Accessibility Solutions
Delivering Content to Everyone
Broadcast and streaming content is an important part of our lives. We use it for important information as well as entertainment. A high degree of accessibility ensures that even more people have access to news, sports, and their favorite shows. MPEG-H Audio helps creators and providers supply their audiences with inclusive content while keeping the production and distribution effort to a minimum.
Thanks to MPEG-H Audio, providers deliver their content with enhanced dialogues, add sophisticated audio description options, offer alternative language versions including simplified language, and ensure consistent loudness. All of this is compiled into a single bitstream.
Dialog+ Enhances Speech
Many people find it hard to follow dialogues due to loud background sounds. A survey carried out by Fraunhofer IIS and German public broadcaster WDR showed that 68% of the audience across all demographics had issues with understanding speech on TV. In addition, the perfect balance of dialogue and background sounds is a highly individual matter. MPEG-H Audio lets users customize this balance to their own liking.
For new, object-based content, creators simply use the existing mix components, mostly Dialog and M&E stems, to create a customizable MPEG-H Audio mix. Legacy content, where only the final audio mix is available, is processed with the AI-enhanced MPEG-H Dialog+ technology. A combination of DNN-based Dialogue Separation and Automatic Remixing delivers a new audio mix with easier to understand speech. Dynamic remixing can be managed by creators and preserves the artistic intent as far as possible.
Streamlined Audio Description
Audio Description (AD) facilitates access to broadcast and streaming content for visually impaired audiences. With MPEG-H Audio, this service can be taken to a new level: Delivering the AD voiceover as a flexible audio object enables its customization, for example by adjusting the voice level and spatial positioning of the AD narrator.
Plus, object-based Audio Description works not only for stereo content, but for all formats up to immersive audio, providing the best possible audio experience to all users. With MPEG-H Audio, it becomes part of the regular transmission, which makes it easy to navigate and select on all kinds of devices, or even have it switched on automatically as preferred audio preset.
Multi-language Selection
With MPEG-H Audio, it has become easy to author, deliver, and archive content with multiple languages or dialogue versions. Creators simply add an additional audio component to their audio scene, which can be selected automatically by the end device or manually by the user.
Customization by the user can be limited to an easily manageable minimum or extended to achieve utmost individualization – all depending on artistic choice and without added effort for providers. Easy-to-use management tools such as labeling and grouping functionalities ensure that languagesand presets are always matching.
Effortless Consistent Loudness
No matter if it is within or between programs – consistent loudness levels are essential for a coherent user experience and ease of listen. MPEG-D DRC brings the entire audio mix including speech to a consistent level and it provides an optimal dynamic range for any playback device, environment, and user preference.
In a living room, for example, the content can be enjoyed with the full dynamic range, the way the mix was intended. In a noisy environment, the dynamic range can be reduced for improved speech intelligibility and listening comfort. This makes frequent manual volume adjustments a thing of the past.
