LC3 (codec)

LC3
Type of formatAudio
Extended toLC3plus
StandardBluetooth 5.2 LE
LC3plus
Type of formatAudio
StandardETSI TS 103 634

LC3 (Low Complexity Communication Codec) is an audio codec specified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) for the LE Audio audio protocol introduced in Bluetooth 5.2.[1] It's developed by Fraunhofer IIS and Ericsson as the successor of the SBC codec.[2]

LC3 provides higher audio quality and better Packet loss concealment than SBC, G.722 and Opus, according to subjective testing by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group and ETSI.[3][4][5] The conclusion regarding Opus is disputed as the test only included speech audio, but the comparison was made to version 1.1.4 of the reference Opus encoder, using complexity level 0 at 32 kbps and relying on CELT (general audio) instead of the FEC-capable SILK (speech); the test also did not take into account the newer version 1.2 of the Opus encoder released in 2017, where significant improvements were made to low bitrate streams.[5]

Supported systems:

  1. ^ "LE Audio". Bluetooth Technology Website. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  2. ^ "LC3 / LC3plus". Fraunhofer IIS. Retrieved 2020-01-10.
  3. ^ Frumusanu, Andrei. "CES 2020: Bluetooth SIG Announces LE Audio Standard: New Baseline For Next Decade". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  4. ^ "New Bluetooth codec improves sound quality, benefits the hearing impaired". Android Authority. 2020-01-07. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
  5. ^ a b "Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT); Study of Super Wideband Codec in DECT for narrowband, wideband and super-wideband audio communication including options of low delay audio connections (≤ 10 ms framing)" (PDF). ETSI. September 2018.
  6. ^ "Android 13 may finally bring full support for Bluetooth LE Audio". xda-developers. 2021-12-22. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  7. ^ "Features and APIs Overview - Android 13 Developer Preview". Android Developers. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  8. ^ "New LC3 Encoder (I5f2f7627)". AOSP Gerrit. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  9. ^ "Add new LC3 decoder (I275ea8ba)". AOSP Gerrit. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  10. ^ "google/liblc3: Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3)". GitHub. 26 June 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
  11. ^ Roth, Emma (2023-05-23). "Windows 11 adds support for Bluetooth's low-energy audio spec". The Verge. Retrieved 2023-05-25.
  12. ^ Blog, Windows Experience; Woodman, Aaron (2023-05-23). "Announcing new Windows 11 innovation, with features for secure, efficient IT management and intuitive user experience". Windows Experience Blog. Retrieved 2023-05-25.
  13. ^ "modules: Add zephyr lc3 codec by Casper-Bonde-Bose · Pull Request #44225 · zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr". GitHub. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  14. ^ "Bluez-alsa/SRC at master · arkq/Bluez-alsa". GitHub.
  15. ^ "BlueZ » Blog Archive » LE Audio support in PipeWire".