For today's Wired News, I filed this story about a new "3-D" sound technology that promises to make every spot within a movie theater, theme park attraction, gaming room, or home theater a "sweet spot." The demo last Thursday in Studio City appeared to wow a number of the studio suits in attendance, but whether or not consumers and entertainment companies are prepared to pay for implementing the technology is another matter.
On a darkened sound stage, executives from Disney, Microsoft, Paramount and an array of Hollywood entertainment companies listen to the whispering voices of ghosts.
This Studio City lot isn't haunted. They're here for a private demonstration of IOSONO, a new immersive sound technology developed by Karlheinz Brandenburg — the German inventor considered responsible for much of the development and commercialization of the MP3 codec in the 1980s and '90s.
Inside the dimly lit demo space, a ring of over 300 speakers hangs roughly 10 feet above the ground. Using a digital pen and a touch-sensitive tablet, a sound engineer drags individual sound elements from one point to another to direct the position of sound elements. Samples of phantasmic voices whisper, hiss and appear to be darting and sliding invisibly from one spot to another throughout the room.
