scope:

General

In the process of generating speech and audio coding standards, the following situations often happen:

a) In many cases, experimental results generated with different software tools may not be directly compared.

b) Software tools used by different organizations may not perfectly conform to related ITU-T Recommendations, which may delay ITU-T standardization processes.

c) ITU-T Recommendations may leave scope for different implementations.

d) New speech and audio coding standards are increasing in complexity, leading to non-bitexact specifications; furthermore, appropriate testing procedures to assure interoperability of different implementations are needed.

The need for a common set of tools has been recognized in past ITU-T standardization activities of speech algorithms. As a consequence, a library of portable, interworkable and reliable software routines has been established.