Opus Codec

Business Profile

Core Value Proposition

Opus Codec provides an open, royalty-free, highly versatile audio codec for interactive speech and music transmission over the Internet, as well as for storage and streaming.

Target Customer

Software developers and engineers building audio/video communications, streaming, and related applications (e.g., VoIP, videoconferencing, in-game chat, remote live music).

Key Differentiator

Open, royalty-free codec standardized by the IETF (RFC 6716) that combines technology from Skype’s SILK and Xiph.Org’s CELT, with wide applicability from speech to full-bandwidth music.

Implementation Timeline

Not specified

Pain Points

1Need high-quality audio at a wide range of bitrates for both speech and music.
2Desire for an open, royalty-free standard codec with broad cross-platform support.
3Requirement for robustness to network issues (low latency, good packet loss concealment).

Key Features

1Bitrates from 6 kb/s to 510 kb/s
2Sampling rates from 8 kHz (narrowband) to 48 kHz (fullband)
3Frame sizes from 2.5 ms to 60 ms
4Support for both constant bitrate (CBR) and variable bitrate (VBR)
5Audio bandwidth from narrowband to fullband; supports speech and music; mono and stereo; up to 255 channels
6Dynamically adjustable bitrate, audio bandwidth, and frame size
7Good loss robustness and packet loss concealment (PLC)
8Floating point and fixed-point implementation
9RFC 6716 specification with reference implementation; up-to-date implementations available

Target Customer Industries

Decision Makers

1Not specified in content

Client Results

1Not specified

Competitive Advantages

1Open, royalty-free licensing
2IETF standard (RFC 6716) with a reference implementation
3Wide range of bitrates, sampling rates, and frame sizes for versatile use
4Excellent loss robustness and PLC support, with ongoing improvements (e.g., Deep Redundancy, Deep PLC)
5Speech and music support, including mono, stereo, and multi-channel scenarios
6Cross-platform libraries and development tools (libopus, opusfile, opusenc, opus-tools)

Key Benefits

1Royalty-free, open standard

2Wide bitrate and sampling rate support for both speech and music

3Low latency suitable for real-time communication

4Robust packet loss concealment and resilience to network issues

5Cross-platform with available libraries and tooling

Additional Product Information

Product Description

Opus is a totally open, royalty-free, highly versatile audio codec standardized by the IETF and suitable for interactive speech and music transmission over the Internet, as well as storage and streaming applications.

Target Market

Developers and organizations building audio/video communications, streaming, gaming, and related multimedia applications.

Unique Value Proposition

An open, royalty-free, standards-based codec that blends SILK and CELT technology to deliver high-quality audio across a wide bitrate/latency spectrum with strong loss robustness.

Technical Requirements

Implementation via libopus and related libraries; compliant with RFC 6716; supports both floating point and fixed-point implementations; source code and documentation available on the site

Pricing Model

Royalty-free / open licensing; no pricing information provided

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