Philips enables breakthrough for professional broadcasting environment

 

Vienna, Austria, Audio Engineering Society 122, May 7th, 2007– Philips together with Coding Technologies and Linear Acoustic, announced today the availability of a new professional broadcasting hardware/software solution based on MPEG Surround. The groundbreaking new solution called Buried Data will be part of the MPEG Surround ISO standard and enables professional high quality multi-channel audio over existing stereo infrastructures. It will be demonstrated for the first time at the AES show taking place in Vienna, Austria, May 5-8.

 

The solution will, amongst others, serve remote event locations with multi-channel audio production facilities such as sports venues or concert halls. It enables broadcasters to transport stereo and multi-channel audio, both in the highest possible quality, over a single AES/EBU connection to the studio, without any necessary change of the existing stereo infrastructure. The audio signal is then further utilized and delivered in plain stereo or multi-channel as required. Linear Acoustic, a leading innovator of solutions for distributing and processing multi-channel sound, will be the first company to offer the new solution in their professional audio processing products.

 

Developed by Philips, Coding Technologies, Agere, and Fraunhofer, MPEG Surround is a recently ISO standardized, codec agnostic compression technique for delivering multi-channel audio signals. In the new solution, MPEG Surround creates a stereo audio signal from a multi-channel audio source, and a small set of parameters describing the original surround sound signal.

 

Buried Data technology

 

The new solution employs MPEG Surround in conjunction with a digital PCM stereo audio signal and a technique from Philips Applied Technologies known as “Buried Data technique” to embed the MPEG Surround parameters into a fully backwards compatible PCM stereo audio signal. An MPEG Surround decoder can then recreate the full multi-channel audio based on the embedded MPEG Surround parameters.

 

The demonstration at the AES features a professional broadcasting encoder and decoder from Linear Acoustic, operating the MPEG Surround and Buried Data technique to transport the multi-channel audio signal in high quality over a single AES/EBU stereo audio connection.

 

The combined MPEG Surround/PCM stereo audio combination represents the world’s first solution for deploying high quality multi-channel audio for contribution and distribution in a professional broadcasting environment.

 

“As high definition content is entering digital broadcasting, multi-channel audio is at the very heart of user’s expectations”, says Stefan Meltzer, Vice President Business Development at Coding Technologies. “The combination of the MPEG Surround and Philips’ buried data technique offers a highly efficient and flexible solution to the broadcaster, needing to deliver stereo and multi-channel audio.”

 

“In the development of new technologies for the media world, creating high synergies has always been our goal”, says Leon van de Kerkhof, program manager at Philips Applied Technologies. “As one of the developing parties of MPEG Surround, we are proud to also contribute our buried data technique to spur the adoption of surround sound in digital broadcasting. The early availability of the first professional encoder/decoder products is the most valid proof of concept a solution like this can achieve.”

 

“The transition from stereo to multi-channel was never easier than today”, says Linear Acoustic president/founder Tim Carroll. “Once I became aware of this great solution, I immediately knew this is what the professional market needed. We are proud to be the first company worldwide to offer MPEG Surround encoding with PCM buried data embedding. We look forward to our first deployments, which I’m convinced will not be a long time coming.”

 

The new combined MPEG Surround/PCM buried data solution will be demonstrated at the AES show at the Austria Center Vienna, from May 5-8, at Coding Technologies’ stand #2337.

 

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Press inquiries please contact:

 

Philips Applied Technologies
Joost Maltha

Tel.: +31 (0) 40 27 48882
E-mail: joost.maltha@philips.com
www.apptech.philips.com

 

About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology, delivering products, services and solutions through the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 124,300 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27.0 billion in 2006, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, personal care and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter