MUMBAI: Via Licensing Corporation, a intellectual property solutions provider, has announced the upcoming availability of Extended High Efficiency AAC (xHE-AAC) as part of the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) patent pool. The expanded patent pool licence will be available at no additional cost to licensees, starting in Q4 of 2017.
DRM receiver manufacturers deploying the xHE-AAC technology will be able to gain from special rates for emerging markets (which were earlier only available to AAC licensors) such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, most African countries including South Africa, most Arab countries, most South American countries including Brazil.
Via and AAC licensors are taking steps to encourage and accelerate the adoption of xHE-AAC, the most recent and advanced member of the AAC family of audio codecs.
“The addition of xHE-AAC technology increases the value of our AAC patent pool licence,” said Via Licensing president Joe Siino. “Adding xHE-AAC to our patent pool ensures that broadcasters and service providers can deliver the next generation of audio to consumers efficiently and affordably.”
Previously, xHE-AAC technology could only be used in devices if manufacturers paid for an additional licence in addition to an existing AAC licence. By bringing xHE-AAC into its AAC patent pool, Via grants licensees access to xHE-AAC rights at no additional cost, and reduces average per-unit cost through greater volume aggregation across all AAC related products.
xHE-AAC combines two MPEG technologies, High Efficiency AAC v2, and Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC). It is designed to support the delivery of mixed speech and general audio content including music on mobile devices, radio broadcasts, and wired streaming (OTT) services. xHE-AAC provides exceptional audio quality using low bit rates delivering a listening experience suitable for mobile devices, and can scale-up to offer audiophile-quality reproduction. The reduced bit rate helps mobile broadcasters and streaming audio providers distribute their content more efficiently. Consumers are able to enjoy high quality audio reproduction at lower bit rates which lowers their data consumption and costs.
Applications for MPEG xHE-AAC include digital radio broadcasting, streaming over mobile and wired networks, and terrestrial radio. It has already been adopted for the Digital Radio Mondiale (“DRM”) broadcast standard and is currently in use on DRM transmissions around the world.
