Acoustic zooming based on real-time metadata control

Zooming is a ubiquitous feature of camera in audiovisual capture system. However, a camera zooming effect is often not complemented with an acoustic zooming (AZ) to match the scene motions. In this paper, we summarize sound source perception mechanisms in psychoacoustic, and propose a general theory of sound field manipulation and reproduction to attain an acoustic zooming effect. A system of automatically controlled acoustic zooming has been designed, which based on camera real-time metadata information embedded in digital video broadcast system. Experimental results using a microphone array recorder and a professional camcorder confirm that the proposed approach and designed system is suited for television program production application.