AUDIO CONFERENCING WITH THREE-DIMENSIONAL AUDIO ENCODING

An apparatus and method for assigning each conferee to a conference a three-dimensional position with respect to a central listening position and the other conferees. Each conferees audio stream is encoded with the assigned three-dimensional position to produce an encoded audio stream corresponding to each conferee. For each conferee, the encoded audio streams of the other conferees are mixed to produce a mixed audio stream wherein the conferee listens to the conference from the central listening position.