Fraunhofer Addresses AAC Loudness Control

At the NAB Show this week, Fraunhofer IIS (Booth SU5520) is featuring metadata support for its AAC family of audio codecs to address the loudness-control requirements of current and future broadcasting systems.

Loudness-control regulations address consumer complaints about disturbing loudness differences between TV programs and commercials. Fraunhofer’s AAC family of audio codecs, including AAC and HE-AAC, now offer the ability to carry the original broadcast metadata to meet the requirements of the recent CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act.

Fraunhofer Audio Metadata Technology provides broadcasters with a reliable option for solving loudness issues when existing ATSC broadcast signals are translated to AAC for transmission over cable or satellite networks to consumer homes. The technology also enables loudness and dynamic-range control for ATSC-M/H Mobile DTV transmissions using HE-AAC.

The company offers its Audio Metadata Technology in combination with its HE-AAC and AAC encoder and decoder implementations. It is working with broadcast- and cable-encoder manufacturers as well as SOC suppliers to include this functionality into their products.

For more information, visit www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/bf/amm/.