LAS VEGAS — Apple may be about to license a next-generation surround sound format for
iTunes that will deliver immersive audio files to cars, home
theater systems, computers and iPods.
Fraunhofer, the company behind the new MPEG Surround format, suggested that Apple would be one of its newest licensees.
"There is an unsigned contract with a well-known PC player application," said Robert Bleidt, general manager of Fraunhofer’s audio and multimedia division (pictured above), which would give the software the ability to "natively
support MPEG Surround."
Surround sound audio produces a deeply immersive listening experience by delivering 5, 7 or more separate channels of audio — plus an additional channel for the subwoofer — each of which can be delivered to a separate speaker by a compatible audio system. While surround sound is common in high-end home theater systems and is supported by the DVD and Blu-ray formats, it hasn’t been easy to get digital audio files that support surround sound. Now Fraunhofer, the inventor of the MP3 format and co-inventor of the AAC codec already used in the iTunes store, has a new format that encodes surround sound audio data for playback on compatible stereo systems, but is still playable on older, non-surround devices (like iPods).
There are a couple of reasons to think that the application Bleidt is referring to is iTunes.
Fraunhofer said it has already developed an MPEG Surround plug-in for iTunes and Quicktime: the first indication that iTunes is the store he was referring to. And clearly, iTunes, with its domination of the digital music scene, would be Fraunhofer’s first choice. Other than Windows Media Player, iTunes is the only "well-known PC player application" in existence, but the stores listed in Windows Media Player have nowhere near iTunes’ market share, and Fraunhofer’s stated goal is to sell MPEG Surround files online.
In light of all of this — and Fraunhofer’s booth demonstration of an iPod playing the surround-sound-enabled files (pictured below) — I’m more or less convinced that Apple is the company he was referring to.
If Apple signs this contract, its timing could be impeccable. Video upgrades are paving the way for a whole new class of consumers to embrace surround sound in the home, and some new cars already offer it too.
Fraunhofer has a number of factors in its
favor — mainly, that it’s backwards-compatible with anything that can
play an MP3, including the iPod and iPhone. If you play an MPEG Surround file on a plain old stereo MP3 player,
you’ll hear exactly what you would have if the file was a vanilla MP3.
But if you play the song on a device that supports Fraunhofer’s surround sound format, the 10 to 20 percent of the file containing the surround sound information kicks in to turn the stereo signal back into a discrete 5.1-channel signal.
The difference is palpable. Bleidt played songs for me from several genres, in DVD-A, MPEG Surround and stereo, on the stereo in the above-pictured car. The first two sounded nearly identical, meaning that MPEG Surround does a fine job of preserving channels discretely. By comparison, the stereo version sounded flat, canned and boring.
"Stereo music is like listening through a window, and the
performance is in the next room. With surround, you’re in the studio,
you’re in the concert hall — it’s an immersing, enveloping experience," said Bleidt, "a better experience than just two-channel stereo."
The above-mentioned contract would only add support for the format to iTunes but
commerce could be next. Apple was the first company to put together a
comprehensive online store for stereo music. It would only be fitting
if it was also first to start selling digital surround sound files,
whether with Fraunhofer’s technology or someone else’s. And thanks to the failed DVD-A and SACD high-end audio formats, the labels already have lots of music in surround, just waiting for the next promising format to come along. One major label has already agreed to use MPEG Surround, and Fraunhofer is in talks with the other three.
"MPEG Surround is our vision of the first practical way to get surround sound
music to mainstream consumers," said Bleidt. "Today, they are used to
hearing surround on films or digital TV, but they don’t have access to
surround sound music, even though the music industry has thousands of
hours of surround content mixed and sitting in their vaults, ready to
sell."
With MPEG Surround, record labels would have a nearly painless way to start offering
surround sound, and iTunes would be the natural place for them to sell it. The files would be
preferable to both the CD and the non-surround MP3s already
zinging around the world’s file sharing networks. This, as I’ve mentioned before, could give the labels something to sell to consumers that they don’t already have.
The next step would be to add surround sound simulation to the iPod. "Looking
forward," said Bleidt, "we think that new music players will eventually have binaural
playback mode that lets you experience a realistic simulation of
surround over ordinary earphones."
Photos: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com
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