EDIT: You can download a JS effect (for Reaper) that does the conversion from ambiX to TBE and another that goes from TBE to 2nd order, 2D, Furse-Malham format here (I’ve included my remapping JS effect too, so you can also go from Furse-Malham to TBE format by converting to that first 🙂 :
Update: September 2017 (from http://pcfarina.eng.unipr.it/TBE-conversion.htm)
NEW Version of the Tools: WigWare AmbiX, FuMa and TBE Tools Sept. 2017 Update
Facebook have updated TBE to remove the ‘R’ component from channel 4. This is important as, before it was removed, it was impossible to go from TBE to 1st order Ambisonics (for Youtube etc.). The new details are excellently discussed on Angelo’s webpage which can be found at http://pcfarina.eng.unipr.it/TBE-conversion.htm
TBE(1) = 0.488603 * Ambix(0); W TBE(2) = -0.488603 * Ambix(1); Y TBE(3) = 0.488603 * Ambix(3); X TBE(4) = 0.488603 * Ambix(2); Z TBE(5) = -0.630783 * Ambix(8); U TBE(6) = -0.630783 * Ambix(4); V TBE(7) = -0.630783 * Ambix(5); T TBE(8) = 0.630783 * Ambix(7); S
Note that going from TBE to horizontal 2nd order FuMa is unchanged (useful for driving my Irregular Ambisonics Decoders 😉
A good timeline and discussion of the issues, and why Facebook changed the encoding, can be found here.
Older Information, pre V2.2 of Facebook Spatial Workstation.
WigWare AmbiX, FuMa and TBE Tools
Angelo Farina has published an excellent article detailing how the 9, 2nd order Ambisonic components map to the 8 channels of the Facebook360 TBE format (they decided to pander to the 8-channel limit of pro-tools 🙁 ). All the details can be found at Angelo’s website:
http://pcfarina.eng.unipr.it/TBE-conversion.htm
The important bit, for my own notes, is (with added Furse-Malham mapping):
TBE(1) = 0.486968 * Ambix(1) (FuMa W) TBE(2) = -0.486968 * Ambix(2) (FuMa Y) TBE(3) = 0.486968 * Ambix(4) (FuMa X) TBE(4) = 0.344747 * Ambix(3) + 0.445656 * Ambix(7) (FuMa Z+R) TBE(5) = -0.630957 * Ambix(9) (FuMa U) TBE(6) = -0.630957 * Ambix(5) (FuMa V) TBE(7) = -0.630957 * Ambix(6) (FuMa T) TBE(8) = 0.630957 * Ambix(8) (FuMa S)
And, to go from TBE to 2nd order, 2D, Furse-Malham format (as mentioned by Ed, in the comments below):
W = 1.446968601 * TBE(1) X = 2.047502048 * TBE(3) Y = -2.047502048 * TBE(2) U = -1.839587932 * TBE(5) V = -1.839587932 * TBE(6)
TBE is Facebook360 Two Big Ears format
ambiX is the ambiX format used by YouTube Spatial Media (ACN channel order and SN3D normalisation)
FuMa is the Furse-Malham channel ordering and normalisation scheme.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambisonic_data_exchange_formats for further details on channel ordering and normalisation schemes.
A polar plot of TBE Channel 4 (the combination of the Z and R channels in FuMa speak) can be seen above (click for higher res image).