MPEG-H Authoring Suite
MPEG-H Authoring Suite is a set of tools to operate full-scale on the production and encoding of MPEG-H Audio content, mainly made for broadcasting/streaming/VR/videogames. Developed by Fraunhofer IIS, the Suite covers every step from authoring and conversion to monitoring, analysis, encoding and playback, and includes the MPEG-H Authoring Plug-in (MHAPi), a VST3 or AAX plug-in with ready-made templates for Pro Tools, Nuendo, Reaper and Sequoia, alongside a standalone MPEG-H Authoring Tool for authoring without a DAW, a Conversion Tool for moving Next Generation Audio masters between file formats, an Info Tool for analysing existing masters, and a Production Format Player for quality-checking finished mixes with binaural monitoring over headphones. It supports MPEG-H's personalisation features, including fully adjustable dialogue levels, customisable audio description, multiple languages and interactive object positioning, at production sample rates of 48kHz or 96kHz, and is available as a free download for professional broadcast users.
tech specs
history
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MPEG-H Audio was substantially developed by Fraunhofer IIS as a next-generation object-based audio system for TV broadcast and streaming, and has been on air across all television networks in South Korea since 2017 under the ATSC 3.0 standard; it also serves as the distribution format behind Sony's 360 Reality Audio ecosystem and has since been selected for new broadcast standards in China and Brazil. Fraunhofer first released the MPEG-H Authoring Plug-in on its own, offering broadcasters a way to author MPEG-H scenes directly inside their existing DAW, before expanding the tool into the fuller MPEG-H Authoring Suite, adding conversion, analysis and playback tools alongside it. The Suite has continued to grow since, adding support for the MPEG-H ADM Profile and binaural monitoring, and reaching version 5.0 by 2022 with the full authoring-to-playback toolchain in place.
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