How important is voice quality in communications? While we once accepted the communication quality of the traditional phone line, no matter how clear or muffled it may be, new innovations have raised the bar. We no longer accept sub-standard voice quality, especially in next generation technologies.

One company has had a hand in the way audio technology has evolved. Fraunhofer (News - Alert) USA not only coined the term full HD voice, the Freiburg Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques was also honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the development of the APRILASER film recorder.

The APRILASER was developed in partnership with ARRI and focused on improving the image technology for the motion picture industry. The team defined the requirements of a laser-based, high-quality, high-resolution film recorder. Today, the APRILASER is an industry standard and more than 280 devices are in use throughout the world for capturing digital film data onto film.

“From a scientific point of view, the development of the ARRILASER was an overwhelming success,” said Wolfgang Riedel of Fraunhofer IPM in a company statement. “There were many technological challenges which could only be met because scientists from extremely varying organizations were consulted. Several significant advancements in the specialist areas can be attributed to this joint project.”

To further understand the impact Fraunhofer USA has had in the communications market, TMCnet invited HP Baumeister, Director of Mobile & Communications Market at Fraunhofer USA, into the newsroom at ITEXPO (News - Alert) in Miami.

“The communications industry is moving rapidly,” shared Baumeister. “As we move to VoIP, what we are proposing is that we move to a much higher level of audio quality. The quality is much higher. Just like this broadcast being streamed over the Internet, nobody would do at a quality level like the standard telephone quality level.”

The online experience is all about consuming content – something that consumers focus on for education and entertainment, and organizations use to push out information and promote the brand. If quality is lacking, it impacts the experience and eventually the brand.  

“We want to continue to consume the content we consume regularly, but need to be able to store that content at full audio quality,” added Baumeister. “No one would use voice codec for a live broadcast for video over the Internet. We are suggesting the use of audio codec to protect the quality and improve the experience.”

To learn more about this innovative company and their contributions to the communications space, check out this video interview in full.