AOL licenses audio codec: News from Coding Technologies

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America Online has licensed the aacPlus v2 audio codec from Coding Technologies for use with its media delivery platform and the NSV file format. aacPlus v2 will enable AOL to efficiently deliver high-quality audio and audio-visual services at low bitrates to AOL members. "We are focused on offering the very best media experience to our members and web users, in order to showcase the world class content available on AOL and AOL for broadband, and throughout our various web properties", said Scott Brown, Director of Media Systems Development for America Online.

"aacPlus v2 audio from Coding Technologies will help us to deliver the highest quality streaming audio and video via our efficient media platform".

"AOL has the largest online audience and the leading media infrastructure to support their vast array of content", said David Frerichs, Vice President and US General Manager for Coding Technologies.

"Their adoption of aacPlus v2 will further accelerate the codec as the common denominator for distribution of audio content across Internet, mobile and broadcast".

aacPlus is AAC coupled with Coding Technologies' SBR (spectral band replication) and parametric stereo technologies.

SBR is a unique bandwidth extension technique, which enables audio codecs to deliver the same quality at half the bit rate.

Parametric stereo enhances the codec efficiency a second time for low-bitrate stereo signals.

Both SBR and parametric stereo are backward and forward compatible methods to enhance the efficiency of any audio codec.

As a result, aacPlus delivers streaming and downloadable 5.1 multichannel audio at 128Kbit/s, near CD-quality stereo at 32Kbit/s, excellent quality stereo at 24Kbit/s, and great quality for mixed content down to 16Kbit/s mono and below.

This level of efficiency fundamentally enables new applications in the markets of mobile and digital broadcast.

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