Ahead Software, creators of the world-renowned CD/DVD recording software Nero, have announced plans to integrate full MPEG-4 audio support (AAC -- Advanced Audio Coding) within Nero Burning ROM. Available soon as a downloadable plug-in, the Nero AAC encoder is the result of extensive in-house development work by Ahead in MPEG-4 technology.

The Nero AAC encoder will be capable of more than 10X real time encoding, therefore allowing a user to rip and encode a complete CD in around 7 minutes. Optimized for the latest CPU's including the Intel P4, MMX, SSE, and SSE2 -- Nero AAC is fully compliant with both MPEG-2 AAC as well as MPEG-4 AAC, and features 16-448 Kbits/s bit rate, constant and variable, with a special fit-to-size option.

AAC Advanced audio coding is high-quality audio coding technology with broadcast and electronic music distribution applications. Independent tests have proven the coding efficiency of AAC to be superior to MP3 and other perceptual audio coders, providing superior audio reproduction at lower bit rates.

MPEG-4 is the future of both video and audio. MPEG-4 is an ISO/IEC standard, developed by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) -- the same committee that also developed standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2.

"It is very encouraging to see Nero, a very well-known name in CD/DVD recording, adding support for the future standard in multimedia -- MPEG-4," said Rob Koenen, President of the MPEG-4 Industry Forum (M4IF).

"With high-quality AAC integration, Nero's application suite is ready for CD-quality audio encoding with support for a wide range of forthcoming MPEG-4 players," says Ivan Dimkovic, Ahead's MPEG-4 Product Manager. "Comprising several quality profiles that affect encoding speed and quality, we are committed to making strenuous efforts to satisfy our customer needs -- from personal music, archiving and professional audiophile-quality encodings-all from one flexible plug-in."

The Nero AAC encoder plug-in will be available for purchase at www.nero.com.