MP3 Surround is an extension of MP3 for multi-channel audio support including 5.1 surround sound. It was developed by Fraunhofer IIS in collaboration with Thomson and Agere Systems, and released in December 2004. [1] [2] [3]
MP3 is a coding format for digital audio. Originally defined as the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard, it was retained and further extended—defining additional bit-rates and support for more audio channels—as the third audio format of the subsequent MPEG-2 standard. A third version, known as MPEG 2.5—extended to better support lower bit rates—is commonly implemented, but is not a recognized standard.
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener. Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems commonly had three "screen channels" of sound, from loudspeakers located in front of the audience at the left, center, and right. Surround sound adds one or more channels from loudspeakers behind the listener, able to create the sensation of sound coming from any horizontal direction 360° around the listener. Surround sound formats vary in reproduction and recording methods along with the number and positioning of additional channels. The most common surround sound specification, the ITU's 5.1 standard, calls for 6 speakers: Center (C) in front of the listener, Left (L) and Right (R) at angles of 60° on either side of the center, and Left Surround (LS) and Right Surround (RS) at angles of 100–120°, plus a subwoofer whose position is not critical.
The Fraunhofer Society is a German research organization with 72 institutes spread throughout Germany, each focusing on different fields of applied science. With some 26,600 employees, mainly scientists and engineers and with an annual research budget of about €2.6 billion it is the biggest organization for applied research and development services in Europe.
MP3 Surround is backward compatible with standard MP3. [1] [4] The data overhead is 16 kbit/s, which allows for file sizes similar to standard stereo MP3 files. The file size is approximately 10% larger than that of a typical MP3 file. The current evaluation encoder is licensed for personal and non-commercial uses. An MP3 Surround file can be created from 5 or 6 channels of WAV audio.
Waveform Audio File Format is an audio file format standard, developed by Microsoft and IBM, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) bitstream format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. It is the main format used on Microsoft Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio. The usual bitstream encoding is the linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) format.
Several companies, such as DivX, Inc. and Magix, have announced support for the new codec. [5] [6] DivX, Inc. released their first player with MP3 Surround support on September 6, 2006.
DivX, Inc., is a privately held video technology company based in San Diego, California. DivX, LLC is best known as a producer of three codecs: an MPEG-4 Part 2-based codec, the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC DivX Plus codec and the High Efficiency Video Coding DivX HEVC Ultra HD codec. The company's software has been downloaded over 1 billion times since January 2003. DivX, LLC's offerings have expanded beyond the codec to include software for viewing and authoring DivX-encoded video. DivX, LLC also licenses its technologies to manufacturers of consumer electronics devices and components used in these devices, of which over 1 billion DivX-enabled devices have shipped worldwide. DivX certifies that these licensed products are able to properly play DivX-encoded video.
Magix, a German developer of consumer software solutions, develops software solutions for video editing, audio editing, DAW and photo slideshow. The company was founded in 1993. The software caters to professionals & DIY users. The company is based in Berlin. Additional locations are: Madison, Wisconsin (USA), Dresden and Lübbecke, as well as Huizen in the Netherlands
In January 2006, Thomson and Fraunhofer IIS also released two new companion technologies: Ensonido, which allows playback of MP3 Surround 5.1 channel sound through stereo headphones, and MP3 SX, which upgrades standard stereo mp3 file to mp3 surround files.
Ensonido is a real-time post processing algorithm that allows users to play back MP3 Surround files in standard headphones. Ensonido was developed by the Fraunhofer Society. It simulates the natural reception of surround sound by the human ear, which usually receives tones from surrounding loudspeakers and from reflections and echoes of the listening room. The out-of-head localization achieved that way increases the listening comfort noticeably in contrast to conventional stereo headphone listening with its in-head localization of all sounds. In version 3.0 of the Fraunhofer IIS MP3 Surround Player, Ensonido is replaced with newer mp3HD
mp3 SX is a program that allows users to upgrade mp3 stereo files to MP3 Surround files. mp3 SX analyzes the existing natural ambience of the stereo material and plays it back through the rear channels. The sound sources remain in the front channels, but are played back through the Left, Center and Right channel, providing a stable front image even for off-sweet-spot listening. mp3 SX preserves the original stereo sound stage, creating additional surround envelopment, with only 15 kB/s additional information.
On its 5.5 release, Nullsoft Winamp has included the MP3 Surround format as a part of its integrated MPEG audio decoder (released October 10, 2007).
Winamp is a media player for Windows, macOS and Android, originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community.
As of 2 July 2008, with system software v2.40, PlayStation 3 supports MP3 Surround playback. [7]
The PlayStation 3 system software is the updatable firmware and operating system of the PlayStation 3. The base operating used by Sony for the Playstation 3 is a fork of both FreeBSD and NetBSD called CellOS.
