group is already putting its technique to work in a 3-D audio software program called AudioMaps, which relies on the gyroscopic sensors in some mobile devices to determine which way the device is pointing. For example, if you were listening to an audio tour of New York City, you could simply point your iWhatever at the Empire State Building and the narration would sound as if it were actually emanating from the building.  …

Read the full article here: http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jun/24-forget-3d-screens-need-3d-audio-real-life

Innovations in 3-D stereoscopic lens design, such as automation, lead broadcasters into the future.

[Excerpt (the Intro)]

Despite the impressive number of movies and TV sports events produced in stereo 3-D, stereoscopic 3-D production remains a specialized, niche application. All of the 3-D stereo lenses are handcrafted and custom made. The glass must meet strict technical and quality control standards. Telephoto lenses for stereo 3-D need to perform according to precise tolerances at every focal length.

During the manufacturing process, the best HD lenses are selected and further modified for stereo 3-D. Many stereo 3-D cinematographers have been using custom-modified versions of Premier HD lenses on such live stereo 3-D productions as the 2010 World Series, the 2010 U.S. Open tennis tournament and the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Performance standards and characteristics have been developed in collaboration with directors of photography on the cutting edge of stereo 3-D, such as James Cameron, as well as with stereo 3-D camera rig manufacturers, such as Vince Pace.

As part of the manufacturing process, user feedback is carefully considered from those who have used stereo 3-D lenses in the field to further perfect the lenses or modify them for specialized applications. For example, lenses have been modified for stereo 3-D aerial camera rigs, such as “cable-cams” that fly over a stadium during a sporting event. HD ENG long-barrel lenses are typically modified for use in conventional stereo 3-D camera rigs. And specialized camera rigs intended for aerial or underwater use require much smaller lenses due to space constraints. …

(section headers)

FIRST AND FOREMOST — LENS DESIGN

MADE TO ORDER

MANY TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS

…

Read the full article here: http://broadcastengineering.com/production/making_stereo_lens/