Modern Hybrid Audio Coding

Presenters:
Jürgen Herre, International Audio Laboratories Erlangen - Erlangen, Germany; Fraunhofer IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Sascha Dick, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Andreas Niedermeier, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS - Erlangen, Germany
Mark Vinton, Dolby - San Francisco, CA, USA

During the past one and a half decades, recent audio coding schemes have significantly overcome traditional limits for compression efficiency by adopting techniques for semi-parametric (hybrid) coding of audio signals. By doing so, full-bandwidth stereo reproduction can today be achieved even at very low bitrates, such as 12kbit/s. The keys to this breakthrough achievement were two types of semi-parametric coding extensions: First, methods for bandwidth extension (BWE) allow full reproduced audio bandwidth even at low rates. Second, methods for parametric stereo (or multichannel) coding enable good reproduction of spatial sound under similar circumstances. The workshop will present the current state of development in these active areas, describe relevant technology and illustrate its performance by sound examples.