“Empowering our customers to provide the highest quality audio and multimedia experiences to the end user continues to be a driving force behind Fraunhofer’s innovative technologies,” said Harald Popp, head of the Multimedia Realtime Systems department, Fraunhofer IIS. “As both a research powerhouse and commercial supplier, our team of experts closely follows the growing demands in the industry and brings visions to market.”

Fraunhofer has outlined three areas of focus that have a strong business growth opportunity. As end users demand the latest entertainment experiences, Fraunhofer delivers innovative new business opportunities for broadcasters and service providers to meet these needs by enabling differentiated services, new ways to generate revenue and the highest possible quality.

Internet Radio and Online Music Streaming
Fraunhofer’s MPEG Surround codec allows broadcasters and pure play music service providers to deliver cost-effective ways to offer the best possible end user experience and generate new revenue streams. Through Fraunhofer, these organizations can offer truly differentiated premium services with high-quality 5.1 surround sound, which enables broadcast and streaming services at stereo bit-rates over all existing and future distribution channels. As a result, this generates additional revenue opportunities for the broadcaster or services provider, while meeting the increasing demands of the end user for quality audio content.

Digital Radio Broadcast Data Services
Digital radio broadcasters are in need of the latest technologies to retain existing customers and increase their listener base. Fraunhofer’s broadcast data service allows broadcasters to gain a competitive advantage, while increasing advertising revenues.

Journaline, the international standard for high quality data services for the transmission of up-to-date text information over digital broadcast systems, enables broadcasters to create new business models. Journaline’s text-based system supports, for example, advertisements in multiple languages and integrates interactive URLs, instantly linking a commercial to a webpage. The interactive service also brings added benefits to end users, allowing them to easily and immediately access topics of interest, both program-related and program-independent textual information. This added feature further encourages end users to shift from traditional FM radio to digital radio.

Digital TV Broadcast Audio Codec
The multi-channel audio codec HE-AAC is currently becoming the codec of choice of most state-of-the-art digital TV broadcast systems. Broadcasters and regulation authorities all over the world switch to HE-AAC due to its unique feature set. As HE-AAC is much more efficient than legacy TV broadcast codecs, more programs can be transmitted over the same channel, ultimately generating more revenue for broadcasters and service providers. Of course, HE-AAC meets the demands of broadcasters in terms of simulcasting stereo and 5.1 sound, metadata support, transcoding capabilities, and flexibility. That’s why most newly introduced TV broadcasting systems are based on HE-AAC.

For more information, visit www.iis.fraunhofer.de/audio