The EBU tested the immersive and customizable possibilities of Next Generation Audio at Eurovision

Ateme, Fraunhofer IIS, Jünger Audio, Sennheiser, Solid State Logic and Telos Alliance participated in this experience carried out during the broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest from Tel Aviv.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) together with its technological partners during the Eurovision Song Contest which took place last Saturday in Tel Aviv (Israel) carried out a parallel production mixing and broadcasting a live signal under the format of Next Generation Audio MPEG-H. The content was made available to broadcasters to test the capabilities of this audio through the Eurovision FINE network.

In this experience they have participated Ateme, Fraunhofer IIS, Jünger Audio, Sennheiser, Solid State Logic and Telos Alliance.

Next Generation Audio (NGA) enables the delivery of a immersive listening experience which can be fully customized, to any device, whether at home or on the go. For broadcasters, this is a one-time production, anywhere delivery scenario, avoiding the need to create dedicated mixes for all possible playback situations.

NGA users have thus been able to adjust the relative volumes of performers, comments and background ambience, or switch between several different languages. Headphone users can immerse themselves in 3D binaural sound, while those with NGA-enabled soundbars or multi-speaker setups can experience audio that surrounds them from all sides.

Because all the different audio elements are delivered individually, they can be controlled by the end user. This means that people who are hard of hearing can enhance the commentary while reducing the background environment, for example, thus increasing the accessibility of media content.

The EBU is working to ensure that broadcasters can easily evolve their production and delivery workflows, in an open and codec-independent manner, to serve the growing population of NGA-capable devices on the market. There are currently three standardized solutions for NGA: MPEG-H Audio, AC-4 and DTS-UHD.