3 ms·

Is certainly can add complexity when you consider bandwidth and/or processing constraints.

• Dylan16807 4y ago
  If you figure out a particularly clever way to save on those, sure. But the baseline of "okay, compressed audio isn't very demanding, throw 3x as much bandwidth and processing at it" does not add meaningful complexity.
  • crazygringo 4y ago
    Yup. Joint encoding [1] is really the main thing, but that's something that codecs already do, ever since MP3 with stereo music. The overall point remains: multichannel open container formats exist, and open audio codecs exist. An open standard for 5.1 surround sound, for example, seems like a relatively straightforward combination of the two. I'm not saying you can do it overnight, but compared to other open-source efforts, it's tiny. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_encoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_encoding
    • KerrAvon 4y ago
      Multichannel joint encoding doesn't sound trivial to me. Hmm, it's not: https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH1051313A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/JPH1051313A/en
      • justinclift 4y ago
        Ugh. That just looks like someone's attempt to optimise some aspect, rather than anything fundamentally needed for the concept to work.
  • KerrAvon 4y ago
    That's like saying "we should all drive hydrogen cars because you can just replace all the existing petroleum infrastructure with hydrogen infrastructure." Yes, but you have to execute on that. Any practical use of digital multichannel audio must consider bandwidth and decoding power as constraints.
    • Dylan16807 4y ago
      When we're looking at video content, the audio processing for stereo is a tiny fraction of the bandwidth and power. Tripling that effort barely makes a difference. In terms of petroleum infrastructure, it's like slightly adjusting the ratios at the refinery.