What is the high-resolution 3D audio playback application "ω player" !? Try WOWOW distribution experiment

What is "ω player" for high-resolution 3D audio playback?

I learned about the existence of the ω player when I gave a special performance of Inter BEE 2021.

In the session "Current Status and Future Trends of Immersive Audio," which is archived until December 17, WOWOW introduced that executive creator Hideo Iriko is developing an ω player. After recording the seminar, Mr. Iriko called out and showed me a demo of the ω player.

State of the session (Distribution URL: https://www.inter-bee.com/ja/forvisitors/conference/session/?conference_id=1763) ω Mr. Iriko introducing the player

The demo video used the built-in speaker of Mr. Iriko's MacBook Pro, but it was clearly different from the normal sound, and I heard it as if the sound popped out three-dimensionally.

If you ask, this effect is a technology called "Auro Scene", which allows you to play back in 3D even though it is a stereo speaker. By implementing Auro Scene technology in the ω player, the built-in speaker of the MacBook Pro creates a three-dimensional expression.

Due to the convenience of development, the ω player is currently available in two versions, a Mac version and an iPhone version. The supported OS for the Mac version is Mojave or later, and it can be used not only with the conventional Intel version but also with the M1 Mac. The iPhone version is for iOS 14 and above. There are differences in functions between the Mac version and the iPhone version, specifically as shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the installation conditions for the Mac version and iPhone version.

Difference between Mac version and iPhone version App introduction conditions

This time, we had you provide the Mac version application in advance, so we will introduce the contents using it, but if you participate in the beta tester of ω player, you can get both the Mac version and the iPhone version.

Regarding this initiative, Mr. Iriko said, "I had been thinking about whether it would be possible to deliver immersive audio with high sound quality online for some time. There was Dolby Digital Plus for delivery, but in terms of sound quality. I had a bottleneck and was looking for a good codec. In the meantime, Auro 3D can be lossless, but the file size is huge, so I hang it with MPEG-4 ALS (MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding) etc. We devised a method to match it three years ago and proceeded with the development. This time, we are finally completing it as an application, and we are trying to recruit users to see if it actually works as a service. "

WOWOW Executive Creator Hideo Iriko