JustOneCacophony — C++ Core

中文 · Mathematics · Binaural rendering · SIMD dispatch

The C++ implementation of JustOneCacophony: an execution core for E-AC-3 JOC bitstream parsing, object reconstruction and rendering. It extracts EMDF, ID14 JOC parameters and ID11 OAMD metadata from E-AC-3 syncframes, combines them with the core 5.1 PCM decoded by FFmpeg to rebuild the LFE and 15 object signals, and writes ADM BWF, a WAV for a chosen speaker layout, or a binaural WAV using a compiled HRTF directional field.

This is research code, not a complete, standard-conformant or production JOC decoder. It covers the bitstream forms it implements and reports an explicit error on unknown variants instead of pretending everything is in harmony.

Building

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Only MSVC (VS 2022, static CRT) is validated locally; Linux and macOS are built and unit-tested by .github/workflows/ci.yml. Floating-point behaviour is part of the byte-exact acceptance, so fast-math is never enabled: /fp:precise on MSVC, -fno-fast-math elsewhere.

Windows Release builds target AVX2 by default (JOC_ENABLE_AVX2, ON, see CMakeLists.txt). That switch is itself part of the byte-exact acceptance — the SHA-256 of every rendered output is identical — and buys 12.4% on the SOFA binaural kernel and 1.8% on Rosella. The price is a runtime requirement: such a joc_core.dll executes AVX2 instructions and dies on an illegal instruction on pre-2013 x86. There is no runtime dispatch, so a binary is one or the other:

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DJOC_ENABLE_AVX2=OFF

gives a baseline-ISA (SSE2) build that runs on any x86-64. Non-MSVC builds never receive the flag.

Paths and encoding

Every path inside the library is UTF-8, converted only at the OS boundary (src/foundation/fs_utf8.*): on Windows through std::filesystem::path (UTF-16 inside) into _wfopen/CreateProcessW, and as plain bytes elsewhere. Command line arguments are re-parsed from GetCommandLineW + CommandLineToArgvW on Windows and the console code page is set to UTF-8, so non-ASCII paths (Japanese, Chinese, ...) work for the input, the ffmpeg child process and the output files alike; a non-ASCII path regression case runs in ctest.

Artifacts

Artifact	Purpose
joc_core.dll	The engine: bitstream parsing, JOC/OAMD, DSP, speaker and binaural rendering, ADM BWF/WAV writing, file task, streaming surface
joc_cli.exe	Command line frontend for file tasks
include/joc_core.h	Engine, telemetry and file-task interface (pure C)
include/joc_stream.h	Embedder-facing streaming push/pull interface (pure C, self-contained)

Command line

The arguments match the reference Python CLI exactly: the input is positional, ADM BWF is the default output, --speaker-layout or --binaural selects the other two modes, and without -o the result lands in output/.

# Default: ADM BWF (inherently 24-bit, so there is no format option)
joc_cli "07. Gold Forever (2021 Master).m4a"
#   -> output/07. Gold Forever (2021 Master).adm.wav

joc_cli input.m4a -o out/adm.wav                 # explicit output

# Speaker layout
joc_cli input.m4a --speaker-layout 5.1           # -> output/<name>.5.1.wav
joc_cli input.m4a --speaker-layout 7.1.4 --speaker-output out/714.wav --speaker-format int24

# Binaural (HRTF defaults to <exe>/HRTF/binaural.sofa, then <exe>/HRTF/binaural.personalized_headphone)
joc_cli input.m4a --binaural
joc_cli input.m4a --binaural --sofa-hrtf HRTF/other.sofa   # another SOFA
joc_cli input.m4a --binaural --personalized-headphone      # Rosella personalisation
#   -> output/<name>.binaural.wav

# Other common switches
joc_cli input.m4a --duration 30 --gain-db -3 --trajectory-mode dense64
joc_cli input.eac3 --metadata-only --print-metadata summary   # parse and print metadata only

--speaker-format / --binaural-format default to float32; an int24 request that would clip follows --clip-action (default ask; a non-interactive terminal must pass continue, float32 or abort). --duration is in seconds, and --object-delay-samples, --speaker-metadata-offset, --binaural-tail-seconds and --binaural-tail-threshold (1e-8, the binaural tail trim) keep the reference defaults. A run always writes <output>.report.json (--report-json overrides it).

Differences from the reference: --sofa-hrtf, --personalized-headphone, --backend python and the metadata sidecars (--metadata-dir, --metadata-cache, --metadata-backend sidecar) are unavailable in this build and fail immediately with an explanation instead of being ignored. This build adds --bed (pre-decoded 6-channel float32 PCM, which skips ffmpeg decoding), --kernels, --work-dir, --report-json, --dry-run and --quiet.

Library integration

The engine and the file task are exposed by joc_core.h: joc_task_validate / joc_task_execute run a file task and report state events through a callback, and joc_task_result carries frame counts, peak, byte count and SHA-256.

Players and decoder components use joc_stream.h: the caller pushes E-AC-3 bytes and the matching core PCM (or already-rebuilt objects16) at its own pace and pulls rendered PCM. Any chunking is allowed, and the result is byte-identical to the file task.

joc_stream_config config = {0};
config.struct_size = sizeof(config);
config.input = JOC_STREAM_IN_EAC3;      /* or JOC_STREAM_IN_PCM_OBJECTS16 */
config.output = JOC_STREAM_OUT_SPEAKER; /* or BINAURAL / PCM_OBJECTS16 */
config.speaker_layout_name = "5.1";
joc_stream* stream = NULL;
joc_stream_create(&config, &stream);
/* loop: joc_stream_push(...) / joc_stream_pull(...) */
joc_stream_flush(stream);
joc_stream_destroy(stream);

Contract: state is instance-private, so streams coexist; push and pull on one instance must come from the same thread; rendering is stateful, so this version offers no seek - repositioning means decoding from the start of the stream. The kernel latency is 961 samples for speaker/binaural output and joc_stream_flush drains the binaural room tail.

Layout

include/     public C ABI: joc_core.h (engine/file task), joc_stream.h (streaming),
             eac3joc_core.h (upstream ABI)
src/         implementation: eac3_transport, emdf, joc_bitstream, joc_core, oamd,
             timeline, speaker, binaural, hrtf, adm, io, telemetry, task, stream,
             api, cli, simd
tests/       unit tests (CTest, self-contained, no external data)
docs/        mathematics, the binaural rendering flow and SIMD dispatch

Eight files under src/ are byte-identical copies of the upstream JustOneCacophony native library and are never edited (see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md).

Compatibility note

object_delay_samples defaults to 1473, preserving the behaviour of the existing implementation; it is a configurable field and changing it changes the OAMD/ADM time alignment. Upstream investigation suggests the value should be 0; this project keeps the current default to stay byte-identical.

License

MIT, see LICENSE. Third-party provenance and patent boundaries are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.