Three Join Up to Develop Video Compression for Cell Phones

Coding Technologies, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), and NEC have jointly announced that the three companies have introduced a new low-power decoder version for the upcoming MPEG-4 AAC-plus-SBR (aacPlus) standard, which achieves CD-quality audio at low bitrates. MPEG-4 is being used in the video recording/playback of several Japanese video phones, as well as the Nokia 3650 (and 7650 when modified).

"The work of Panasonic, NEC and Coding Technologies has significantly increased the reach of aacPlus," said Martin Dietz, President and CEO of Coding Technologies. "Although processor power is increasing rapidly, power consumption is still a key factor in mobile markets. The efficiency afforded by low-power aacPlus will give an early boost to the new standard."

"The mobile market relies on open standards," said Dr. Takao Nishitani, General Manager, Multimedia Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation. "Low-power is always the key to mobile and portable device markets. This low-power SBR standard paves the way for these markets such as network audio distribution, digital broadcasting services, and silicon players."

Technology and intellectual property for low-power SBR was contributed by all three companies. Coding Technologies is the licensing agent for low-power SBR in aacPlus, creating a one-stop-shop for SBR patents and software in MPEG-4.

aacPlus is the combination of MPEG AAC and Coding Technologies' SBR (Spectral Band Replication) technology. SBR is a unique bandwidth extension technique, which enables audio codecs to deliver the same quality at half the bit rate."

Posted to the site on 12th December 2002