DAB has finally adopted the AAC+ audio codec

WorldDAB, the organisation in charge of marketing DAB worldwide and overseeing the technical standards, has finally announced that DAB will be adopting the AAC+ audio codec — possibly the worst kept secret in digital broadcasting, and why on earth it took them all this time to announce it (and they haven't even announced it, Coding Technologies have) I'll never know.

Quoting from Coding Technologies' website:

"Coding Technologies' aacPlus Adopted by WorldDAB as the New Audio Codec in DAB

Broadcasters now empowered to provide the best possible listening experience at the lowest possible bit rates

Seoul, Korea October 31, 2006 — Coding Technologies, the leading provider of audio compression for digital broadcasting, mobile media, and the Internet, today announced at the 12th WorldDAB General Assembly held in Seoul, Korea, that the company's flagship product, aacPlus™, was adopted by WorldDAB as the new audio codec in Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) according to the Eureka 147 standard. The highly-efficient aacPlus audio codec provides broadcasters with an opportunity to deploy a state-of-the-art audio technology.

The WorldDAB technical specifications also support MPEG Surround, the brand-new fully backward compatible multichannel option that paves the way to simulcast multichannel without spending additional spectrum.

aacPlus is the combination of MPEG-4 AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) with Coding Technologies' Spectral Band Replication (SBR®) and Parametric Stereo (PS) technologies, which are methods to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec. aacPlus is an integral part of the open MPEG standard and is widely deployed in digital broadcasting, mobile music services, and Internet streaming to deliver near-CD audio quality at only one third of the bit rate used by MPEG-1/2 Layer 2, the existing audio technology in DAB. With aacPlus as the new audio codec in DAB, broadcasters can benefit from much higher bandwidth efficiency which results in significant cost savings per channel and the possibility to transmit more channels in a multiplex than before.

"The adoption of aacPlus as the new audio codec in DAB offers an opportunity for broadcasters to choose the best-of-breed technology for the best possible listening experience at the lowest possible bit rates," said Martin Dietz, chief executive officer and president of Coding Technologies.

DAB with MPEG-4 aacPlus is the first choice in evolving markets such as China and Australia for digital broadcasting. In Europe, markets with a slow adoption of the DAB standard can easily switch to aacPlus, immediately offering new opportunities to broadcasters. In established markets such as the UK, the use of both the new audio codec alongside the existing Layer-2 allows broadcasters to add new services in the available spectrum.

"The bandwidth savings achieved by the usage of aacPlus in DAB makes it possible that all australian broadcasters - both commercial and governmental - will be able to broadcast digitally. This is a major step forward for DAB in making this technology more attractive to spectrum regulators," commented Joan Warner, CEO Commercial Radio Australia.

MPEG-4 aacPlus is already standardised in all digital mobile TV technologies, including DVB-H, MediaFlo, ISDB 1-seg and T-DMB, the worldwide standard based on DAB. In addition, aacPlus is a standard feature in a growing list of more than 200 media/entertainment products from companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Alcatel, Casio, Hitachi, Kyocera, LG, Siemens and Toshiba. Coding Technologies estimates there will be more than 100 million mobile devices supporting aacPlus by the end of 2006."


 
 

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