Multimedia Standards
Licensing Information
This document outlines licensing costs and contact information for major multimedia standards and technology in use and in future use that is of interest to companies building next generation multimedia products. Most licensing facts are referring to patent pools. Additional costs would be high quality encoder and potentially decoder implementations.
Most multimedia standards algorithms are asymmetrical. In other words, the encoders require much more processing power and are much more complex both algorithmically as well as computationally. This is due to the concept that encoder would be used on servers, in professional broadcast system in professional movie studio authoring tools; applications where the costs of encoding did not impact the delivery mechanism or cost to consumers. Finally, in most standards, except for AC-3, the encoder is not normative. In other words, companies and individuals are allowed to design the worse encoding technology possible as long as the algorithm generates a compliant bitstream. The highest quality encoder designs are often created by the very companies with patents in the various MPEG standards. The main point of this discussion is to note the high variance in encoder technology quality and to also be aware that individual implementations of coders, should they be deemed necessary for this product will have additional licensing and fee costs.
Each Standard is given a brief description, applications where it is in use, licensing terms and contact information. Gnu Public License or any sort of algorithm or application that does not require payment is not addressed in this document. Also not discussed are Real Networks formats or other lesser “player” technologies in the Internet Media space.
http://www.mp3licensing.com
MPEG1/2, layer III is a spectrum audio lossy compression algorithm. Asymmetric encode and decode with a computational complexity ratio of 15:1. Compression Ratio 12:1. 128kb/s stereo for 44.1 or 48kHz sampling rate is a typical bitrate in this technology.
Ubiquitous, MP3 is “The Internet standard” as well as portable player standard. Cons: very poor performance on speech signals, quality varies greatly depending upon implementation. MPEG1, Layer III performs poorly in tandeming. MPEG1 layer III is antiquated technology that is over 10 years old in the field of audio compression research. Many different MPEG1-layer III encoders and compression tools are available via the Internet, thus quality varies from extremely good quality to encoders that will not even produce a proper bitstream.
Illegal copying of content launched MP3 and today one can find almost anything available in free download using peer-to-peer software Kazaa in MP3 format. NO Media service that does not support MP3 could be located in Q3/03.
|
0.75USD |
decode/unit |
|
2.50-5.00USD |
encode/unit |
http://www.mp3licensing.com
MP3Pro in architecture consists of modifications to the MPEG1-Layer III algorithm that add one additional DSP module. This module, called SBR, reconstructs high frequency spectrum after decoding. This piece of information implies that one can utilize an existing MPEG1 Layer III code base and potentially add an addition to the existing code to reduce code storage requirements. Asymmetric encode and decode in computational complexity. Compression ratio is 14:1. 96kb/s stereo for 44.1 or 48kHz sampling rate is a typical bitrate in this technology. Thompson advertises “half” the bitrate of MP3, yet investigation yields this bitrate as a typical setting.
MP3Pro gives very poor performance on speech signals yet there are few implementation versions, so quality is more consistent. MP3Pro does not tandem. The Spectral Band Replica technology, which SBR plus MP3 makes up MP3Pro, is under consideration in MPEG-4 audio standards bodies as well. Thus, if one considered utilizing the MPEG-4 audio license pool, this portion of the MP3Pro algorithm is potentially available for use. MP3Pro consistently ranks above MP3 in audio quality and often is competitive with AAC depending upon the encoder utilized, the profile chosen within AAC and the material.
Designed to replace MP3 with superior performance, MP3Pro has not achieved its goals. Very little, content available on the Internet. MP3.com supposedly supports it, yet the database is almost exclusively MP3 files.
|
1.25USD |
decode/unit |
|
5.00USD |
encode/unit |
To obtain the licensing for patents only: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg2aac/standard.html
To obtain
high quality implementations: amm_info@iis.fraunhofer.de
The AAC specification supports up to 48 full-frequency range audio channels. Asymmetric encode and decode in computational complexity. Compression ratio is 18:1. 64kb/s stereo for 44.1 or 48kHz sampling rate is a typical bitrate in this technology. 128kb/s (as well as 96kb/s) stereo @ 44.1kHz was determined to be “indistinguishable” from CD quality audio in ITU standardized listening test results.
AAC performs fairly well with speech signals down to 24kb/s stereo. yet, when compared to state of the art speech compression, AAC is inferior to ACELP based vocoders. AAC is not designed for tandeming yet performs better than MPEG1, Layer III. MPEG2-AAC has consistently ranked as the best of show for audio compression algorithms. Please note that audio quality is dependent upon the design of the encoder. AT&T and FhG as well as Dolby encoders are the only versions that should be considered when evaluating AAC quality.
http://david.weekly.org/audio/iso-aac.pdf
MPEG-2 AAC is the audio format utilized in the Japanese Digital Broadcast system, known as ISDB (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting). MPEG-2 AAC is also the basis of the audio coding technology used by XM Radio, one of two satellite radio services currently operating in the United States. Additionally, the technology can be used for streaming and downloading music via the Internet, and has been specified within the DVD-Audio Recordable (DVD-AR) format.
To use MPEG2-AAC, there is a one-time 15000USD fee. Rates are per channel, so a stereo implementation selling 50k units per quarter is 1.80USD for both the encoder and decoder or 0.45USD for just the encoder. I believe this implies if one sells 1 unit per quarter one pays 3.60USD per unit for decode and 7.20USD per unit for both encoder and decode. Professional and Consumer are defined as to which market the product is targeting. Pro Audio sells less, but the compression algorithm implementations should be the same, although one could increase the encoding of AAC to non-real time on a 2.4GHz processor to obtain the optimum in bit allocation routines. Pro Audio decoders are 1.80USD per unit and encoder are 18.00USD per unit.
|
Volume |
Either Decoder or Encoder |
Both Encoder & Decoder |
|
(Quarterly reset) |
Per channel |
Per channel |
|
1 to 100,000 |
$0.45 |
$0.90 |
|
100,001 to 500,000 |
$0.35 |
$0.80 |
|
500,001 to 1,000,000 |
$0.25 |
$0.70 |
|
1,000,001 to 5,000,000 |
$0.20 |
$0.65 |
|
5,000,001 to 10,000,000 |
$0.15 |
$0.65 |
|
10,000,001 or more |
$0.10 |
$0.65 |
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/license.terms.html
MPEG-4 audio incorporates AAC above with various “objects” of other compression technology, such as a text to speech algorithm, a CELP based speech coder and some other very low bitrate encoding tools. Most products are using MPEG-4 audio “AAC” which is MPEG2-AAC plus a couple of new DSP modules and ignoring much of the rest of the MPEG-4 audio standard.
I find it interesting that if one claims they are a software solution in a “PC like” environment, the licensing costs become reasonable.
MPEG-4 AAC has been
specified as the high-quality general audio coder for 3G wireless terminals.
Apple Computer has incorporated MPEG-4 AAC into QuickTime 6 and iTunes 4, as
well as the latest version of its award-winning iPod portable music player. The
Digital Radio Mondiale system (the next-generation digital replacement for
radio broadcasting under 30 MHZ) builds on the audio coding of MPEG-4 AAC.