Norway's DVB-T Selects Audio Compression Technology from Coding Technologies

By Anuradha Shukla

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Coding Technologies’ (News - Alert) audio compression technology has been selected by Norway's digital terrestrial platform.

 

The company points out that the deployment of Coding Technologies’ advanced aacPlus audio codec for stereo and surround sound is the first of its kind in digital terrestrial HD (High Definition) and SD (Standard Definition) TV broadcasting. Benefiting from the most efficient use of available spectrum Norwegian DVB-T platform will enable broadcasters to deliver more TV programming at reduced transmission costs.

 

Coding Technologies’ aacPlus audio codec delivers high-fidelity live and on-demand audio for a variety of PC, mobile television, Internet and radio standards. The new deployment shows that aacPlus is also of equal relevance for High Definition and Standard Definition TV stereo broadcasting as well as in the combination of aacPlus/DTS for multichannel audio.

 

“As part of its move towards MPEG-4, Norway's DVB-T terrestrial platform has taken an important step by choosing to make aacPlus audio technology a mandatory part of the set-top-box specifications,” said Stefan Meltzer, vice president Business Development at Coding Technologies in a press release.

 

He continued:” Not only that, but through a progressive and forward-thinking approach it has become the first digital terrestrial broadcaster in the world to do so, proving the value of aacPlus to the rest of the industry and providing viewers with a greater choice and a significant improvement in their listening experience.”

 

Norway’s DTT operators’ adoption of aacPlus is expected to increase the number of set-top-box vendors, chip manufacturers and encoder vendors targeting this and other markets to deliver products that support aacPlus stereo and 5.1 surround sound.

 

According to Meltzer vendors and manufacturers can gain from a strategy that involves the development of products which support the aacPlus codec as broadcasters discover the benefits of a true alternative in audio compression.

 

Viewer expectations in audio as well as visual content are expected to increase in the age of high definition programming, which reaffirms audio as a crucial broadcast component.

 

Broadcasters can use aacPlus audio codec to deploy a state-of-the-art audio technology. A combination of MPEG-4 AVC with aacPlus provides broadcasters a higher bandwidth efficiency which results in significant cost savings per channel and the possibility to transmit more channels in a multiplex.