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What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to a

What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to audio taking a bigger part in gaming. I'm also looking forward to this tech being used for concert demos. I'd love to strap this on and listen to AC/DC's Live At River Plate, all the sound and the atmosphere of being there! Shame that "no PC support has been announced" [1]. But some enterprising hacker'll get it going, no doubt. [1] http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/18/sonys-ps4-virtual-reality-headset-is-named-project-morpheus-pictures-inside/ http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/03/18/sonys-ps4-virtual-rea...

psykotic 13y ago
> What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to audio taking a bigger part in gaming. With old fashioned two-speaker headphones and binaural recording, you can already achieve a surprising level of audio spatialization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI
- plaguuuuuu 13y ago
  Yerp. Games just don't simulate it very well. People are hyperfocused on graphics and nobody pays attention to audio. However I seem to recall Creative acquiring some audio company that had products with superior audio positioning technology, & basically axed the other product in favour of EAX or whatever its called..? Could be wrong
  - rasz_pl 13y ago
    Aureal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor Creative bancrupted them with legal cost while at the same time using their patented tech without paying. I have Diamond Sonic Impact 90 (Vertex AU8820) next to me on the wall :/ That was and is my best sound card to date.
    - dTal 13y ago
      Wow, it's so great that patents are here to protect the little guys from the big guys. Imagine, without patents, Creative might have just ripped off Aureal instead of ripping them off and suing them to death.
  - epsylon 13y ago
    The vast majority of speakers and headsets usually have abysmally bad technical specifications, even those sold at inflated prices.
- samizdatum 13y ago
  Currently, headphones are pretty much required hardware for VR, because the positions of the speakers relative to the ears are fixed. Achieving realistic binaural audio with external speakers isn't currently feasible because of the need to compensate for reflections and interference, let alone maintaining positionally invariant virtualized audio sources through head rotations and translations. I'm not sure how the "60 virtual speakers" would work (it sounds like marketing terminology), but currently, the state-of-the-art in immersive in-game audio involves constructing an acoustically realistic head model, and harnessing the raytracing abilities of game engines and graphics cards to apply a material-based frequency attenuation curve at each bounce.
  - justincormack 13y ago
    You can do it with a very large number of speakers and phase differences but headphones is much easier.
- mistercow 13y ago
  Actually, with two speaker headphones you can achieve any level of spatialization perceivable by human ears.
  - 72deluxe 13y ago
    This must be true because although our ears are funny shapes, they only have one ear drum each, so we hear in stereo.
rasz_pl 13y ago
>60 virtual speakers oh, so you mean its a stereo headset?
MisterBastahrd 13y ago
I want one of these things for software development. Being able to have one giant screen which encompasses your field of vision could work wonders for developers who feel constrained by monitors. Add in some sort of motion sensor and you can arrange your items on your giant virtual window with your hands. Throw a camera on the front of it so that when you need to look down at some paperwork, you can still see it.
- 1stop 13y ago
  at 1080p... and what pixel density... it'd have to be pretty high to be bareable
- catshirt 13y ago
  check out https://www.spaceglasses.com/ https://www.spaceglasses.com/ they are essentially a full screen Google Glass with "touch" based UI. i am excited for the opportunity to use something like this as an IDE.
  - 72deluxe 13y ago
    They look very interesting. Steve Mann is on their team I see. He looks very amusing with his Borg-style facial additions and his cheery grin. Hopefully the product will be good. But I can't see myself using one and sat there waving my arms around like a lunatic. Instead of typing on a virtual keyboard, why not just use a laptop or netbook or something? It seems to be built to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
    - catshirt 13y ago
      one benefit is this seems to be, by far, the best hardware for augmented reality. aside... AR boardgames would be cool... it could be good collaboration tool, many people touching/moving parts of the same application (or presentation, etc). and as the video suggests, this interface makes more sense for something like 3d modeling (on paper).
- luxpir 13y ago
deletes 13y ago
60 Virtual speakers What does that even mean? It sounds like clever marketing talk. I bet they have just regular stereo and software. Here, take a pair of good stereo headphones and try this 3d demo. And don't forget to close your eyes. Virtual barber shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  I would agree. With sound, you perceive sounds to be close if they have plenty of bass and far away if this bass content rolls off. You also get phase smearing, where the sound waves coming towards you interact and mush together. A perception of closeness can be achieved by reversing this process, as used by BBE in their products (I have a BBE BMax-T bass preamp that has got this in it; if you take the top off, it's a little chip doing this). I would imagine that they're just processing audio in a way to create a logical spherical arrangement, and sounds that fit into that sphere at certain points have equalisation applied to them to give the psychological effect of being far away or close; in effect, most things can be done with equalisation! For example, guitar effects boxes these day commonly "simulate" cabinets. Each speaker cabinet has its own resonant frequency, and the speakers in it also have certain frequency responses (they are not flat responses), hence the reason 4x12" Marshall cabs sound a certain way. The speakers also have sharp treble roll-offs, so these cabinet simulators are just putting an equaliser on the output signal that sounds like the frequency response of a particular cabinet. This is also the reason that signals taken from an amplifier's "direct out" that doesn't have this EQ applied sound fizzy - the sound doesn't have the same response as the speaker (which happens to be really ineffective at converting the input signal to the output sound), and so the guitarist will compare the speaker sound to the "direct out" sound and think the "direct out" sounds rubbish! In reality, the sound they are expecting to hear is the massively coloured sound of the speaker but they are hearing the true-sounding DI tone. (Your ears are far more responsive to middle/treble frequencies and not bass, but bass gives the feeling of power and treble the perception of loudness, hence the reason most "rock" equalisers on hifis or MP3 players boost those two, so you think "Wow, this is really powerful and LOUD!") BTW, that's a great demo. Haven't heard that in ages.
- anjc 13y ago
sillysaurus3 13y ago
I bought a Razer Tiamat a couple years ago (a true 7.1 surround sound headset) and it was one of the best purchases I've ever made. Imagine living your life with one eye closed, then suddenly having the opportunity to open both eyes, and how surprising it would be to realize that you have depth perception, etc. That's sort of what experiencing true surround sound is like. It requires a bit of tweaking to get configured properly though, which led to a lot of negative reviews or people leaving reviews saying they weren't impressed. Experiencing actual 7.1 surround sound headphones (rather than simulated surround) is kind of like a mini version of experiencing the Oculus Rift for the first time, in terms of the "wow" factor when you finally get it working properly. What Rift is to eyes, the Tiamat is to ears. The reason headphones have had just two speakers till now is because people have two ears, so we've incorrectly assumed that that's all that's needed. But human ears are designed to capture 3D positional audio. Two speakers means there are only two positions that audio can come from. 7.1 headphones simply blow everything else out of the water. It's a very visceral experience that's hard to articulate. The takeaway is that having a headset which is capable of physically producing soundwaves from 7 different directions at once is one of the coolest experiences that any gamer can have. For casual gamers, it enhances the experience and immersion of any game. For competitive gamers, you can hear people sneaking up behind you, so you gain a competitive advantage. All of this means that real (not simulated) 7.1 surround sound is a valuable idea which till now has seemingly been overlooked by the gaming industry. The first industry player that delivers a true positional surround sound experience to the masses stands to profit handsomely, whether it's Oculus or Sony or someone else. So build it! (That said, I have no idea what 60 virtual speakers means, but I wanted to share my experience with true positional surround sound. Also, the surround sound headset works fine in tandem with the Rift. So until the Oculus guys realize how important 3D positional audio is and ship their next product with a pair of surround sound headphones, you can get the same effect right now from the Tiamat.)
- numo16 13y ago
  > then suddenly having the opportunity to open both eyes, and how surprising it would be to realize that you have depth perception As someone who is stereoblind, I really wish opening both eyes leading to depth perception were true for all of us...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jameswilsterman 13y ago
BTW, if you have a Jambox, you can demo binaural (3D) sound by installing this update: https://jawbone.com/liveaudio https://jawbone.com/liveaudio

psykotic 13y ago

> What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to audio taking a bigger part in gaming. With old fashioned two-speaker headphones and binaural recording, you can already achieve a surprising level of audio spatialization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI

plaguuuuuu 13y ago
Yerp. Games just don't simulate it very well. People are hyperfocused on graphics and nobody pays attention to audio. However I seem to recall Creative acquiring some audio company that had products with superior audio positioning technology, & basically axed the other product in favour of EAX or whatever its called..? Could be wrong
- rasz_pl 13y ago
  Aureal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor Creative bancrupted them with legal cost while at the same time using their patented tech without paying. I have Diamond Sonic Impact 90 (Vertex AU8820) next to me on the wall :/ That was and is my best sound card to date.
  - dTal 13y ago
    Wow, it's so great that patents are here to protect the little guys from the big guys. Imagine, without patents, Creative might have just ripped off Aureal instead of ripping them off and suing them to death.
- epsylon 13y ago
  The vast majority of speakers and headsets usually have abysmally bad technical specifications, even those sold at inflated prices.
samizdatum 13y ago
Currently, headphones are pretty much required hardware for VR, because the positions of the speakers relative to the ears are fixed. Achieving realistic binaural audio with external speakers isn't currently feasible because of the need to compensate for reflections and interference, let alone maintaining positionally invariant virtualized audio sources through head rotations and translations. I'm not sure how the "60 virtual speakers" would work (it sounds like marketing terminology), but currently, the state-of-the-art in immersive in-game audio involves constructing an acoustically realistic head model, and harnessing the raytracing abilities of game engines and graphics cards to apply a material-based frequency attenuation curve at each bounce.
- justincormack 13y ago
  You can do it with a very large number of speakers and phase differences but headphones is much easier.
mistercow 13y ago
Actually, with two speaker headphones you can achieve any level of spatialization perceivable by human ears.
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  This must be true because although our ears are funny shapes, they only have one ear drum each, so we hear in stereo.

rasz_pl 13y ago

>60 virtual speakers oh, so you mean its a stereo headset?

MisterBastahrd 13y ago

I want one of these things for software development. Being able to have one giant screen which encompasses your field of vision could work wonders for developers who feel constrained by monitors. Add in some sort of motion sensor and you can arrange your items on your giant virtual window with your hands. Throw a camera on the front of it so that when you need to look down at some paperwork, you can still see it.

1stop 13y ago
at 1080p... and what pixel density... it'd have to be pretty high to be bareable
catshirt 13y ago
check out https://www.spaceglasses.com/ https://www.spaceglasses.com/ they are essentially a full screen Google Glass with "touch" based UI. i am excited for the opportunity to use something like this as an IDE.
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  They look very interesting. Steve Mann is on their team I see. He looks very amusing with his Borg-style facial additions and his cheery grin. Hopefully the product will be good. But I can't see myself using one and sat there waving my arms around like a lunatic. Instead of typing on a virtual keyboard, why not just use a laptop or netbook or something? It seems to be built to fix a problem that doesn't exist.
  - catshirt 13y ago
    one benefit is this seems to be, by far, the best hardware for augmented reality. aside... AR boardgames would be cool... it could be good collaboration tool, many people touching/moving parts of the same application (or presentation, etc). and as the video suggests, this interface makes more sense for something like 3d modeling (on paper).
luxpir 13y ago

deletes 13y ago

60 Virtual speakers What does that even mean? It sounds like clever marketing talk. I bet they have just regular stereo and software. Here, take a pair of good stereo headphones and try this 3d demo. And don't forget to close your eyes. Virtual barber shop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

72deluxe 13y ago
I would agree. With sound, you perceive sounds to be close if they have plenty of bass and far away if this bass content rolls off. You also get phase smearing, where the sound waves coming towards you interact and mush together. A perception of closeness can be achieved by reversing this process, as used by BBE in their products (I have a BBE BMax-T bass preamp that has got this in it; if you take the top off, it's a little chip doing this). I would imagine that they're just processing audio in a way to create a logical spherical arrangement, and sounds that fit into that sphere at certain points have equalisation applied to them to give the psychological effect of being far away or close; in effect, most things can be done with equalisation! For example, guitar effects boxes these day commonly "simulate" cabinets. Each speaker cabinet has its own resonant frequency, and the speakers in it also have certain frequency responses (they are not flat responses), hence the reason 4x12" Marshall cabs sound a certain way. The speakers also have sharp treble roll-offs, so these cabinet simulators are just putting an equaliser on the output signal that sounds like the frequency response of a particular cabinet. This is also the reason that signals taken from an amplifier's "direct out" that doesn't have this EQ applied sound fizzy - the sound doesn't have the same response as the speaker (which happens to be really ineffective at converting the input signal to the output sound), and so the guitarist will compare the speaker sound to the "direct out" sound and think the "direct out" sounds rubbish! In reality, the sound they are expecting to hear is the massively coloured sound of the speaker but they are hearing the true-sounding DI tone. (Your ears are far more responsive to middle/treble frequencies and not bass, but bass gives the feeling of power and treble the perception of loudness, hence the reason most "rock" equalisers on hifis or MP3 players boost those two, so you think "Wow, this is really powerful and LOUD!") BTW, that's a great demo. Haven't heard that in ages.
anjc 13y ago

sillysaurus3 13y ago

I bought a Razer Tiamat a couple years ago (a true 7.1 surround sound headset) and it was one of the best purchases I've ever made. Imagine living your life with one eye closed, then suddenly having the opportunity to open both eyes, and how surprising it would be to realize that you have depth perception, etc. That's sort of what experiencing true surround sound is like. It requires a bit of tweaking to get configured properly though, which led to a lot of negative reviews or people leaving reviews saying they weren't impressed. Experiencing actual 7.1 surround sound headphones (rather than simulated surround) is kind of like a mini version of experiencing the Oculus Rift for the first time, in terms of the "wow" factor when you finally get it working properly. What Rift is to eyes, the Tiamat is to ears. The reason headphones have had just two speakers till now is because people have two ears, so we've incorrectly assumed that that's all that's needed. But human ears are designed to capture 3D positional audio. Two speakers means there are only two positions that audio can come from. 7.1 headphones simply blow everything else out of the water. It's a very visceral experience that's hard to articulate. The takeaway is that having a headset which is capable of physically producing soundwaves from 7 different directions at once is one of the coolest experiences that any gamer can have. For casual gamers, it enhances the experience and immersion of any game. For competitive gamers, you can hear people sneaking up behind you, so you gain a competitive advantage. All of this means that real (not simulated) 7.1 surround sound is a valuable idea which till now has seemingly been overlooked by the gaming industry. The first industry player that delivers a true positional surround sound experience to the masses stands to profit handsomely, whether it's Oculus or Sony or someone else. So build it! (That said, I have no idea what 60 virtual speakers means, but I wanted to share my experience with true positional surround sound. Also, the surround sound headset works fine in tandem with the Rift. So until the Oculus guys realize how important 3D positional audio is and ship their next product with a pair of surround sound headphones, you can get the same effect right now from the Tiamat.)

numo16 13y ago
> then suddenly having the opportunity to open both eyes, and how surprising it would be to realize that you have depth perception As someone who is stereoblind, I really wish opening both eyes leading to depth perception were true for all of us...

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jameswilsterman 13y ago

BTW, if you have a Jambox, you can demo binaural (3D) sound by installing this update: https://jawbone.com/liveaudio https://jawbone.com/liveaudio