xHE-AAC, the combination of Extended HE-AAC and MPEG-D DRC, is the latest generation of the AAC codec family. It offers improved audio quality at low bit rates, seamless switching over a 12 to 500 kbit/s operating range for stereo signals, and mandatory loudness normalization and dynamic range control. xHE-AAC decoders can play back content encoded in all earlier versions of AAC and are included in Android, Amazon's Fire OS and Apple operating systems. Fraunhofer IIS also recently licensed its xHE-AAC software to Microsoft and Netflix.
Poikosoft is one of the first software vendors to successfully participate in Fraunhofer’s xHE‑AAC Codec Test Service. Offered by Fraunhofer IIS, the web-based program lets professional users verify implementations of xHE-AAC encoders and decoders against MPEG standards. Registered users can also test their xHE-AAC integration, easily and completely automatically. The free service, which consists of encoder and decoder test suites, extends the basic MPEG conformance tests to include tests for encoding, adaptive streaming, MPEG-D DRC and additional aspects that fall outside the scope of MPEG conformance.
Founded by Jukka Poikolainen in 1997, Poikosoft creates audio software products that are recognized for their usability and quality. Poikolainen, who also develops the software, has gained professional knowledge of audio codecs, audio file conversions, and audio formats during his more than 20 years of working on consumer- and professional-level audio software products.
More information about the latest version of EZ CD Audio Converter and the xHE-AAC integration, is available here.
www.iis.fraunhofer.de
www.poikosoft.com
