ISO/MPEG-H 3D audio: SAOC-3D decoding and rendering

The ISO/MPEG standardization group recently finalized the MPEG-H 3D Audio standard for the universal carriage of encoded 3D-sound from channel-based, object-based and HOA-based input. To achieve efficient low-bitrate coding of a high number of channels and objects, an advanced version of the well-known MPEG-D Spatial Audio Object Coding (SAOC) has been developed under the name SAOC-3D. The new SAOC-3D system supports direct reproduction to any output format from 22.2 and beyond down to 5.1 and stereo. This paper describes the SAOC-3D technology as it is part of the MPEG-H 3D Audio (phase one) International Standard and provides an overview of its features, capabilities and performance.