23/04/2016 Click - Short Edition

If you saw our 360 shows lately, you may have noticed that while you can

look in any direction, the audio was just mono. My voice did come from

the correct direction in space and that is because it's incredibly hard

to make 360 audio sound realistic. I certainly can hear something

going on over there. And that is what the BBC R

departments have cracked. You can hear the ripples

of the water over there. They are still there

when I turn around. The next few minutes are best

listened to through headphones. There is sound coming

from over there that makes me want Which raises one of

the questions about virtual reality - how do you get them to look in the

right direction at the right time? This was sound first,

graphics afterwards? It was created to demonstrate

the sound first. Its aim was to show how

far 3-D sound can go. We wanted to explore what you can do

with natural recording, so we tweaked the microphone techniques to

try to get a compelling sense After making

the multidirectional recording of a real forest, the team began to add

moving 3-D elements over the top. So every sound on the left-hand side

has its own symbol, which is We are watching where the sounds are

coming from in 3-D space right now. The Turning Forest was originally

made for a static listener. Making sounds come from different

directions is nothing new. But for VR,

the soundstage came from just two The sounds need to stay fixed

in space as you turn your head. In order to check everything is in

the right place, the sound mixer has That is

actually really disorientating. When you have your eyes closed

as well... That could make one

feel quite queasy. You would be thrown all over

the place! But that is not the end

of the story. Just because the producer knows

the direction the sound needs to come from does not mean they can

make it sound like it is there. For that, the R team needed to

adapt a technique that has been It is called binaural sound,

and it is brilliant, trust me. If you have not put your headphones

on yet, now is the time. OK,

now you are listening in binaural sound, which is all about making you

feel like you are really there. It is so much more than just putting

certain sounds in one ear Right now it should really feel that

I'm walking closer to you It gets better

because I can walk behind you and it BAG

CRINKLES LOUDLY Are you weirded out

yet? Now you

may be wondering how you The secret is

in the sound recordist himself, Ed. He has two microphones hidden

in his human-looking ears on That means he captures sound

in exactly the same way that If something happens to one side,

the sound will be quieter in the opposite side, and it will

get there slightly later. It will also have been blocked

by your skull, bounced around the room, and ricocheted

around the cartilage on the way in. Because he looks like a head,

he hears like a head. But so far, binaural sound has only

really worked if your head stayed In VR, however, you get to turn

your head in all directions. And that is what Chris

and the team have sussed. They slowly rotated Ed while playing

sounds coming from different directions, and then researched how

the sound changed in his ears. Now they can combine that intimate

experience of binaural sound with the free head movement

of VR to create something Chris One of the team's main missions is

to devise a standard way of storing all of the audio information

so it can sound best on whatever So it can adapt to the system

the person is listening on. So if they are listening on

headphones with a VR system, you can If they have a 3-D system and a home

theatre, you can give them surround sound with a high-tech experience,

but we also need to be able to This includes allowing for dynamic

binaural sound in web browsers. We can now stream it to

our phones and computers. YouTube launched support

for live streaming VR and support There came a time a few years ago

when it seems that every action sports enthusiasts under

the sun felt the need to strap on a Go-Pro camera and film themselves

as they hurtled downhill. The problem is that

since the company went public nearly two years ago, all of Go-Pro seems

to be headed in that direction. After all, how many action sports

enthusiasts are there in the world? Richard Taylor has been to Go-Pro

in San Francisco to find out how the company is planning to arrest

its decline. Over the past year or so Go-Pro

has been on a more turbulent ride It's garishly clad founder,

Nick Woodman, has had to deal with plummeting share prices,

fleeing executives and failing to hit home with new products

which have given even ardent Go-Pro Critics say it is losing its edge

in delivering eye-catching innovation, while rivals are fast

making up ground with Another challenge it has faced

is competition from these things. Smartphone cameras are arguably

better, more versatile and appealing to a mainstream

audience than a standalone Go-Pro. That is something the action-cam

pioneer is keen to address. So, Go-Pro in hand,

I can survey a new landscape with Accessories-wise

tie-ups with the big boys and Witness this integrated

playpen housing to capture Other hardware allows creative

remote control and access It is essentially a remote control

in the palm of your hands. It will sync directly to your Go-Pro

products and by doing that, you can use gestures to control

functionality on your Go-Pro camera. I will tap my thumb to my finger

and it will start by recording. Different touch points

do different things. I will switch camera modes

by touching this. Really, what we're trying to do is

solve one of the biggest problems that you often

hear when you are out on the side In terms of its development objects,

automated editing of multiple cameras through to overlaying info

on top of your Go-Pro's intro are They're also pushing

into new territory, this weekend they launched

a virtual reality production platform with cameras, rig

and software costing a cool $5,000. VR production is still niche,

begging the question of whether Go-Pro can find other

products to entice more audiences. The last product launch didn't

really hit home with consumers. What can you say to us in terms of

innovation for the Hero Five or the I can't talk you much specifically

about those products, but I can't say we learned a lot

from the last product release. Perhaps the pricing was

the thing that caught us a little off guard and we didn't

double down with advertising. We know now we need more developers

to help our ecosystem and we're very focused on that

but most importantly, we just need to make it that much

easier to reach a broader audience. Go-Pro does sport a very large

fan base, but it has become clear Maintaining that elevated

status is quite another. That was Richard in San Francisco

and that is it for the short version of Click this week. You can watch

the full-length version on iPlayer. See you next week.