MPEG-H TV-sets

New Products Supporting MPEG-H Audio Hitting the Market

Several new MPEG-H enabled products have been announced at the IBC show 2017 in Amsterdam. From the latest MPEG-H-ready Ultra High Definition Television (UHD TV) platforms to the most recent versions of production tools equipped with MPEG-H Audio export, these new products will help meet the increased demand for products and applications utilizing next-generation audio.

New UHD TV Platforms with MPEG-H TV Audio System decoder from MStar and Realtek

The T12 UHD TV system-on-chip (SOC) platform by MStar Semiconductor is the latest UHD TV platform to support MPEG-H that is available immediately to interested manufacturers. The T12 is MStar’s mainstream UHD SOC platform. It supports ATSC 3.0 and DVB T2/S2 in connection with HEVC and HDR, and is typically used for high to middle-end television products. With the addition of the MPEG-H TV Audio System decoder, the MStar T12 becomes even more versatile and attractive in the UHD market.

Meanwhile, it was announced that the porting of the MPEG-H TV Audio System decoder to Realtek’s RTD2871 Ultra High Definition Television (UHD TV) system solution has been completed. Realtek collaborated with Fraunhofer and swiftly added the MPEG-H TV Audio System decoding capabilities to their latest and most advanced solution for television sets and set-top boxes. First samples of Realtek’s RTD2871 UHD TV system solution will be available later this year.

Production tools with MPEG-H Audio export function

Merging Technologies completed its immersive audio tool set for broadcasters with the creation of the Audio Definition Model (ADM) and MPEG-H export, making the latest version of Pyramix (11.1) the first DAW with a complete workflow to generate master files with Object-Based Audio (OBA) metadata according to ADM or MPEG-H 3D Audio (http://www.merging.com/news/news-stories/pyramix-11-1-to-include-full-object-based-audio-workflow). ADM export interoperability was verified on the IRCAM “ADMix renderer tool” developed within the ORPHEUS project, a Horizon 2020 research project funded by the European Union and coordinated by Fraunhofer IIS. Fraunhofer verified the MPEG-H metadata export with their proprietary MPEG-H Authoring Tool, a stand-alone application for authoring and monitoring of MPEG-H Audio content, which is already in use within the South Korean terrestrial 4K TV broadcast service. It provides monitoring and rendering of channels, objects and higher-order ambisonics content including the import and export of MPEG-H metadata. As a result of the cooperative development by Merging Technologies and Fraunhofer, a comprehensive MPEG-H workflow is now available by exporting Pyramix 11 OBA projects directly to the Fraunhofer MPEG-H Authoring Tool.

Last but not least: at IBC, New Audio Technology announced that they are close to fulfilling their promise of offering MPEG-H Audio for professional and broadcast content creation (https://www.facebook.com/newaudiotechnology/photos/a.439296352780118.94617.417099551666465/1537817742927968/?type=3&theater), with the current Spatial Audio Designer V2 release candidate that offers a complete MPEG-H Audio workflow.

To learn more about MPEG-H Audio and the MPEG-H TV Audio System, visit www.iis.fraunhofer.de/tvaudio and www.mpegh.com.

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