Monday, October 7 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm
W11: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN MPEG-4 AUDIO
Chair: Jürgen Herre, Fraunhofer IIS-A, Erlangen, Germany
Panelists:
Martin Dietz, Coding Technologies, Nürnberg, Germany
Ralf Geiger, Fraunhofer IIS-A/AEMT, Ilmenau, Germany
Leon van de Kerkhof, Philips Digital Systems Laboratory, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Summary:
For more than one decade, MPEG Audio standards have been defining the state of the art in perceptual coding of audio signals. Several phases of standardization (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4) have been pushing borders beyond everybody’s initial expectations. This workshop reports on three new extensions to the existing MPEG-4 audio standard which are currently under development. The work on compatible bandwidth extension of audio signals provides an additional performance boost for AAC coding at very low bitrates, permitting considerable signal quality at bitrates around 24kbit/s per channel. A second extension augments the existing MPEG parametric audio coder with modes for representing high-quality audio signals. Finally, methods for lossless audio coding are under consideration, extending current MPEG-4 audio coders towards perfect representation at word lengths and sampling rates typically associated with high-definition audio. The workshop will provide background and demonstrations on these technologies.