Fraunhofer have announced their upgrade to the ubiquitous mp3. The new and improved mp3, called the 'mp3 Surround technology', provides a multi-channel listening experience with minimum effort and maximum compatibility.
With mp3 Surround technology the user can play back both stereo or surround music from the same MP3 Surround files. This allows for a wide range of MP3 Surround applications within e.g. broadcasting systems or web-based music distribution.
MP3 Surround allows the reproduction of high-quality multichannel sound at bit rates comparable to those currently used to encode stereo MP3 material. Most importantly, the new format offers complete backward compatibility to existing MP3 software and devices: MP3 Surround bit streams are played back as high-quality stereo sound on all current MP3 players.
When decoded by MP3 Surround decoders, however, the new format produces full 5.1 channel surround sound! These astounding features are realized by a revolutionary technical approach based on the MP3 standard: MP3 Surround technology encodes multichannel sound by transmitting a stereo audio signal that carries a compatible stereo down mix of the multi-channel material.
In addition, a small amount of side information is transmitted characterizing the spatial distribution and attributes of the multi-channel sound image. MP3 Surround was developed by Fraunhofer IIS in collaboration with Agere Systems.
