Press Releases Archive
Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits
More than 50 participants visit jointly organized workshop of Bayerische Rundfunk and Fraunhofer IIS in Munich: Ready for DAB Surround
Press Release 12.12.2008
The introduction of surround sound for Digital Radio DAB was focused in a workshop in the headquarters of Bayerische Rundfunk, on December 11th. Experts of BR and Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS discussed with participants of the automotive, consumer electronics and chip industry the potential and possibilities of this technology.
Dr. Johannes Grotzky, director radio of BR, stated: “As a
public broadcasting organization, Bayerische Rundfunk is
interested in supporting new broadcasting technologies with
its program. In order to push forward this process to broad
acceptance, joint action is necessary.”
Ernst Dohlus, Head of BR’s production and broadcast department,
gave a brief overview of the various surround sound
activities within the other ARD radio programs and substantiated:
“Meanwhile the preconditions for surround broadcasts are
widely available. Expenses for studios and outside broadcast
vehicles, as well as for integrating DAB Surround in every-day
broadcast operations are within calculable limits.”
BR’s Bayern 4 Klassik will demonstrate the aditional benefits
of surround sound music on December 28th. From 10 AM
to midnight a prestigious selections out of BR’s more than
200 own surround sound productions of all musical eras and
styles will be presented: baroque, classical & romantic, new
music – concert, opera, film music and jazz. The program
will be aired – as all present surround sound broadcasts – via
DVB-S in Dolby Digital AC-3. In addition, through the support
of Fraunhofer IIS, DAB Surround as well as mp3 Surround
internet stream will be available.
The audiocodec used for DAB Surround is MPEG Surround,
which was developped by Fraunhofer IIS. Olaf Korte, head of
group broadcast applications explains: »Switching to MPEG
Surround is easy. The codec is fairly efficent by delivering the
spatial information packed within the stereo data stream
itself. « Therefore no additional transmission costs arise.
According to Olaf Korte, yet another advantage is the codec’s
backward compatibility: »Future DAB receivers will
deliver impressive surround sound. But even today’s DAB radios
will not fall silent, as they will reproduce ordinary stereo
sound.«
For more information, please visit:
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/EN/bf/amm/products/dabsurround
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