First perceptual lossy codec? Options

[Neuron]

Just out of curiosity and interest in history, what was the first lossy compression method that was based upon perceptual/psychoacoustic principles (= not waveform prediction like ADPCM or companding like u-law or NICAM)? Was it MP1, ATRAC or were there codecs like that before?

[C.R.Helmrich]

In the scientific literature, the earliest experiments I can recall are by Atal and Schroeder, based on linear predictive coding (LPC):

Predictive Coding of Speech Signals and Subjective Error Criteria (IEEE Trans. ASSP, 1979. Conference paper is from 1978)

For music, developments started only in the mid 80s, I think. There's a paper by Johnston (Woodinville or JJ here on HA):

Transform Coding of Audio Signals Using Perceptual Noise Criteria (IEEE Journal Sel. Areas in Comm., 1988. Paper manuscript is from 1987)

So yes, MPEG 1 Layer 1 with a perceptual encoder according to JJ's paper is what I consider the first perceptual codec. There might also be a CELP speech codec from that time with the Atal/Schroeder perceptual model.

Chris

This post has been edited by C.R.Helmrich: Dec 29 2012, 14:44