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Neural Audio Corporation was an audio research company based in Kirkland, Washington.
The company specialized in high-end audio research. It helped XM Satellite Radio launch their service using the Neural Codec Pre-Conditioner, which was designed to provide higher quality audio at lower bitrates.
The company was co-founded by two audio engineers, Paul Hubert and Robert Reams in 2000.
In 2009 the company was acquired by DTS Inc. for $15 million in cash. [1]
Neural was mostly known for its work in the field of audio processing and its "Neural Surround" sound format. ESPN, FOX, NBC, CBS, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros, THX, Yamaha, Pioneer Electronics, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Vivendi and SiriusXM were partners and customers in connection with sound for movies, broadcasting applications, music reproduction and video games.[ citation needed ]
"Neural Surround" is a technology similar to MPEG Surround, where a 5.1 stream is downmixed into stereo than recovered using cues – encoded into the downmixed stereo. NPR participated in a trial of the "Neural Surround" technology in 2004, using the Harris NeuStar 5225. [2] XM HD Surround was based on the same technology.
Neural provides its "Codec Pre-Conditioner" in at least two types of devices, a "NeuStar UltraLink digital radio audio conditioner" built as a physical device [2] and a "Neustar SW4.0" built as a piece of software on Windows XP. [3] Manual of the software indicates that the pre-conditioner works by analyzing noise in each frequency bin and masking them to not exceed predefined limits, so that they would not overwhelm a codec. [4]
Harris Broadcast acted as a redistributor of Neural technology. [5]
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel and high-resolution audio. A lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity. WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates. Microsoft has also developed a digital container format called Advanced Systems Format to store audio encoded by WMA.
Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, it is lossy compression. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35 mm film prints. It has since also been used for TV broadcast, radio broadcast via satellite, digital video streaming, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and game consoles.
XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XM) was one of the three satellite radio (SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable television. Its service included 73 different music channels, 39 news, sports, talk and entertainment channels, 21 regional traffic and weather channels, and 23 play-by-play sports channels. XM channels were identified by Arbitron with the label "XM".
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format.
Quadraphonic sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for the reproduction of sound signals that are independent of one another.
WinDVD is a commercial DVD video player software for Microsoft Windows.
Dolby Pro Logic is a surround sound processing technology developed by Dolby Laboratories, designed to decode soundtracks encoded with Dolby Surround. The terms Dolby Stereo and LtRt are also used to describe soundtracks that are encoded using this technique.
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. is a British-American technology corporation specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.
HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. HD radio generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used primarily by AM and FM radio stations in the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, Mexico and the Philippines, with a few implementations outside North America.
DTS, Inc. is an American company. DTS company makes multichannel audio technologies for film and video. Based in Calabasas, California, the company introduced its DTS technology in 1993 as a competitor to Dolby Laboratories, incorporating DTS in the film Jurassic Park (1993). The DTS product is used in surround sound formats for both commercial/theatrical and consumer-grade applications. It was known as The Digital Experience until 1995. DTS licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.
On December 28, 2005, XM Satellite Radio announced that it had teamed up with Neural Audio Corporation to introduce XM HD Surround, XM HD Surround broadcasts XM channels in 5.1 digital surround sound. For a time XM broadcast a variety of special shows and live music performances in this format. According to the press release, Denon, Onkyo, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc., and Yamaha will introduced home audio systems capable of playing XM HD Surround in 2006.
Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories for home video, used principally in Blu-ray Disc and compatible hardware. Dolby TrueHD, along with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby AC-4, is one of the intended successors to the Dolby Digital (AC-3) lossy surround format. Dolby TrueHD competes with DTS's DTS-HD Master Audio, another lossless surround sound codec.
Sound Blaster Audigy is a product line of sound cards from Creative Technology. The flagship model of the Audigy family used the EMU10K2 audio DSP, an improved version of the SB-Live's EMU10K1, while the value/SE editions were built with a less-expensive audio controller.
An audio/video receiver (AVR) or a stereo receiver is a consumer electronics component used in a home theater or hi-fi system. Its purpose is to receive audio and video signals from a number of sources, and to process them and provide power amplifiers to drive loudspeakers, and/or route the video to displays such as a television, monitor or video projector. Inputs may come from a TV, FM, or AM tuner, satellite receiver, DVD players, Blu-ray Disc players, VCRs or video game consoles, among others. The AVR source selection and settings such as volume, are typically set by a remote controller.
Sound Retrieval System (SRS) is a patented psychoacoustic 3D audio processing technology originally invented by Arnold Klayman in the early 1980s. The SRS technology applies head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) to create an immersive 3D soundfield using only two speakers, widening the "sweet spot", creating a more spacious sense of ambience, and producing strong localization cues for discrete instruments within an audio mix. SRS is not a Dolby matrix surround decoder but works with normal stereo recordings.
DTS-HD Master Audio is a multi-channel, lossless audio codec developed by DTS as an extension of the lossy DTS Coherent Acoustics codec. Rather than being an entirely new coding mechanism, DTS-HD MA encodes an audio master in lossy DTS first, then stores a concurrent stream of supplementary data representing whatever the DTS encoder discarded. This gives DTS-HD MA a lossy "core" able to be played back by devices that cannot decode the more complex lossless audio. DTS-HD MA's primary application is audio storage and playback for Blu-ray Disc media; it competes in this respect with Dolby TrueHD, another lossless surround format.
MPEG Surround, also known as Spatial Audio Coding (SAC) is a lossy compression format for surround sound that provides a method for extending mono or stereo audio services to multi-channel audio in a backwards compatible fashion. The total bit rates used for the core and the MPEG Surround data are typically only slightly higher than the bit rates used for coding of the core. MPEG Surround adds a side-information stream to the core bit stream, containing spatial image data. Legacy stereo playback systems will ignore this side-information while players supporting MPEG Surround decoding will output the reconstructed multi-channel audio.
In sound recording and reproduction, audio mixing is the process of optimizing and combining multitrack recordings into a final mono, stereo or surround sound product. In the process of combining the separate tracks, their relative levels are adjusted and balanced and various processes such as equalization and compression are commonly applied to individual tracks, groups of tracks, and the overall mix. In stereo and surround sound mixing, the placement of the tracks within the stereo field are adjusted and balanced. Audio mixing techniques and approaches vary widely and have a significant influence on the final product.
aptX is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms owned by Qualcomm, with a heavy emphasis on wireless audio applications.
Xperi Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in San Jose, California, that develops software for consumer electronics and connected cars, as well as media platforms for video service over broadband. The company is organized into four business units: Pay-TV, Consumer Electronics, Connected Car, and Media Platform. Xperi's brands include DTS, HD Radio, and TiVo.