Nero Digital is a brand name applied to a suite of MPEG-4-compatible video and audio compression codecs developed by Nero AG of Germany and Ateme of France. The audio codecs are integrated into the Nero Digital Audio+ audio encoding tool for Microsoft Windows, and the audio & video codecs are integrated into Nero's Recode DVD ripping software.
Nero certifies certain DVD player/recorder devices as Nero Digital compatible,[1] and licenses the codec technology to integrated circuit manufacturers.[2]
The video codecs were developed by Ateme,[3] and according to an interview with Nero AG developer Ivan Dimkovic, the audio codecs are improved versions of Dimkovic's older PsyTEL AAC Encoder.[4] The audio codec is now available as a free stand-alone package called Nero AAC Codec.