Accessibility Solutions
Delivering Content to Everyone
Broadcast and streaming content is an important part of our lives. Many use it for important information and daily 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 and automated production workflows make it possible to easily scale production and reduce its cost.
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 frequently or very frequently had issues with understanding speech on TV. This shows that the perfect balance of dialogue and background sounds is a highly individual matter. MPEG-H Audio provides solutions that let users customize this balance.
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 mix that lets listeners customize the speech level to individual requirements. The automatic, 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.
The object-based approach also saves bandwidth in transmission, as only one additional channel has to be delivered for the Audio Description. Plus, it 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, the AD 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 mix that is transmitted in the same bitstream and either selected by the user or automatically at the end device. This means that another language no longer means broadcasting or streaming an additional audio track and the amount of data transmitted is kept at a minimum.
Easy-to-use management tools such as labeling and grouping functionalities ensure that the preferred language and matching user interface are automatically selected by the playback device. 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.
Effortless Consistent Loudness
Mandatory loudness and dynamic range control ensure consistent playback loudness. No matter if it is within or between programs – providers deliver an unbroken experience to their users thanks to consistent loudness levels. Within a single program, the feature covers presets with and without interactivity options. It is also a perfect addition to Dialogue Enhancement as it brings the audio mix including speech to a consistent level, which is particularly useful for quiet dialogue parts. Dialogue Enhancement, on the other hand, is particularly suited to scenes with dialogue over loud music and sound design, as it evens out the relative mix levels between dialogue, music, and sound design as well as allowing customization.
