Apple should consider adopting MPEG Surround
By adopting MPEG Surround Apple could deliver iTunes movies and TV shows that support multichannel audio properly on appropriate systems yet equally support stereo playback on existing legacy hardware with no updates
My emphasis was added for your reading pleasure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MPEG Surround Website
MPEG Surround is a brand new, feature-rich open standard compression technique for multi-channel audio signals. Operating on top of any core audio codec such as AAC, HE-AAC and MPEG-1 Layer II, the system provides an unrivaled set of features including:
This website was initialized by four of the main contributors to the MPEG Surround standard.
MPEG Surround is a brand new, feature-rich open standard compression technique for multi-channel audio signals. Operating on top of any core audio codec such as AAC, HE-AAC and MPEG-1 Layer II, the system provides an unrivaled set of features including:
- full backward compatibility to stereo equipment
- subjective audio quality substantially better than matrixed surround formats
- a wide scalability in terms of bit rate used for describing the surround image
- compatibility with matrixed surround stereo signals (optional)
- virtualized binaural multi-channel sound reproduction capability for stereo headphones
This website was initialized by four of the main contributors to the MPEG Surround standard.
My emphasis was added for your reading pleasure.