A Novel Multichannel Panning Method for Standard and Arbitrary Loudspeaker Configurations

Abstract : This paper presents a novel panning algorithm called Speaker-Placement Correction Amplitude Panning (SPCAP) which guarantees conservation of loudspeaker power output. The method is appropriate for any speaker arrangement (e.g. ITU 5.1, 10.2, etc.), and scales with the number of speakers. SPCAP works by correcting initial pan values based on speaker placement to achieve constant power output. Because panning occurs over an arbitrary number of speakers (i.e. is not pair-wise), SPCAP provides two significant advantages over discrete panning schemes. First, pan values for current and future surround-sound formats (e.g. 5.1 and 10.2) are guaranteed to conserve power under any lower-resolution setup, making dynamic up/down mixing in non-standard setups feasible. Second, SPCAP provides a framework for producing wide (non point-source) sounds.