Nero announced yesterday that it was ranked as the top performer with its upcoming Nero Digital Audio HE-AAC / HE-AAC v2 encoder during an independent MPEG-4 listening test.

Nero achieved the highest average quality score did at the recent independent public blind listening test of MPEG-4 audio encoders, organized by the famous open source audio coding developer Gabriel Bouvigne.

The tests were conducted with the very low bit-rate of 48 kilobits per second (29:1 compression ratio). Competing MPEG-4 audio encoders included "aacPlus" v1 and v2 by Coding Technologies as well as the "Enhanced aacPlus" encoder by 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Tests focused on digital music delivery for mobile phones and Portable Media Players (PMPs).

The listening test was conducted under truly blind conditions to ensure maximum credibility. During testing, testers were kept uninformed about which sample codec was playing.

Testers rated between 1.0 (Very Annoying) to 5.0 (Indistinguishable from Original) when they judged in how far the encoded sound deviated from the original.

"I am very pleased to see that public testing results reveal the superior quality of the Nero Digital Audio", said Jim Corbett, Executive Director at Nero AG.

"With the upcoming launch of Nero Mobile with built-in AVC/H.264 support and the Nero Digital Audio, now already proven to be the highest quality audio codec, Nero is positioned to become the global technology leader in the fast growing mobile multimedia market", he added.