MPEG Surround

Not to be confused with MPEG Multichannel or MP3 Surround.

MPEG Surround (ISO/IEC 23003-1[1] or MPEG-D Part 1[2][3]), also known as Spatial Audio Coding (SAC)[4][5][6][7] is a lossy compression format for surround sound that provides a method for extending mono or stereo audio services to multi-channel audio in a backwards compatible fashion. The total bit rates used for the (mono or stereo) core and the MPEG Surround data are typically only slightly higher than the bit rates used for coding of the (mono or stereo) core. MPEG Surround adds a side-information stream to the (mono or stereo) core bit stream, containing spatial image data. Legacy stereo playback systems will ignore this side-information while players supporting MPEG Surround decoding will output the reconstructed multi-channel audio.

Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) issued a call for proposals on MPEG Spatial Audio Coding in March 2004. The group decided that the technology that would be the starting point in standardization process, would be a combination of the submissions from two proponents - Fraunhofer IIS / Agere Systems and Coding Technologies / Philips.[5] The MPEG Surround standard was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC29/WG11) and published as ISO/IEC 23003 in 2007.[1] It was the first standard of MPEG-D standards group, formally known as ISO/IEC 23003 - MPEG audio technologies.

MPEG Surround was also defined as one of the MPEG-4 Audio Object Types in 2007.[8] There is also the MPEG-4 No Delay MPEG Surround object type (LD MPEG Surround), which was published in 2010.[9][10] The Spatial Audio Object Coding (SAOC) was published as MPEG-D Part 2 - ISO/IEC 23003–2 in 2010 and it extends MPEG Surround standard by re-using its spatial rendering capabilities while retaining full compatibility with existing receivers. MPEG SAOC system allows users on the decoding side to interactively control the rendering of each individual audio object (e.g. individual instruments, vocals, human voices).[2][3][11][12][13][14][15] There is also the Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC) which will be defined in MPEG-D Part 3 - ISO/IEC 23003-3 and ISO/IEC 14496-3:2009/Amd 3.[16][17] MPEG-D MPEG Surround parametric coding tools are integrated into the USAC codec.[18]

The (mono or stereo) core could be coded with any (lossy or lossless) audio codec. Particularly low bitrates (64-96 kbit/s for 5.1 channels) are possible when using HE-AAC v2 as the core codec.

  1. ^ a b ISO (2007-01-29). "ISO/IEC 23003-1:2007 - Information technology -- MPEG audio technologies -- Part 1: MPEG Surround". ISO. Archived from the original on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
  2. ^ a b MPEG. "MPEG standards - Full list of standards developed or under development". chiariglione.org. Archived from the original on 2010-04-20. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  3. ^ a b MPEG. "Terms of Reference". chiariglione.org. Archived from the original on 2010-02-21. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  4. ^ "Preview of ISO/IEC 23003-1, First edition, 2007-02-15, Part 1: MPEG Surround" (PDF). 2007-02-15. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-06-14. Retrieved 2009-10-24.
  5. ^ a b ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC29/WG11 (July 2005). "Tutorial on MPEG Surround Audio Coding". Archived from the original on 2010-04-30. Retrieved 2010-02-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  6. ^ "Working documents, MPEG-D (MPEG Audio Technologies)". MPEG. Archived from the original on 2010-02-21. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  7. ^ MPEG Spatial Audio Coding / MPEG Surround: Overview and Current Status (PDF), Audio Engineering Society, 2005, archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-07-18, retrieved 2009-10-29
  8. ^ ISO (2007). "BSAC extensions and transport of MPEG Surround, ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 5:2007". ISO. Archived from the original on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2009-10-13.
  9. ^ AES Convention Paper 8099 - A new parametric stereo and Multi Channel Extension for MPEG-4 Enhanced Low Delay AAC (AAC-ELD) (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-28, retrieved 2011-07-18
  10. ^ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC29/WG11 (October 2009), ISO/IEC 14496-3:2009/FPDAM 2 – ALS simple profile and transport of SAOC, N11032, archived from the original (DOC) on 2014-07-29, retrieved 2009-12-30{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ ISO (2010-10-06). "ISO/IEC 23003-2 - Information technology -- MPEG audio technologies -- Part 2: Spatial Audio Object Coding (SAOC)". Archived from the original on 2012-02-01. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  12. ^ Spatial Audio Object Coding (SAOC) – The Upcoming MPEG Standard on Parametric Object Based Audio Coding (PDF), 2008, archived (PDF) from the original on 2012-03-12, retrieved 2011-07-19
  13. ^ Manfred Lutzky, Fraunhofer IIS (2007), MPEG low delay audio codecs (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 2011-09-27, retrieved 2011-07-19
  14. ^ MPEG (October 2009). "91st WG11 meeting notice". chiariglione.org. Archived from the original on 2010-02-17. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  15. ^ ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 (2009-12-30). "Programme of Work (Allocated to SC 29/WG 11) - MPEG-D". Archived from the original on 2013-12-31. Retrieved 2009-12-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  16. ^ "ISO/IEC DIS 23003-3 - Information technology -- MPEG audio technologies -- Part 3: Unified speech and audio coding". 2011-02-15. Archived from the original on 2012-01-28. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  17. ^ "ISO/IEC 14496-3:2009/PDAM 3 - Transport of unified speech and audio coding (USAC)". 2011-06-30. Archived from the original on 2012-01-29. Retrieved 2011-07-18.
  18. ^ "Unified Speech and Audio Coder Common Encoder Reference Software". March 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-08-06. Retrieved 2011-07-18.