Background, Concept, and Architecture for the Recent MPEG Surround Standard on Multichannel

An overview of the recently finalized ISO/MPEG standard for multichannel audio com-pression MPEG Surround is provided. This audio compression scheme enables backward-compatible multichannel audio coding and transmission at unsurpassed coding efficiency. This is achieved by generating a mono, stereo, or matrixed-surround compatible down mix, which can be transmitted using any existing mono or stereo service, extended with a small amount of parametric side information that describes the perceptually relevant spatial prop-erties of the original multichannel content. The concepts behind spatial parameterization are outlined, and the architecture of the MPEG Surround system is explained. Results of sub-jective evaluations are included to demonstrate its efficiency.