The MPEG-H Audio system, substantially developed by Fraunhofer IIS, is already specified in TV broadcast standards such as ATSC 3.0 and DVB, as well as 3GPP for mobile networks. Moreover, MPEG-H Audio has already been successfully tested in many European countries where digital television systems are based on Digital Video Broadcasting. Other attractive sources of MPEG-H content are immersive music and video streaming services such as those recently announced at CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
MPEG-H is a mature technology, with low-complexity software implementations, patent licensing, and decoder and product certification available to manufacturers. Professional broadcast equipment, including encoders and monitoring solutions, as well as decoders and consumer products such as TV sets and soundbars, have been announced and introduced with MPEG-H support.
MPEG-H Audio provides immersive sound and enables the viewer to personalize a program’s audio mix, for instance by switching between different languages, adjusting the volume of a sports commentator, enhancing the dialogue, or choosing from various audio description options. Personalization features like the latter enable broadcasters or providers of video streaming services to offer more advanced accessibility services. In terms of content delivery and playback, MPEG-H Audio’s universal delivery concept ensures the best sound regardless of the consumer device or listening environment.
The Audio and Media Technologies division of Fraunhofer IIS has been an authority in its field for more than 30 years, starting with the creation of mp3 and co-development of AAC and HE-AAC audio codecs. Today, almost all consumer electronic devices, computers and mobile phones are equipped with Fraunhofer’s media technologies. The technologies from the fourth generation of Fraunhofer audio codecs, along with the latest signal processing solutions, stand for impressive audio experiences and are tailored to their specific fields of application.
With the test plan for the Digital Cinema Initiative and the recognized software suite easyDCP, Fraunhofer IIS significantly pushed the digitization of cinema. The most recent technological achievements for moving pictures are light-field data processing tools and new low complexity codec standards for professional video production.
www.lg.com | www.iis.fraunhofer.de/mpeg-h | www.mpegh.com
