The Ambisonic player will be:
The Ambisonic player will be associated with files ending in *.amb
Once configuration (for the user's array) is complete, Ambisonic files can be played with a simple double click.
The Ambisonic player will play files that fit the B-format specified on this page (that's basically multi-channel WAVE-EX files).
The Ambisonic player will not play a collection of separated mono files. This is suggested so that B-format content developers are forced to adhere to a single format (consistency should fascilitate the consumer's uptake of the format).
In its first implementation, the player will not be able to play G-format files (as in... re-encode back to B-format)
Audio applications that can write the defined WAVE-EX format will be listed (somewhere) to fascilitate content developers developing the right format.
The Ambisonic player will save configuration to disk... hence requiring only a once off configuration
Configuration will involve choosing the speaker array to decode to. There will be a set of default configurations, as well as arbitrary per-speaker configurations.
Decode to:
Configuration for arbitrary speaker arrays is possible via a drag and drop GUI, where the user can drop speaker icons on a stage. This GUI should be able to handle 3D layouts as well (that'll be challenging!)
The user will be able to modify the levels on a per speaker basis for 'slightly irregular speaker layouts'. (Is this a bad idea?)
By default, the player will assume a 3db attenuation on W. But it will also offer the posibility to tweak that.