Audio Codec xHE-AAC at No Additional Cost to Boost DRM Receiver Industry

The DRM Consortium welcomes the announcement made by Via Licensing Corporation, a leading world-wide intellectual property solutions provider, of the highly efficient MPEG xHE-AAC audio codec (Extended High Efficiency AAC) to become in effect a default feature of the widely popular Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) patent pool. Through this announcement, 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 MPEG xHE-AAC audio codec is a mandatory feature of the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) standard. It is currently in use on DRM transmissions across the globe. Applications for MPEG xHE-AAC also include streaming over mobile and wired networks and terrestrial radio.

By making xHE-AAC available as part of 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. In addition, DRM receiver manufacturers deploying the xHE-AAC technology will be able to benefit from special rates for emerging markets formerly only available to AAC licensors, including India, Indonesia, Pakistan, most African countries incl. South Africa, most Arab countries, most South American countries incl. Brazil, etc. More information on Via's "Alternative Rate Structure" offer for the AAC patent pool is available at www.via-corp.com/us/en/licensing/aac/licensefees-structures.html.

According to Via, the expanded AAC patent pool license including xHE-AAC will be available to licensees starting in the last quarter of 2017.

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 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 broadcasters and mobile streaming audio providers distribute their content more efficiently. Consumers can enjoy high quality audio reproduction at lower bit rates, which reduces their mobile data consumption and costs.

"The addition of xHE-AAC technology increases the value of our AAC patent pool license," said Joe Siino, President of Via Licensing. "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."

For Ruxandra Obreja, the DRM Consortium Chairman, "this is a breakthrough initiative for the DRM receiver availability as it gives an extra boost to digital receiver manufacturing. The global receiver industry can now be confident that there are no extra costs but rather great cost savings in many relevant countries for manufacturing DRM or even multi-standard DRM/DAB+ receivers."

About DRM

Digital Radio Mondiale™ (DRM) is the universal, openly standardised digital broadcasting system for all broadcasting frequencies.

The DRM standard comprises two major configurations: One is intended for broadcasts on short, medium and long wave up to 30 MHz and providing large coverage areas and low power consumption with better-than-FM quality services. The configuration for the VHF bands above 30 MHz including the FM band is tailored for local and regional coverage with broadcaster-controlled transmissions and provides stereo services up to Surround Sound.

All DRM configurations share the same audio coding, data and multimedia services, service linking, multiplexing and signalling schemes.  DRM provides high quality sound combined with a wealth of enhanced features: Journaline text information, Slideshow, EPG, and data services.

The DRM Consortium was awarded by ITU for it outstanding contribution to the Telecommunications over the past years and has signed the EBU Smart Radio Memorandum that promotes access to free to air radio on all devices.

For more information and DRM updates please visit www.drm.org or subscribe to DRM news by writing to pressoffice@drm.org.  Click here for the Newsletter with all the latest DRM news from around the world.

About Vialicensing Corporation

Via Licensing Corporation is a global intellectual property solutions provider dedicated to enabling innovation in partnership with technology and entertainment companies and universities around the world. Via develops and manages licensing programs on behalf of highly innovative companies in markets such as audio, wireless, broadcast, and automotive. Via is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology licensing. For more information about Via, please visit http://www.via-corp.com.

Contacts

Via Licensing Corporation

Tony Carter, 404-316-0201

info@vialicensing.com

Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)

www.drm.org 

 +44 (0) 7718175879

(Press Release)

Via Adds xHE-AAC To Advanced Audio Coding Patent Pool License

Expanded license encourages adoption of new audio technology

October 02, 2017 08:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Via Licensing Corporation, a leading world-wide intellectual property solutions provider, today 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 license will be available at no additional cost to licensees, starting in Q4 of 2017.

"The addition of xHE-AAC technology increases the value of our AAC patent pool license"

Through this announcement, 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 license," said Joe Siino, President of Via Licensing. "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 license in addition to an existing AAC license. 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 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.

About Via Licensing Corporation

Via Licensing Corporation is a global intellectual property solutions provider dedicated to enabling innovation in partnership with technology and entertainment companies and universities around the world. Via develops and manages licensing programs on behalf of highly innovative companies in markets such as audio, wireless, broadcast, and automotive. Via is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology licensing. For more information about Via, please visit http://www.via-corp.com

Contacts

Via Licensing Corporation

Tony Carter, 404-316-0201

info@vialicensing.com

(Press Release)

Via Announces Patent Pool License for MPEG xHE-AAC to Support Digital Radio and Mobile Streaming Applications

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Via Licensing Corporation announced the availability of a patent pool license for MPEG Extended High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (xHE-AAC), the latest upgrade to the AAC family of audio compression technologies used around the world for broadcast, streaming, downloading, and audio/visual capture and playback applications. xHE-AAC provides exceptional audio quality using low bit rates to deliver a listening experience suitable for mobile devices, but which can scale-up to offer audiophile-quality reproduction.

xHE-AAC is also designed to support the delivery of mixed music and speech content on mobile devices and automotive products. Applications for MPEG xHE-AAC include digital radio broadcasting, streaming over mobile networks, and audio books. Because MPEG xHE-AAC delivers bit rates as low as 12 kilobits per second (kbps) for stereo and 6 kbps for mono, it can save bandwidth and transfer costs for content distribution over the internet or wireless networks. For consumers, it can provide a more enjoyable and cost-effective listening experience on mobile devices. xHE-AAC has already been adopted for the Digital Radio Mondiale ("DRM") broadcast standard and is currently in use on DRM transmissions around the world.

"MPEG xHE-AAC is an important new technology and a significant addition to the AAC licensing program," said Andrew Fischer, Sr. Director, Audio Programs, at Via Licensing Corporation. "With xHE-AAC, the range of applications that can be enhanced by the AAC family of codecs continues to expand."

Licensors contributing research, capital investment, inventions, and development toward the standardization of this important technology include Dolby Laboratories, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Fraunhofer IIS, Koninklijke Philips N.V., NTT DOCOMO, Orange S.A., Panasonic Corporation, Sony Corporation, and VoiceAge Corporation. Via's licensors have made their patented inventions available to the industry through Via's pool on fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms.

xHE-AAC is a superset of the technologies licensed under the broadly adopted AAC patent licensing program. Companies that are licensees under an existing AAC Patent License Agreement and that wish to receive a license for xHE-AAC will be able to do so through a simple addendum to their in-place patent license agreement. Similarly, reporting a mix of AAC and xHE-AAC products is streamlined for the convenience of licensees. More information, including the xHE-AAC fee schedule is presented athttp://via-corp.com/licensing/xHE-AAC/overview.html

About Via Licensing Corporation

Via Licensing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology licensing. Via is dedicated to the development and administration of licensing programs for mandated, de facto, and emerging standards on behalf of innovative technology companies in the audio, broadcast, wireless, and automotive markets. For more information about Via, please visit via-corp.com.

Contacts

for Via Licensing Corporation

Brian Pitts, 312-475-5921

brian.pitts@hkstrategies.com

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160928006430/en/Announces-Patent-Pool-License-MPEG-xHE-AAC-Support

License Programme for DRM’s Audio Codec MPEG xHE-AAC Announced

San Francisco, April 18, 2016—Via Licensing Corporation announced today that a patent pool license for Extended High Efficiency AAC (xHE-AAC) is in the final stage of development.

 

xHE-AAC is the most recent update to the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) family of technologies standardized by ISO MPEG. xHE-AAC combines an optimized speech coder with a high-performance general audio coder resulting in a single audio coding system capable of achieving exceptional results at low bit rates with any type of audio content, whether speech, music, or ambient sounds.

 

xHE-AAC is ideally suited for radio broadcast, which combines a variety of content from talk radio to voice over music or sound-effects to purely musical program content. For this reason, xHE-AAC has been selected as the audio coding format for Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM), a digital radio system designed to work over existing analog radio broadcast infrastructure, including shortwave. Apart from radio broadcast, xHE-AAC is well suited for radio streaming services, especially over congested networks. Due to its coding efficiency and scalability, with stereo bit rates as low as 12 kilobits per second xHE-AAC enables streaming services over 2G networks such as those found in emerging markets, and it can save bandwidth costs for service providers and consumers even on 3G and 4G LTE networks.

 

A number of xHE-AAC essential patent owners have been working to establish the patent pool with Via Licensing, including Dolby Laboratories, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Fraunhofer IIS, Koninklijke Philips N.V., Orange S.A., Sony Corporation, and VoiceAge Corporation. 

 

Royalties for the xHE-AAC license are expected to be as follows:

 

Volume  (per unit/annual reset)        Per-Unit Fee*

 

For the first 1 to 500,000 units           $1.08

For 500,001 to 1,000,000 units          $0.88

For 1,000,001 to 2,000,000 units       $0.78

For 2,000,001 to 5,000,000 units       $0.70

For 5,000,001 to 10,000,000 units     $0.67

For 10,000,001 to 20,000,000 units   $0.47

For 20,000,001 to 50,000,000 units   $0.45

For 50,000,001 to 75,000,000 units   $0.40

For 75,000,001 and more units          $0.35

 

* Preliminary; subject to change, pending availability of the license

 

The xHE-AAC program is designed to make it easy for current and future AAC pool licensees to add a license grant for xHE-AAC to an existing AAC license agreement. Similarly, reporting a mix of both AAC and xHE-AAC products is streamlined for AAC licensees. The license fees presented above are inclusive of the underlying AAC patents. In other words, xHE-AAC licensees will not be paying twice for the patents that are granted under the AAC Patent License Agreement.

 

"We are very pleased that the xHE-AAC patent pool is nearing launch," said Joseph Siino, President of Via. "Via and its licensors have supported the Digital Radio Mondiale initiative for many years. As the format evolves, just as the AAC codec family itself evolves, it is important for us to aid commercialization of the technology by simplifying access to the essential patent rights for manufacturers and developers worldwide."

 

The xHE-AAC patent pool is expected to launch in the second quarter of 2016.

 

About Via Licensing Corporation

 

Via Licensing Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., a company with more than 50 years of experience in innovation and technology licensing. Via is dedicated to the development and administration of licensing programs for mandated, de facto, and emerging standards on behalf of innovative technology companies in the audio, broadcast, wireless, and automotive markets. For more information about Via, please visit vialicensing.com. 

(Press Release)