Description
MPEG-4 SLS (Scalable to Lossless) coding is the latest tool introduced in the MPEG audio coding family.
It provides a super-set of the famous MPEG-4 AAC codec. With its lossless encoding techniques, the high fidelity of CD recording is further compressed for archival and playback. Added with its unique and efficient scalable to lossless coding, only a single lossless, compressed SLS bit-stream is maintained, whereby it can be further ‘squeezed’ or ‘reduced’ to match lower bandwidth or storage constrains.
Novelties
1. Standardized as MPEG-4 Scalable to lossless (SLS) audio
2. Lossless audio @ exact CD quality
3. State of the Art Compression Ratio
4. Low Complexity (Fine Grain Scalability Feature @ 0.38kps steps)
5. Encode once, deploy many times
6. Backward & Forward Compatible to MPEG-2/4 AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
Advantages & Benefits
1. Latest Audio Codec that is adopted by MPEG as MPEG-4 SLS (Scalable Lossless Coding)
2. Fine grain scalability (AAC core with fine grain enhancement layers)
3. Scalable up to lossless
4. Backward compatible to AAC
Market & Applications
1. Mobile Digital Audio Players (Mobile Phone, Personal Video Player, PDA, Mobile Game Platform, Digital Cameras, Digital Radio)
2. Media Server
3. Personal Media Hubs
4. PC Clients
5. Enhanced Audio Disks
6. Surveillance
7. Studio Archiving
Accolades
- 13 Sep 2007 National Technology Award 2007
The team from the Institute for Infocomm Research invented the Advanced Audio Zip, a flexible audio coding tool that is capable of compressing any music file (such as a CD track) to less than half of its original size, as well as restore every bit of the original data during playback without any loss or distortion. At the same time, the coder allows fine-grain bitrate scalability and backward compatibility. This compression technology has been adopted as an international compression standard by the International Standard Organisation (ISO), a significant achievement by a Singapore institute as standards are typically dominated by big industry players such as Sony and Philips. This has also put the spotlight in this field of research on Singapore for the first time. The AAZ team is made up of Dr Susanto Rahardja, Dr Yu Rongshan, Dr Lin Xiao and Mr Huang Haibin.”
Media Coverages
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Lossless Digital Music Now Available in Soundbuzz
18 Dec 07 | Asian Media Journal
"In a world’s first, the store utilises a pioneering technology, known as SLS (Scalable-to-Lossless), which allows consumers to purchase a standard quality song, and then “top up” to receive a high audio fidelity (lossless) version of the same song at a later date. Consumers are also able to synchronise the purchased songs to their mobile handsets."
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High Fidelity Digital Music Service Launched
18 Dec 07 | The Straits Times
"A new music download service will offer discerning audiophiles legit, ultra-high-quality tunes from popular Singapore and regional artistes like Electrico, JJ Lin and Fish Leong. The 'lossless' digital music service was launched by digital music store Soundbuzz and Exploit Technologies on Tuesday."
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A*STAR Part of New MPEG4 Audio Standard
04 Sep 06 | The Business Times
"Researchers at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have squeezed Singapore into the growing audio compression space when their contributions to the definition of a new audio compression standard were accepted by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) in June this year."
Links
- Encore DME Pte Ltd [http://www.encore-dme.com/]
- MPEG Working Group of ISO/IEC [http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/technologies/mp04-sls/]
- Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_SLS]
Images
