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G-Audio Launches Loudness SDK to Provide a Consistent Streaming Media Listening Experience

  • Wednesday, October 10, 2018, 8:35 am
  • ACROFAN=Jae-Yong Ryu
  • jaeyong.ryu@acrofan.com
G-Audio, a next generation audio technology company dedicated to enhancing the listening experience for XR and streaming media, today launched its Sol Loudness SDK for streaming media. Starting today, video and music streaming platforms can leverage G-Audio’s Sol Loudness SDK to provide a smoother audio experience for subscribers.

The popularity of OTT video (over-the-top) is growing rapidly and streaming media consumption is increasing across multiple devices, including smartphones, Smart TVs, and game consoles. Over the past few years, streaming media companies have prioritized the seamless transmission of high quality video and music, and improved UX. Audio quality and audio features have not received the same level of attention, resulting in inconsistencies in the listening experience across devices. Emerging audio technologies, such as G-Audio’s Sol Loudness SDK, solve for this by smoothing variations in loudness and providing continuity of the perceived sound level between streaming content for end-users.

Henney Oh, CEO and Co-founder of G-Audio Labs, said: “At G-Audio Labs, we are dedicated to improving the end-user listening experience. Our loudness management solution addresses common subscriber complaints and solves for volume inconsistencies between content programming. A smoother audio experience leads to increased subscriber satisfaction and that leads to improved retention.”

Alexis Macklin, Analyst at Greenlight Insights, said: “With 62% of U.S. adults streaming TV and movies each week, streaming services have revolutionized the way consumers listen to and watch media. Unfortunately, this mass appeal has yet to translate to consistent audio quality. The streaming market is set to be disrupted by new solutions focused on setting higher standards in streaming audio quality. Loudness management will be central to the features that creators and publishers will need to deliver as a growing number of consumers expect consistent audio quality across streaming platforms.”

G-Audio’s SDK product line includes spatial audio rendering for 360° video and loudness management for streaming media. Other loudness management software solutions today employ a legacy "file-based" approach, which is a pre-processing pipeline that destructively modifies the original content. The Sol Loudness SDK uses a server-client architecture in which the server-side performs loudness measurement and generates metadata that the client-side uses to normalize content to the target loudness setting. Advantages to the server-client solution include, (1) the opportunity to set loudness targets per platform, end-user device, or even listening environment, and (2) the original content is never modified, avoiding compression artifacts. Naver Corporation, a South Korea-based internet content service company, is one of the first companies to integrate the Sol Loudness SDK for their streaming media services.