Session Title:	Compression and Perceptual Coding for Computer-Based Environments
Session Chair:	Karlheinz Brandenburg, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Erlangen, Germany
Participants:	Peter Noll, Technische Universitaet Berlin Institut fuer Natchrichentechnik und Theoretische Elektrotechtik, Berlin, Germany, Schuyler Quackenbush, Rick Beaton, Qdesign Corporation, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Steve Church, Telos Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, Alan Lippman, Progressive Networks, Seattle, Washington, USA
Rick Beaton: With processor power doubling roughly every 18 months, standard CPU's have reached the point where efficient software implementations of standard audio compression schemes can rival dedicated hardware solutions in quality. Implementation of these algorithms on generic, ubiquitous platforms such as the Intel Pentium or PowerPC CPU offers many advantages over dedicated hardware, and opens up new applications for high quality audio compression. This presentation examines the state-of-the-art in software audio encoders and presents an overview of the requirements for high quality audio compression on standard computer platforms. Alan Lippman: The Uni-directional transmission of multimedia over the internet provides a transmission channel with unique properties. By tailoring compression techniques to this channel one can greatly exceed the quality available through the re-use of standard techniques. We plan to discuss the properties of this transmission channel. Primary questions are: What are requirements on audio compression schemes for networks? What are requirements on audio compression schemes for software encoding/decoding? How do current perceptual coding systems perform compared to these requirements? Do current products use the current compression schemes up to their potential or are better implementations possible? Do current systems deliver good enough audio quality to be really useful for Internet use? What tradeoffs are possible between delay, signal quality, software encoding capabilities etc. ? Do current systems show a good choice for these tradeoffs or are better combinations possible? Are software encoders really delivering full quality? Are PC-based systems really good for professional (like broadcasting) use? What is top missing feature in today's perceptual coding systems? What is the top list of wishes from application building companies to the creators of perceptual coding systems?

Biographies:

Karlheinz Brandenburg, Peter Noll, Rick Beaton, Alan Lippman

Karlheinz Brandenburg KARLHEINZ BRANDENBURG was born in Erlangen, Germany in 1954. He received M.S. (Diplom) degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1980 and in Mathematics in 1982 from Erlangen University. In 1989 he earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, also from Erlangen University, for work on digital audio coding and perceptual measurement techniques. From 1989 to 1990 he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ, USA. He worked on the ASPEC perceptual coding technique and on the definition of the ISO/IEC MPEG/Audio Layer3 system. In 1990 he returned to Erlangen University to continue the research on audio coding and to teach a course on digital audio technology. Since 1993 he is the head of the Audio/Multimedia department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (FhG-IIS). He has presented numerous papers at AES conventions. In 1994 he received the AES Fellowship Award for his work on perceptual audio coding and pscychoacoustics. Dr. Brandenburg is a member of the technical committee on Audio and Electroacoustics of the IEEE Signal Processing Society and the AES. He has been an active member of the ISO MPEG standardization committee since the start in 1988. In MPEG Audio his main topics currently are the MPEG-2 Advanced Audio Coding standard (AAC) and MPEG-4 Audio, where he is the chair of the ad hoc group on MPEG-4 audio core experiments. working on advanced audio coding systems. Dr. Brandenburg has been granted 12 patents and has several more pending. Peter Noll PETER NOLL was a recipient of the 1976 NTG Award (Germany) and of the 1977 IEEE ASSP Senior Award (IEEE Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Society, USA). 1982 he was elected to the Grade of an IEEE Fellow "for contributions to adaptive quantization and coding of speech signals". In 1994 he became Advisory Professor of the Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing (China). In 1996 be became a member of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (the former Prussian Academy of Science, founded in 1700 by Leibniz) and of the Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (founded in 1652). He is a member of the ISO/IEC Working Group 11 [Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG)] and has acted as chairman of its Subgroup on Audio from 1991 to 1995. The activity of this subgroup has led to standards for stereophonic (MPEG-1) and multichannel (MPEG-2) audio coding. Rick Beaton RICK BEATON is president and founder of QDesign Corporation, which develops advanced signal processing and interactive communications technologies for professional audio and multimedia applications. A professional musician and audio engineer until 1982, he has been active in the development of audio and music technology since 1977. In 1988, he joined MPR Teltech, the second largest R&D company in Canada, where he led the Technology Development Group in the development of image and audio signal processing, perceptual audio coding and communications technologies until 1995. He has been an active participant in the ISO MPEG and ITU standards committees for low bitrate audio coding, subjective assessment and audio quality measurement. Mr. Beaton is a member of the IEEE and the Audio Engineering Society. Alan Lippman ALAN LIPPMAN recieved the B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Washington in 1982 and the Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from Brown Univeresity in 1986. Since that time he has been involved in both academia and industry working in the area of image processing, image compression, speech recognition and speech coding. He has been at Progressive Networks since January, 1995 working on speech coding, video compression and the myriad systems issues that arise in the transmission of multimedia over the internet.

Back to Table of Contents