Nokia’s OZO VR System Puts Audio at the Forefront

The spatial-audio technology is designed for smartphones, consumer cameras

Virtual reality was the star of the show at Nokia’s IBC 2017 booth, which offered the chance to scope out the latest model of the OZO camera and VR experiences from a Formula E race, as well as concert and film.

Nokia has established itself as one of the leaders in stereoscopic 4K and provides some of the sharpest and most complete images in the industry, but the company acknowledges that that’s only part of the experience. That’s why significant effort has been put into development of special sound editing on the backend to further bolster the experience for the end user. OZO Audio is the company’s spatial-audio technology designed specifically for smartphone and consumer-camera manufacturers.

“The brain is very good at detecting when something is wrong,” says Stuart English, global sales, VR capture, Nokia Technologies. “In VR, you’ve got to have the sound-sources tracking with the visual elements. We’ve got to add this extra dimension by going to spatial sound rather than just using a 5.1 mix.”

A VR sound mixer can use a visual tool that integrates internal audio sources from the OZO camera as well as external sources. The mixer can drag audio sources on a screen and place them or assign them to the destination in the image from which the sound is coming.