Executive Summary
This document is part of a suite documenting coding constraints of Next Generation Audio (NGA) systems for cable television (see [SCTE 242-1]).
Scope
This document is part of a suite documenting coding constraints of Next Generation Audio (NGA) systems for cable television. In conjunction with Part 1 of this standard [SCTE 242-1], it defines the coding constraints on MPEG-H Audio system for cable television.
The carriage of the streams described in this specification is defined in [SCTE 243-3] in conjunction with [SCTE 243-1].
Benefits
The MPEG-H Audio system ([ISO 23008-3] and [ISO 23003-4]) is a highly efficient audio system offering advanced methods for coding of channel-based content, coding of object-based content, and coding of scene-based content (using Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) as a sound-field representation). An MPEG-H Audio encoded program might consist of a flexible combination of any of the audio program elements that are defined in Section 6 of this document:
- Channels (i.e., signals for specific loudspeaker positions),
- Objects (i.e., signals with position information) and
- Higher Order Ambisonics, HOA (i.e., sound field signals).
Other benefits of MPEG-H include a rich set of metadata that define Audio Scenes (also known as Audio Programs), Audio Objects, as well as elements that enable interactivity as well as personalization and accessibility options. The MPEG-H Audio system includes advanced tools for loudness and dynamic range control and enables seamless configuration changes in a broadcast environment as well as more advanced features available in ATSC 3.0.
This NGA system is not compatible with the audio system used in [SCTE 54]-era service.