The Value of Audio, the Meaning of AI Codec and the Boundary of Algorithmic Ability丨One session, one session • Audio engineer session

foreword

The development of audio technology to this day has gone through the process from analog audio to digital audio. The International Society of Audio Engineers was founded in 1948. China's digital audio technology started relatively late, and has been monopolized by foreign organizations and companies for a long time. With the continuous development of China and the advancement of science and technology, after nearly 30 years of hard work, we have accumulated a lot of our own audio technology experts and scholars in speech recognition reconstruction, sound field reproduction, digital audio communication, etc. technological gap with the West.

In order to better promote industry exchanges, strengthen China's power in the audio field, and popularize the public's understanding and cognition of audio technology, we have launched a "one session, one meeting " event for experts in the audio field, hoping to create more audio technology practitioners. A platform for full communication, we are delighted to see many meaningful and valuable sparks of thought in the event, and we hope that "one session and one session" can carry and ignite the dreams of more audio technicians.

—— Sound Network Technology Partner, Audio Codec Expert

This article is based on the content discussed in the "One Session • Audio Engineer Session", and the opinions are for reference only.

01 On how to tell the value of audio

After the development of Internet audio technology in the past ten or twenty years, it has developed from a "sound" to a "sound" stage. In many business scenarios, the implementation has reached a level of more than 90 points, and the difficulty of continuing to improve has begun to increase sharply, so the ROI of continued investment has begun to be questioned.

Under the premise of the introversion of the audio and video live broadcast industry, the demands of engineers to climb the technical peak have become high and low. In the field of ToB and ToC, how to fully and clearly express the value of audio technology becomes particularly important. This involves both the so-called lack of craftsmanship and the challenge of persuading corporate managers.

In addition, the lack of a unified standard for the evaluation of audio quality, the pursuit of short-term goals in the process of enterprise development and other constraints make the value of audio easily overlooked.

But overall, there is still a lot of scene-based landing work in the field of audio, especially WebRTC, which can continue to be developed, and there are still many problems to be solved in more sub-fields such as music. Considering the generation difference of technology implementation, there are bound to be many challenges in the process of engineering realization, which is where the value of engineers can be demonstrated.

02 The study and innovation of audio engineers

From the perspective of changes in the international situation, the decoupling of China and the United States is bound to have more technical bottlenecks. It can be seen from the chip industry, such as chip process manufacturing (TSMC), equipment materials (lithography machine, etching machine, ion implanter), design IP core and EDA software (instruction set ARM, X86, etc.).

Going back to the audio field, there is also the same bottleneck. Then in these links, domestic products, technologies and standards (such as AVS) will inevitably be produced, and they will be differentiated according to domestic scenarios and application status. At the same time, it will also bring more opportunities, and audio engineers should pay more attention to innovative technologies and prepare for the upcoming tuyere. Don't be satisfied with finding a project you need on GitHub and just "use it", do more research, seek better implementation, and cultivate your own motivation and willingness to innovate.

03 The Boundary of Algorithmic Capability

At present, there are problems such as intensified competition in the audio circle and boundary of algorithm capabilities. In addition to finding new power points, engineers themselves also need to improve their self-cultivation to break through capability boundaries or solve specific problems in specific business scenarios.

From acquisition to playback, the algorithm of each link still has room for optimization. Some optimizations, possibly with the help of AI. However, the optimization of AI will need to be done from the bottom of the hardware, such as using DSP to improve performance, so that higher-complexity algorithms can be implemented on mobile terminals (such as Qualcomm platforms), so as to achieve a better audio experience for some scenarios.

04 About the meaning of AI Codec

Even from the extreme direction of low bit rate, there will still be unexpected application scenarios coming to Codec to the extreme. For example, even in today's 5G era, weak network scenarios are still very common. From the perspective of the ultimate pursuit of human-to-human communication experience, the current development of the industry has only solved the problem of intelligibility, and there is still a long way to go before the demand for immersive experience . In addition, the potential of AI Codec in general scenarios (music and speech) still has a lot of potential to be tapped.

05 End-to-end audio optimized track resistance and long

From an engineering point of view, the improvement of the audio experience still requires the end-to-end optimization of each link one by one in order to improve the user experience as a whole. However, end-to-end optimization is a systematic project, which often consumes a lot of time and energy, and requires overall planning and scheduling.

06 Be based on scenarios rather than specific problems

Similar to the topic of end-to-end optimization, engineers must solve problems based on the application scenario of the product, not based on one or some specific problems. Because the former will make people think from the perspective of the system and the overall situation, and the benefits will be much greater than solving specific problems.

07 Metaverse and Audio Technology

From the perspective of technological development, there has been no breakthrough innovation in the audio field for a long time. The outlet of the Metaverse may bring new (technological landing) scenarios. For example, the experience of immersive audio will become standard; but the existing software and hardware environment is still a certain distance from the realization of the idea of the Metaverse; subdivided into specific such as spatial audio, the current technology is relatively mature and will be implemented soon . The entire industry is looking forward to Metaverse to bring new breakthroughs. For engineers, they must accumulate technology from a business perspective.

08 Generation difference of technology landing

Looking back at the history of the development of the audio industry, it is not difficult to find that the large-scale application of any mature technology (especially for civilian use) has a long generation gap. For audio engineers at the forefront, how to overcome the gap between technical self-promotion and business landing is a big challenge.

But what people tend to overlook is that the technological change of an industry is not achieved overnight, and usually manifests as the accumulation of continuous quantitative changes ─ it is precisely because everyone is in it (the audio industry) coupled with the generational difference of technology landing, the illusion caused by And the perception will not be so strong that you "don't know the true face of Mount Lu". Who would have thought five years ago that phone calls would look like video calls on mobile phones today? And the new generation's demand for immersive experience is gradually becoming a reality - which has already begun to emerge in today's game industry.

09 Potential opportunities in the Hi-Fi market

At present, the Hi-Fi headset market is polarized, and there are obvious market products at the mid-end price, especially for young people. From the perspective of the global manufacturing structure, there are great opportunities for domestic brands.

The current challenge is that giants will more easily seize this market by virtue of their industrial chain advantages, so they still need to have some barriers that are "not easy to replicate" . And more importantly, learn to tell the story of the audio experience clearly for the user. Just like Apple's efforts from content source, audio algorithm, and device layout step by step, until the release of Airpods Pro, the story map of "spatial audio" was presented to users. Now Airpod has become the most successful product in this field.

About "One Issue One Meeting"

"One Issue One Meeting" is an offline gathering and exchange activity of audio technology engineers initiated and organized by SoundNet. Engineers from upstream and downstream of the audio industry focus on the core topic of " the most fulfilling thing in the past six months, thinking on hot technologies and industry development " discuss. It has been held for many times in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places for half a year since its launch, attracting more than 100 industry experts from audio software and hardware manufacturers, audio and video Internet service providers, universities and research institutes, and standards organizations.

What opinions or questions do you have about audio and video technology or the industry? Welcome to contact us by private message or message . Maybe the next issue can answer you, or invite you to participate in our offline activities.