APT chosen for EBU pilot
Posted: Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
The EBU Chooses APT’s WorldNet Oslo For Its Surround Sound Radio Pilot Scheme
The European Broadcast Union has struck a deal with Belfast-based codec manufacturer APT to use the company’s WorldNet Oslo units as part of a pilot scheme designed to push forward the boundaries of new radio listening formats.
During 2007, 20 WorldNet Oslo units will be deployed to a variety of European Public Service broadcasters who will use them to transmit live radio broadcasts in Surround Sound. Success for this pilot project will lead to the roll-out of an additional 50 units in 2008 to the remaining member and affiliate broadcasters that belong to the EBU.
In recent months the EBU has been actively seeking to agree formats and standards with regard to transporting Multi Channel Audio. A working group brought together the collective findings of those broadcasters who had already experimented with live surround sound, including ORF in Austria and WDR in Cologne. Both of these broadcasters had successfully used APT products for this purpose and on the recommendation of WDR, fellow German state broadcasters Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR), SWR (Südwestrundfunk), ARD Crosspoint and HR (Hessischer Rundfunk) had also adopted APT’s WorldNet Oslo for their 5.1 transmissions. This positive customer feedback was one of the key reasons why the EBU working group asked APT to participate in its pilot project.
APT’s WorldNet Oslo is specifically designed for the broadcast market and offers a DSP architecture to ensure 24/7 reliability for mission critical applications. It also has both E1 and IP interfaces, a modular design, a high degree of redundancy and several coding standards including Linear and J.57 with MPEG Layer II, G.722 and J.41 due for release. Fundamental to the WorldNet Oslo’s success is its use of APT’s Enhanced apt-X™ algorithm – a low delay, near-lossless digital audio data compression algorithm based on ADPCM, which is widely regarded as the algorithm that best preserves content after an encode/decode process. When incorporated into the WorldNet Oslo and used for Multi Channel Audio transmission, eight channels of Enhanced apt-X at 24 bit word resolution requires under 1.8Mbit/s. Reducing this to 16 bit requires under 1.5Mbit/s. As such, a 2Mbit/s can accommodate both a 5.1 and Lt/Rt programme.
Heinz Peter Reykers, Process Expert at WDR who was one of the first to use WorldNet Oslo’s says: “When I first tested the WorldNet Oslo on a link between the Philharmonic Concert Hall in Cologne and WDR’s Broadcast Centre, I was instantly impressed by its plug and play operation and the overall transmission quality, which delivered clean, clear and distortion free 5.1 content on a 2Mbit/s link.”
Commenting on the EBU’s decision to use WorldNet Oslo, APT’s commercial director Jon McClintock says: “Surround Sound for Radio is groundbreaking, exciting and will redefine the way radio audiences will listen to content. APT is delighted to be involved in this process, which further endorses both the Enhanced apt-X algorithm for 5.1 and the WorldNet Oslo as a suitable vehicle for carrying the content.”
