Multi-channel MP3 Surround sound launched

MP3, the world's most popular audio compression format is about to go multi-channel. Scientists and engineers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, who developed MP3 together with colleagues from Thomson and Agere Systems, have joined to launch MP3 Surround into the consumer and commercial markets. This technology will enable 5.1 channel surround sound for a broad spectrum of applications including web-based music distribution, broadcasting systems, PC-related audiovisual or gaming applications, consumer electronics and automotive systems.

As previously reported in Gizmag, MP3 Surround supports high-quality multi-channel sound at bit rates comparable to those currently used to encode stereo MP3 material, resulting in files half the size of common compressed surround formats. At the same time, the new format offers complete backward compatibility to any existing MP3 software and hardware devices.

MP3 basics

MP3, short for MPEG-1/MPEG-2 Layer 3, is a format for storing digital audio. It uses an advanced type of audio compression, which reduces the file size with little reduction in audio quality. MP3 is used in software applications, digital audio players, home stereo devices and music distribution over the Internet, but is also used for other purposes such as real-time digital audio transmissions over ISDN. Over one billion music tracks are currently downloaded every month on the Internet using MP3 according to Thomson MP3 licensing.

The history of MP3

In the 1980s, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commision (IEC) set up the Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) to develop standards for the coded representation of moving pictures. In December 1988, at a meeting held at Deutsche Thomson Brandt's Hanover offices, the MPEG decided to introduce audio coding within its terms of reference.

The research on compression of music files had been carried out by a team of scientists under Prof. Karlheinz Brandenburg, working at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (Fraunhofer IIS) in Bavaria. Brandenburg first built a refrigerator-size machine (!) that could reduce a sound file to 8 percent of its original size, then concentrated on replicating its effects through an algorithm.

The result was the "MPEG-1 Layer 3" algorithm described in the ISO/IEC IS 11172-3 and ISO/IEC IS 13818-3 standard documents. Its name was first shortened to "MPEG Layer 3" and later further shortened for convenience to the file suffix "mp3".

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