Introducing
i-Media Audio - Real-time, Studio-quality MPEG audio compression software
Vancouver, Canada (August 26, 1996) - QDesign Corporation is introducing
the market's first MPEG audio compression software -- i-Media Audio --
which provides real-time, studio-quality encoding using the processing
power of a standard Pentium PC equipped with a Sound Blaster- compatible
audio card. i-Media Audio is a 32-bit application designed to enable audio
encoding from a live or recorded audio source without the need for any
dedicated compression hardware. Based on an advanced implementation of
the MPEG standard for audio bitrate reduction, i-Media Audio delivers
a new standard in high fidelity sound to audio and multimedia professionals.
i-Media Audio offers varying speeds in compression depending on the audio
mode, sampling frequency and the processing power of the PC. Using the
Fast encoder model, a 48 kHz stereo audio file can be compressed in real-time
on a Pentium 100 MHz system. This means that a one-minute selection of
CD-quality audio of 11 MB in size could be reduced to less than 2 MB.
Supporting both MPEG 1 and 2 sample rates and bitrates (16 kHz to 48 kHz,
8 to 448 kbits/s), i-Media Audio can enable that same audio selection
to be reduced to 180 KB at 60:1 compression for Internet audio.
With multimedia functionality as a standard feature on today's computers,
i-Media Audio is the ideal solution for delivering high quality sound.
For studio audio professionals, i-Media Audio is a low cost alternative
to MPEG compression hardware. With increased flexibility and affordability,
users can make use of i-Media Audio to encode and transmit audio within
distributed environments and share sound archives remotely. For multimedia
producers, i-Media Audio adds a new dimension to authoring for CD-ROMs
and DVDs. Imagine the overall effect when several hours of audio is used
to contribute to the interactive experience.
According to Richard J. Beaton, president and CTO of QDesign, "i-Media
Audio is based on an highly-optimized, proprietary implementation of the
MPEG audio coding algorithm which enables audio to be processed using
a standard multimedia PC. Essentially i-Media Audio makes it possible
for the huge installed base of PC users to take advantage of CD-quality
audio compression on the desktop. Furthermore, the software is compatible
with existing hardware MPEG codecs already deployed in the broadcast industry."
Mr. Beaton adds that, "For the multimedia producer, i-Media Audio offers
significantly greater flexibility and quality than other audio compression
software. Based on a model for human perception which uses the phenomenon
of psychoacoustic masking, i-Media Audio's MPEG algorithm encodes high
quality audio by retaining only those features of the signal which are
"perceived" by the listener. While other audio compression products may
handle voice compression quite efficiently, they were not designed to
handle the dynamic range of music and other non-vocal sounds. For this
reason, they can not be used in applications where high quality audio
is required. MPEG is both an international standard for DSB (Digital Sound
Broadcasting) and DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) simply because it is considered
to be the best compression standard for audio."
i-Media Audio is available as a 32-bit Windows 95 and Windows NT application
for US$395. It is also offered as static and dynamic link libraries to
VAR and OEM developers. For a Free Demo of i-Media Audio visit QDesign's
web site at http://www.qdesign.com.
About QDesign Corporation
Based in Vancouver, Canada, QDesign is a privately held company which
develops and markets state-of-the-art audio compression technologies to
the broadcast and new media industry. The company introduced the world's
first real-time, studio-quality MPEG-2 stereo compression software in
October 1996; making available for the first time, high-quality, high-performance
MPEG sound to all broadcast and studio professionals. QDesign is pioneering
another breakthrough in audio compression with the QDesign Music Codec
technology for Internet and new media applications. QDesign customers
include international broadcasters such as Associated Press, BBC, Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), CBS News, and Sony Worldwide Networks.
QDesign technology has been used by multimedia producers such as Broderbund
and in new media applications from innovators such as Iomega.
Contact:
QDesign Corporation
media@qdesign.com
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