At CES 2011, Fraunhofer IIS and Texas Instruments (TI) announced the availability of MPEG Surround audio streaming on TI’s DSP platform, showing reference design implementations at Fraunhofer’s booth. Manufacturers of TI-powered consumer electronics devices such as AV receivers will have easy access to the Fraunhofer MPEG Surround decoding software as part of the recently announced TI Network Audio SDK.
With Fraunhofer’s codec technology, Internet broadcasters and music services will be able to provide an immersive surround audio experience. MPEG Surround enables the cost-efficient delivery of surround audio at stereo bit rates as low as 64kb/s for 5.1 channels. Users can enjoy the streams in the highest quality on surround-enabled devices and stereo equipment made possible with the stereo-compatible nature of the codec.
With the integration of MPEG Surround into TI’s Networked Audio SDK, audio consumer electronics manufacturers will be able to bring multichannel streaming products to market with significantly reduced software development effort. The kit facilitates software development on the DA8x family of networked audio processors and includes a comprehensive package of preintegrated online music services as well as implementations of network interoperability standards, multichannel and stereo codecs, audio post processing, streaming audio over USB and more.
MPEG Surround is an ISO standard co-developed by Fraunhofer IIS, the technology development firm based in Erlangen, Germany, that developed or co-developed such codec technologies as MP3 and AAC. Software implementations for device manufacturers are available on various embedded platforms. Broadcasters and music service providers can offer their streams efficiently by using Fraunhofer’s encoding and streaming software solutions that are available directly from Fraunhofer or as part of various third-party vendor products.
