Sonic Foundry Announces Compression Codec

Sonic Foundry (www.sonicfoundry.com), developer and marketer of digital media and Internet software tools, services, and systems, announced a new proprietary audio compression codec, Perfect Clarity Audio (PMC).

PMC is a lossless compression technique, which, as it's name indicates, compresses files without any loss of quality. Sonic Foundry claims test files have shown compression ratios of 2:1 and as high as 5:1, with no loss in audio quality, which is similar to other lossless compression technologies. PMC supports 24-bit audio as well as 16-bit audio.

This type of compression is currently only suited for storage purposes, as the file size is still too large for effective digital distribution. Current compression formats for distribution such as MP3 or WMA are lossy, a technique which removes pieces of the audio spectrum in order to achieve small file sizes. Caleb Pourchot, director of engineering at Sonic Foundry, expressed Sonic Foundry's belief that with the advances in broadband, lossless compression techniques such as PMC will be used for distribution purposes.

Perfect Clarity Audio is currently included in Sonic Foundry's Siren Jukebox 2.0 and will be incorporated into all future Sonic Foundry product releases. The company is also offering licensing opportunities for software and hardware applications. The licensing fee has not been determined.