Use-Cases of the new 3GPP Immersive Voice and Audio Services (IVAS) Codec and a Web Demo Implementation

The newly standardized 3GPP codec for Immersive Voice and Audio Services (IVAS) is the first codec specifically tailored for immersive communication within 5G mobile networks. The IVAS codec introduces capabilities for coding and rendering of stereo, multi-channel, Ambisonics, audio objects, and the innovative metadata-assisted spatial audio format. It paves the way for new service scenarios involving interactive stereo and immersive audio communication, content sharing, and distribution. This paper describes a demonstration of three exemplary IVAS codec use-cases-multi-party conferencing, immersive calls and ad-hoc conferencing-using a tablet with headphones. Attendees can experience the impact of spatial audio in future mobile communication services firsthand, comparing the IVAS codec interactively with its mono predecessor, EVS, which is currently the state-of-the-art in mobile networks. Finally, the technical details and building blocks for the demo implementation are described.