Playback Speed Research Articles

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT FOR RECEIVING MUSICAL NOTATION FROM MUSIC MIDI FORMAT FILES

This article focuses on the choice of the optimal way of converting MIDI music files into musical notes.MIDI(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard for transmitting information between electronic musical instruments. It was developed in 1983, which makes it possible to communicate electro music instruments, computers, and other MIDI-compatible equipment, carry out one management tool for others.MIDIdoes not transmit audio information, but it works with "messages," such as the height and dynamics of the notes on the instrument, control signals for parameters such as volume, panorama, timing signals for tempo synchronization, etc.MIDIis marked by an extremely widespread.In this article, an algorithm of receiving musical notes fromMIDImusic files is implemented. The algorithm works fast, allowing the musicians to convert any melody into a noted instrument with the possibility of printing in real-time. With the development of the technology of musical programming arose a new object-in method of studying creativity. It calls modeling (reproduction or imitation) of some aspects of the objects studied or processes. It gives you the ability to start learning a musical instrument because you can simulate the process of playing any melody in the application. It is convenient for professional musicians because of the availability of music notes from music files with the ability to adjust tonality, time signature, duration, playback speed, with the possibility of transposition and modulation, etc.The developed software allows to get a musical interpretation of any melodies in MIDI format in real time with possibility to simulate playing these melodies on a musical instrument.

The impact of music and stretched time on pupillary responses and eye movements in slow-motion film scenes.

This study investigated the effects of music and playback speed on arousal and visual perception in slow-motion scenes taken from commercial films. Slow-motion scenes are a ubiquitous film technique and highly popular. Yet the psychological effects of mediated time-stretching compared to real-time motion have not been empirically investigated. We hypothesised that music affects arousal and attentional processes. Furthermore, we as-sumed that playback speed influences viewers’ visual perception, resulting in a higher number of eye movements and larger gaze dispersion. Thirty-nine participants watched three film excerpts in a repeated-measures design in conditions with or without music and in slow motion vs. adapted real-time motion (both visual-only). Results show that music in slow-motion film scenes leads to higher arousal compared to no music as indicated by larger pupil diameters in the former. There was no systematic effect of music on visual perception in terms of eye movements. Playback speed influenced visual perception in eye movement parameters such that slow motion resulted in more and shorter fixations as well as more saccades compared to adapted real-time motion. Furthermore, in slow motion there was a higher gaze dispersion and a smaller centre bias, indicating that individuals attended to more detail in slow motion scenes.

A Configurable Event-Driven Convolutional Node with Rate Saturation Mechanism for Modular ConvNet Systems Implementation.

Convolutional Neural Networks (ConvNets) are a particular type of neural network often used for many applications like image recognition, video analysis or natural language processing. They are inspired by the human brain, following a specific organization of the connectivity pattern between layers of neurons known as receptive field. These networks have been traditionally implemented in software, but they are becoming more computationally expensive as they scale up, having limitations for real-time processing of high-speed stimuli. On the other hand, hardware implementations show difficulties to be used for different applications, due to their reduced flexibility. In this paper, we propose a fully configurable event-driven convolutional node with rate saturation mechanism that can be used to implement arbitrary ConvNets on FPGAs. This node includes a convolutional processing unit and a routing element which allows to build large 2D arrays where any multilayer structure can be implemented. The rate saturation mechanism emulates the refractory behavior in biological neurons, guaranteeing a minimum separation in time between consecutive events. A 4-layer ConvNet with 22 convolutional nodes trained for poker card symbol recognition has been implemented in a Spartan6 FPGA. This network has been tested with a stimulus where 40 poker cards were observed by a Dynamic Vision Sensor (DVS) in 1 s time. Different slow-down factors were applied to characterize the behavior of the system for high speed processing. For slow stimulus play-back, a 96% recognition rate is obtained with a power consumption of 0.85 mW. At maximum play-back speed, a traffic control mechanism downsamples the input stimulus, obtaining a recognition rate above 63% when less than 20% of the input events are processed, demonstrating the robustness of the network.

Forensic audio authentication analysis technique of first or higher generation copies of analog magnetic audio tapes

In forensic audio examination, standard listening and visual sound spectrogram analysis methods often lead to incorrect conclusions due to the losses in data when the tape is copied. Furthermore, conducting the standard examinations on audio files which are digitally edited and re-recorded on the tapes, leaving very little trace behind, also result in incorrect decisions made by forensic experts. In this study, a novel and a very simple technique was developed, where the electronic edit traces on an electronically edited tape become easily detectable on copy generation tapes. Thus, regardless of the duplication speed, copied tapes can be analyzed for their originality and integrity with this technique and digital changes on them can be determined. The technique is based on increasing the tape playback speed by modifying the playback system of a player device. This essentially alters the time base of the signal and expands the low frequency scale of the recording in the frequency domain, and makes manipulation marks easily observable. It can be applied to most analog magnetic tape recorder devices. Edit marks can be precisely detected with minimal loss of time by using specially modified nonstandard devices rather than available conventional standard devices.

Does the Podcast Video Playback Speed Affect Comprehension for Novel Curriculum Delivery? A Randomized Trial.

IntroductionMedical education is a rapidly evolving field that has been using new technology to improve how medical students learn. One of the recent implementations in medical education is the recording of lectures for the purpose of playback at various speeds. Though previous studies done via surveys have shown a subjective increase in the rate of knowledge acquisition when learning from sped-up lectures, no quantitative studies have measured information retention. The purpose of this study was to compare mean test scores on written assessments to objectively determine if watching a video of a recorded lecture at 1.5× speed was significantly different than 1.0× speed for the immediate retention of novel material.MethodsFifty-four University of Kentucky medical students volunteered to participate in this study. The subjects were divided into two separate groups: Group A and Group B. Each group watched two separate videos, the first at 1.5× speed and the second at 1.0× speed, then completed assessments following each. The topics of the two videos were ultrasonography artifacts and transducers. Group A watched the artifacts video first at 1.5× speed followed by the transducers video at 1.0× speed. Group B watched the transducers video first at 1.5× speed followed by the artifacts video at 1.0× speed. The percentage correct on the written assessment were calculated for each subject at each video speed. The mean and standard deviation were also calculated using a t-test to determine if there was a significant difference in assessment scores between 1.5× and 1.0× speeds.ResultsThere was a significant (p=0.0188) detriment in performance on the artifacts quiz at 1.5× speed (mean 61.4; 95% confidence interval [CI]-53.9, 68.9) compared to the control group at normal speed (mean 72.7; 95% CI−66.8, 78.6). On the transducers assessment, there was not a significant (p=0.1365) difference in performance in the 1.5× speed group (mean 66.9; CI− 59.8, 74.0) compared to the control group (mean 73.8; CI− 67.7, 79.8).ConclusionThese findings suggest that, unlike previously published studies that showed subjective improvement in performance with sped-up video-recorded lectures compared to normal speed, objective performance may be worse.

Changing Artificial Playback Speed and Real Movement Velocity Do Not Differentially Influence the Excitability of Primary Motor Cortex during Observation of a Repetitive Finger Movement.

Action observation studies have investigated whether changing the speed of the observed movement affects the action observation network. There are two types of speed-changing conditions; one involves “changes in actual movement velocity,” and the other is “manipulation of video speed.” Previous studies have investigated the effects of these conditions separately, but to date, no study has directly investigated the differences between the effects of these conditions. In the “movement velocity condition,” increased velocity is associated with increased muscle activity; however, this change of muscle activities is not shown in the “video speed condition.” Therefore, a difference in the results obtained under these conditions could be considered to reflect a difference in muscle activity of actor in the video. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of different speed-changing conditions and spontaneous movement tempo (SMT) on the excitability of primary motor cortex (M1) during action observation, as assessed by motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) amplitudes induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A total of 29 healthy subjects observed a video clip of a repetitive index or little finger abduction movement under seven different speed conditions. The video clip in the movement velocity condition showed repetitive finger abduction movements made in time with an auditory metronome, at frequencies of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 Hz. In the video speed condition, playback of the 1-Hz movement velocity condition video clip was modified to show movement frequencies of 0.5, 2, or 3 Hz (Hz-Fake). TMS was applied at the time of maximal abduction and MEPs were recorded from two right-hand muscles. There were no differences in M1 excitability between the movement velocity and video speed conditions. Moreover, M1 excitability did not vary across the speed conditions for either presentation condition. Our findings suggest that changing playback speed and actual differences in movement velocity do not differentially influence M1 excitability during observation of a simple action task, such as repetitive finger movement, and that it is not affected by SMT. In simple and meaningless observational task, people might not be able to recognize the difference in muscle activity of actor in the video.

Improvement of video playback performance of electrophoretic displays by optimized waveforms with shortened refresh time

Electrophoretic display (EPD) has become one of the most important display technologies due to its bistability, low power consumption and outdoor readability. In this work, an image processing algorithm, which aims to enable video playback on EPD device without image distortion and grayscale loss by reducing the particle moving distance in EPD, is proposed and verified. The refresh time could be shortened by 22.2% with a video playback speed of more than 10 frames per second (fps) being achieved. This method could reduce the EPD switching time for quicker information displaying, and potentially extend the applications of EPD with video-like display property in the future.

Efficient and robust frame-synchronized blind audio watermarking by featuring multilevel DWT and DCT

This paper presents a self-synchronizing blind audio watermarking method developed based on the distinctive features of multilevel discrete wavelet transform (MDWT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT). In the proposed design, the repetitive pattern hidden in the 11th approximation subband is used to control frame synchronization, and the wideband signal covering the first to ninth detail subbands is used to hide binary information. Tracing the zero-crossings across the extracted synchronous signal makes it possible to recalibrate frame positions and achieve synchronous watermarking on a rational dither modulation (RDM) framework. We also developed a windowed vector modulation (WVM) scheme suited for the time as well as DCT domain to enhance watermark imperceptivity. The proposed watermarking method currently achieves a payload capacity of 86 bits per second. The results of PEAQ testing confirm that the watermarked audio signal retains quality nearly indistinguishable from the original. Compared with two existing synchronized methods designed specifically to cope with playback speed modification, the proposed MDWT---DCT---RDM---WVM method demonstrates superior robustness to commonly encountered attacks. When encountering desynchronization attacks, such as cropping and resampling time-scale modification, the proposed technique is capable of retrieving the watermark bits with a high degree of accuracy.

Normal-rate to fast-rate speech conversion using non-linear compression maps

This paper presents a new technique to convert normal-rate speech into intelligible fast-rate, speeded speech. Speeded speech has long been recognized for its potential to improve spoken media comprehension; however, current tools to significantly speed playback of non-text media are insufficient due to their reliance on inaccurate phoneme analysis. With the ever increasing amount of non-text media online, a method to speed playback that is agnostic of phonemes is needed. Our technique uses spectral and source components of the acoustics to generate a non-linear compression map that characterizes how conversational-rate speech signals are compressed to achieve analogue fast-rate speech signals. A data set containing conversational- and fast-rate speech pairs was processed to determine compression maps corresponding to each pair. A Recursive Neural Network (RNN) was trained on the set of normal-rate speech and the corresponding compression maps. The RNN was then used to generate compression maps for novel normal-rate speech and ultimately output a fast-rate speech signal. Elicited fast-rate speech and speeded speech conversions technique are now being compared perceptually for intelligibility and naturalness.

Applying Augmented Reality to a Mobile-Assisted Learning System for Martial Arts using Kinect Motion Capture

In this study, to learn the routine of Tantui, a branch of martial arts was taken as an object of research. Fitts' stages of motor learning and augmented reality (AR) were applied to a 3D mobile-assisted learning system for martial arts, which was characterized by free viewing angles. With the new system, learners could rotate the viewing angle of an image freely in a three-dimensional space, zoom in or zoom out the image, and adjust its playback speed. The experimental participants were divided into two groups, i.e., the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). The same coach instructed the EG through the 3D mobile-assisted learning system with AR capability while the CG was taught through a 2D video-based learning system on common mobile devices. Finally, a one-way ANOVA was performed to investigate the differences in learning performance between the two groups. Also, questionnaire surveys and interviews were conducted to understand whether the 3D free viewing angle of AR was helpful to cognitive learning of motor skills, learning motivation, learning satisfaction, and conditions of technology acceptance. It is expected that this findings herein will contribute to mobile-assisted learning and martial arts teaching in the future.

Збереження записів українського музичного фольклору шляхом оцифровування фонографічної колекції Осипа Роздольского

To preserve and restorate the cultural heritage of Ukrainian audio folklore of the first half of the twentieth century namely the phonocollection of Osip Rozdolskyi it has been made dubbing and digitizing audio information of phonocylinders. The phonogram records of A. Rozdolskyi have been reproduced, processed and reconstructed (restored the integrity of the audio material, chosen optimal playback speed, removed impulse noise and low-frequency noise). Refs: 11 titles.

A Review of Time-Scale Modification of Music Signals

Time-scale modification (TSM) is the task of speeding up or slowing down an audio signal’s playback speed without changing its pitch. In digital music production, TSM has become an indispensable tool, which is nowadays integrated in a wide range of music production software. Music signals are diverse—they comprise harmonic, percussive, and transient components, among others. Because of this wide range of acoustic and musical characteristics, there is no single TSM method that can cope with all kinds of audio signals equally well. Our main objective is to foster a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of TSM procedures. To this end, we review fundamental TSM methods, discuss typical challenges, and indicate potential solutions that combine different strategies. In particular, we discuss a fusion approach that involves recent techniques for harmonic-percussive separation along with time-domain and frequency-domain TSM procedures.

Determining Playback Speeds of Early Ethnographic Wax Cylinder Recordings: Technical and Methodological Issues

Phonographic wax cylinder equipment was the principal means by which late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century comparative musicologists recorded and played back the music that they encountered in the field. Many comparative musicologists used these recordings to conduct detailed rhythmic, pitch and temporal analyses and used the findings to make comparative judgements of distinct musical cultures. This article examines the work of several prominent comparative musicologists by focusing on one key issue: accurately determining the playback speed which most appropriately matches that used at the time of the original field recording. This article draws on a range of source material including published texts, interviews and numerous wax cylinder recordings stored at the British Library Sound Archive to construct the argument that accurately determining playback speeds is of central importance when duplicating and digitising ethnographic wax cylinder recordings, and when assessing the methods of comparative musicologists and the validity of their findings.

Sense of Presence and Verisimilitude of Audio–Visual Contents: Effects of Sounds and Playback Speeds on Sports Video

Sense of Presence and Verisimilitude of Audio–Visual Contents: Effects of Sounds and Playback Speeds on Sports Video

Supporting Jogging at an Even Pace by Synchronizing Music Playback Speed with Runner's Pace

Supporting Jogging at an Even Pace by Synchronizing Music Playback Speed with Runner's Pace

Implementing the flipped classroom

The purpose of this article is to describe the process of implementing a flipped classroom model in the second year of undergraduate medical education within a hybrid problem-based learning curriculum. In the flipped classroom, what was traditionally done in the classroom (lecture) is moved outside the lecture hall as a pre-class activity and what was done outside the classroom (homework and problem solving) is moved inside the classroom. The authors found preparing the faculty, students, and infrastructure prior to implementing the model to be critical to its success. Key factors included getting faculty and student buy-in, faculty mentoring and training, updating and purchasing additional software, finding innovative ways of using physical spaces designed for lectures, and motivating students to come to class prepared. The flipped classroom model facilitated interactions among students and faculty leading to more in-depth questions and lively discussions. Students appreciated having the ability to review lectures online and control the speed of playback. Offering online lectures followed by in-class active learning sessions improved both student and faculty satisfaction. Although shifting to the flipped classroom required more planning and training, the benefits to both students and faculty outweighed the costs. Keywords: Medical education, undergraduate; Flipped classroom; Active learning; Pedagogy. Revista HUPE, Rio de Janeiro, 2014;13(4):39-45 doi: 10.12957/rhupe.2014.13946

SPECTRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF BIOELECTRICAL BRAIN ACTIVITY OF STUDENTS IN LISTENING TO AUDIO-STIMULI OF DIFFERENT COMPONENT-STRUCTURAL COMPOSITION

There have been studied changes of spectral characteristics of student’s EEG in listening to audio-stimuli notable for presence of a melody and playback speed. Spectral power of theta, alpha and beta EEG-rhythms of 30 students (males and females) has been analyzed using the multifactor dispersion analysis of repeat measurements (RM MANOVA). It has been shown that high speed of playback of audio-stimuli enhanced activity of posterior associative cortex areas. Perception of the melody was characterized by a high degree of activity of the specific thalamic system and the right hemisphere neuronal structures. During perception of the melody with low playback speed in the strategy of brain processing of music, there appeared elements specific to perception of isolated rhythms.

Resource Allocation for Personalized Video Summarization

We propose a hybrid personalized summarization framework that combines adaptive fast-forwarding and content truncation to generate comfortable and compact video summaries. We formulate video summarization as a discrete optimization problem, where the optimal summary is determined by adopting Lagrangian relaxation and convex-hull approximation to solve a resource allocation problem. To trade-off playback speed and perceptual comfort we consider information associated to the still content of the scene, which is essential to evaluate the relevance of a video, and information associated to the scene activity, which is more relevant for visual comfort. We perform clip-level fast-forwarding by selecting the playback speeds from discrete options, which naturally include content truncation as special case with infinite playback speed. We demonstrate the proposed summarization framework in two use cases, namely summarization of broadcasted soccer videos and surveillance videos. Objective and subjective experiments are performed to demonstrate the relevance and efficiency of the proposed method.

Evaluation of Fast-Forward Video Visualization.

We evaluate and compare video visualization techniques based on fast-forward. A controlled laboratory user study (n = 24) was conducted to determine the trade-off between support of object identification and motion perception, two properties that have to be considered when choosing a particular fast-forward visualization. We compare four different visualizations: two representing the state-of-the-art and two new variants of visualization introduced in this paper. The two state-of-the-art methods we consider are frame-skipping and temporal blending of successive frames. Our object trail visualization leverages a combination of frame-skipping and temporal blending, whereas predictive trajectory visualization supports motion perception by augmenting the video frames with an arrow that indicates the future object trajectory. Our hypothesis was that each of the state-of-the-art methods satisfies just one of the goals: support of object identification or motion perception. Thus, they represent both ends of the visualization design. The key findings of the evaluation are that object trail visualization supports object identification, whereas predictive trajectory visualization is most useful for motion perception. However, frame-skipping surprisingly exhibits reasonable performance for both tasks. Furthermore, we evaluate the subjective performance of three different playback speed visualizations for adaptive fast-forward, a subdomain of video fast-forward.

Technology Development for Improving Animation Performance Based on Train Route Patterns

As information technology used for simulation and virtual reality developed, there is a growing interest in animation technologies which will effectively deliver simulation results to users. Various efforts have been made to improve animation performance, like playback quality and speed, input-output speed and storage space reduction. However, earlier studies generally focused on image compression frame by frame. To significantly improve storage space and playback speed, animation data should be vectorized. Also, spatial and temporal duplication have to be removed. In this study, animation data structure was improved fundamentally through establishment of hierarchy and vectorization. Also Spatial and temporal duplication of animation data was removed through vectorization based on train route. As a result, storage space was reduced, input-output speed and playback speed were considerably improved. According to the test, additional Patternization which followed vectorization brought reduction of over 80% in storage space and input-output speed was quadrupled. Patternization technology can be used as a proper storage method of animation data, and can provide user-specific animation by small data transmission.