IETF RFC 5691 PDF

Introduction

MPEG Surround (Spatial Audio Coding, SAC) [23003-1] is an International Standard that was finalized by MPEG in January 2007. It is capable of re-creating N channels based on M < N transmitted channels and additional control data. In the preferred modes of operating the Spatial Audio Coding system, the M channels can either be a single mono channel or a stereo channel pair. The control data represents a significantly lower data rate than the data rate required for transmitting all N channels, making the coding very efficient while at the same time ensuring compatibility with M channel devices.

The MPEG Surround standard incorporates a number of tools that enable features that allow for broad application of the standard. A key feature is the ability to scale the spatial image quality gradually from very low spatial overhead towards transparency. Another key feature is that the decoder input can be made compatible to existing matrixed surround technologies.

As an example, for 5.1 multi-channel audio, the MPEG Surround encoder creates a stereo (or mono) downmix signal and spatial information describing the full 5.1 material in a highly efficient, parameterised format. The spatial information is transmitted alongside the downmix.

By using MPEG Surround, existing services can easily be upgraded to provide surround sound in a backwards-compatible fashion. While a stereo decoder in an existing legacy consumer device ignores the MPEG Surround data and plays back the stereo signal without any quality degradation, an MPEG-Surround-enabled decoder will deliver high quality, multi-channel audio.

The MPEG Surround decoder can operate in modes that render the multichannel signal to multi-channel or stereo output, or it can operate in a two-channel headphone mode to produce a virtual surround output signal.