MPEG Surround Becomes International Standard

Agere Systems (NYSE:AGR), Coding Technologies, Fraunhofer
Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and Philips Applied Technologies
announced today that MPEG (Moving Pictures Expert Group) has finalised
the standardizations process of the MPEG Surround technique at the
79th MPEG meeting in Marrakech, Morocco. Developed by the four
parties, MPEG Surround is now an International Standard.

MPEG Surround is a brand new, feature-rich open standard
compression technique for multi-channel audio signals. Operating on
top of any core audio codec such as AAC, HE-AAC and MPEG-1 Layer II,
the system provides an unrivalled set of features including full
backward compatibility to stereo equipment and a wide scalability in
terms of bit rate used for describing the surround sound image. In
combination with HE-AAC, MPEG Surround can carry a five or seven
channel surround program at a total bit rate of 64 kb/s or less.

The compatibility enables an easy upgrade path for existing stereo
broadcasting and other media services to a more desirable surround
sound listening experience. Specifically for portable applications,
MPEG Surround offers a binaural mode, providing spatial rendering and
reproduction of multi-channel audio on stereo headphones.

All parties interested in capitalizing on the benefits of MPEG
Surround can obtain the MPEG-D standard document IS 23003-1 describing
the MPEG Surround technology. The MPEG Surround logo is available
through the four developing parties.

MPEG Surround will be demonstrated at the 3GSM World Congress in
Barcelona by Coding Technologies in hall 2.1, stand B37, and by
Fraunhofer IIS in hall 2 , stand A126, from 12th to 15th of February.

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