Cadence Claims It’s First to Market With ATSC 3.0 Audio Decoder Processors

Cadence Design Systems claims it has the industry’s first SoC designs approved for use with Dolby AC-4 decoders, the chipmaker said in a Monday announcement. AC-4 decoders will be “critical” for next-generation TV and set-top applications, including those for ATSC 3.0, the company said. In a separate announcement Monday, Cadence also said it's offering immediate availability of an MPEG-H audio decoder for ATSC 3.0 and other global next-gen broadcast systems. MPEG-H Audio “is a future broadcast standard and is expected to be one of the key audio technologies adopted worldwide for new TVs,” Cadence said. Working in “close collaboration” with Fraunhofer, a developer of MPEG-H with Qualcomm and Technicolor, Cadence is first to market with an implementation for a “licensable” MPEG-H digital signal processor, it said. ATSC by year-end “likely” will recommend adoption of AC-4 as the ATSC 3.0 audio codec for North America and MPEG-H for South Korea, ATSC officials told us at the NAB Show (see 1604180080).