The Eurovision Song Contest is to provide the testbed for a revolutionary audio technology.
The EBU and partners ATEME, Fraunhofer IIS, Jünger Audio, Sennheiser, Solid State Logic and TELOS ALLIANCE will be providing a parallel production of the event, mixing and transmitting it live with Next Generation Audio in the MPEG-H Audio format.
The content is being made available to broadcasters for testing purposes via the Eurovision FINE network. An on-site demonstration is available to journalists and EBU Members in Tel Aviv.
Next Generation Audio (NGA) enables the delivery of an immersive aural experience that can be personalised, to any device. Because all of the different audio elements are delivered individually, they can be controlled by the end user. This means that people who have hearing difficulties can boost the commentary while reducing the background ambience, for example, increasing the accessibility of the content.
There are three standardized solutions for NGA: MPEG-H Audio, AC-4 and DTS-UHD.
MPEG-H Audio was used for the parallel immersive and object-based audio production and transmission in the trial.