DAB Surround

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits

DAB Surround

Overview

DAB Surround Logo

DAB Surround offers multi-channel sound at stereo bit rates.
Both, stereo and surround signal are broadcast in one single stream, there is no need to simulcast stereo and multi-channel programs.
DAB Surround is compatible with existing stereo and mono receivers.
Surround quality is similar to that offered by discrete systems at substantially lower bit-rates, and superior to that achieved with matrix-based systems.
For mobile services, DAB Surround supports a binaural mode to play back surround sound over conventional stereo earphones.
In combination with HE-AAC v2 (DAB+), DAB broadcasters can provide 5.1 channel surround sound at a total bit rate of only 64 kbit/s or below

 

Applications

DAB Surround transmission chain 

DAB Surround transmission chain





 

Availability

For the generation of DAB Surround bit-streams, Fraunhofer IIS offers an encoder for integration in any system or a complete all-in-one solution. The Fraunhofer DAB/DMB Content-Server™ is available as a professional broadcast solution with full DAB Surround support. The ContentServer for Eureka 147 Digital Audio and Multimedia Broadcasting is an easy-to-use encoder system for the DAB/DMB broadcast chain. It features real-time audio and video encoding in MPEG Audio Layer 2, MPEG-4 HE-AAC v2 (DAB+), MPEG Surround and MPEG-4 AVC, as well as the generation and insertion of almost any data service in PAD and NPAD, such as Journaline, Dynamic Labels and EPG.

For playback on the PC receiver side a WinAmp Plug-in is available. Next generation DAB receivers can make use of Fraunhofers DAB Surround CDKs.

Preisanfrage

 

Technology Background

DAB Surround TI 

DAB Surround is based on the MPEG Surround standard and enables any digital radio service to broadcast in surround. A generic surround extension, MPEG Surround can be used in conjunction with technologies including HE-AAC v2 (DAB+) and MPEG audio Layer II.

The DAB Surround technology works as follows. A compact set of parameters representing the spatial image of the original surround signal is transmitted along with an automatic mono or stereo downmix. Alternatively, an externally created downmix signal (‘artistic downmix’) may be used. On the decoding side, the transmitted downmix signal is expanded into high-quality, multi-channel output based on the spatial parameters. MPEG Surround offers an impressive sound quality similar to that provided by discrete systems and substantially beyond that of traditional matrix-based surround systems commonly found in the marketplace today.

The resulting audio quality is very close to that provided by a fully discrete surround system, despite the fact that the surround image is represented by a very low additional bit-rate, typically in the range of 4-10 kbit/s. The data rate for the surround parameters is scalable from 3 kbit/s up to 32 kbit/s (and beyond), allowing a variety of application scenarios to be addressed.

 

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