MP3 Surround is an extension of

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

for multi-channel audio support including 5.1 surround sound. It was developed by

Fraunhofer IIS The Fraunhofer Society (german: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., lit=Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research) is a German research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany ...

in collaboration with

Thomson Thomson may refer to: Names * Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin * Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson Businesses and organizations * SGS-Thomson Mic ...

and

Agere Systems Agere Systems, Inc. was an integrated circuit components company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Spun out of Lucent Technologies in 2002, Agere was merged into LSI Corporation in 2007. LSI was in turn acquired by Avago Technologies in 2014. In ...

, and released in December 2004.mp3 SURROUND Set for Launch - Fraunhofer IIS, Thomson, and Agere Systems Unveil - Free mp3 SURROUND Evaluation Download
/ref>Hear all about it: MP3 goes surround-sound
/ref> MP3 Surround is

backward compatible Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially in ...

with standard MP3.mp3 Surround
The data overhead is 16 kbit/s, which allows for file sizes similar to standard stereo MP3 files. The file size is approximately 10% larger than that of a typical MP3 file. The current evaluation encoder is licensed for personal and non-commercial uses. An MP3 Surround file can be created from 5 or 6 channels of

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...

audio. Several companies, such as DivX, Inc. and

Magix Magix (or MAGIX Software) is a German software company specializing in video editing, audio editing, DAW and photo slideshow software. The company is based in Berlin, with locations in Madison, Wisconsin, Dresden and Lübbecke, as well as Hui ...

, have announced support for the new codec. DivX, Inc. released their first player with MP3 Surround support on September 6, 2006. In January 2006,

and

also released two new companion technologies:

Ensonido Ensonido is a real-time post processing algorithm that allows users to play back MP3 Surround files in standard headphones. Ensonido was developed by the Fraunhofer Society. It simulates the natural reception of surround sound by the human ear, whic ...

, which allows playback of MP3 Surround 5.1 channel sound through stereo headphones, and

MP3 SX mp3 SX (Stereo eXtended) is a program that allows users to upgrade mp3 stereo files to MP3 Surround files. mp3 SX analyzes the existing natural ambience of the stereo material and plays it back through the rear channels. The sound sources remain ...

, which upgrades standard stereo mp3 file to mp3 surround files. On its 5.5 release, Nullsoft

Winamp Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Sinc ...

has included the MP3 Surround format as a part of its integrated MPEG audio decoder (released October 10, 2007). As of 2 July 2008, with

system software System software is software designed to provide a platform for other software. Examples of system software include operating systems (OS) like macOS, Linux, Android and Microsoft Windows, computational science software, game engines, search engin ...

v2.40,

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

supports MP3 Surround playback.

References

External links

Thomson Releases MP3 Surround
{{Sound-tech-stub Audio codecs Digital audio MP3 Surround sound