Perceptibly lossless sound compression

Obtaining experimental results using perceptibly lossless sound compression.

Research opportunity

Abstract: Conventional digital sound transmission is designed according to an outdated Shannon information theory. The bit rates are constant and depending on the “hardware”, so that human speech, music, silence, or random noise would require the identical bit rate. The analog sound waves from a microphone are sampled at a constant rate where each sample is converted to a fixed number of bits (16bit). The binary bits are then transmitted in a meaningless bit stream. A newer Autosophy information theory, in contrast, transmits sound according to the sound “content”. Simple human speech would require a low bit rate. Complex music would require a higher bit rate, while silence would require no transmissions at all. The new sound transmission method would yield high “perceptibly lossless” data compression, which is especially advantageous for the packet switching Internet environment. Both sound encoding and retrieval is possible using software only. The purpose of this research would be to generate programming for sound encoding and retrieval, and then testing the sound quality, using human subjects, after transmission via the Internet or sound retrieval from digital discs (DVD or CD-ROM). A second goal would be to measure the overall data compression in normal speech or music, before sound distortions become perceptible.

Applications: This research would reveal the human sound perception limits and the overall data compression for Internet sound transmission. This information is necessary to select the design parameters of practical sound transmission systems, to establish a transmission and quality standard acceptable to the public.

Keywords: Autosophy, Perceptibly lossless sound compression, Mixed multimedia Internet.

Available downloadable documents:

Publication 2006 – Satellite – Webpage htm

Publication 2006 – Internet video – Webpage htm

Publication 2004 – Data Compression – Webpage htm