Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) V. Demjanenko Request for Comments: 8130 D. Satterlee Category: Standards Track VOCAL Technologies, Ltd. ISSN: 2070-1721 March 2017
RTP Payload Format for the Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction Enhanced (MELPe) Codec
Abstract
This document describes the RTP payload format for the Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction Enhanced (MELPe) speech coder. MELPe's three different speech encoding rates and sample frame sizes are supported. Comfort noise procedures and packet loss concealment are described in detail.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8130.
Copyright Notice
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RFC 8130 RTP Payload Format for MELPe Codec March 2017
This document describes how compressed Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction Enhanced (MELPe) speech as produced by the MELPe codec may be formatted for use as an RTP payload. Details are provided to packetize the three different codec bitrate data frames (2400, 1200, and 600) into RTP packets. The sender may send one or more codec data frames per packet, depending on the application scenario or based on transport network conditions, bandwidth restrictions, delay requirements, and packet loss tolerance.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
Best current practices for writing an RTP payload format specification were followed [RFC2736].
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The MELP speech coder was developed by the US military as an upgrade from the LPC-based CELP standard vocoder for low-bitrate communications [MELP]. ("LPC" stands for "Linear-Predictive Coding", and "CELP" stands for "Code-Excited Linear Prediction".) MELP was further enhanced and subsequently adopted by NATO as MELPe for use by its members and Partnership for Peace countries for military and other governmental communications [MELPE]. The MELP speech coder algorithm was developed by Atlanta Signal Processing (ASPI), Texas Instruments (TI), SignalCom (now Microsoft), and Thales Communications, with noise preprocessor contributions from AT&T, under contract with NSA/DOD as international NATO Standard STANAG 4591 [MELPE].
Commercial/civilian applications have arisen because of the low-bitrate property of MELPe with its (relatively) high intelligibility. As such, MELPe is being used in a variety of wired and radio communications systems. Voice over IP (VoIP) / SIP systems need to transport MELPe without decoding and re-encoding in order to preserve its intelligibility. Hence, it is desirable and necessary to define the proper payload formatting and use conventions of MELPe in RTP payloads.
The MELPe codec [MELPE] supports three different vocoder bitrates: 2400, 1200, and 600 bps. The basic 2400 bps bitrate vocoder uses a 22.5 ms frame of speech consisting of 180 8000-Hz, 16-bit speech samples. The 1200 and 600 bps bitrate vocoders each use three and four 22.5 ms frames of speech, respectively. These reduced-bitrate vocoders internally use multiple 2400 bps parameter sets with further processing to strategically remove redundancy. The payload sizes for each of the bitrates are 54, 81, and 54 bits for the 2400, 1200, and 600 bps frames, respectively. Dynamic bitrate switching is permitted but only if supported by both endpoints.
The MELPe algorithm distinguishes between voiced and unvoiced speech and encodes each differently. Unvoiced speech can be coded with fewer information bits for the same quality. Forward error correction (FEC) is applied to the 2400 bps codec unvoiced speech for better protection of the subtle differences in signal reconstruction. The lower-bitrate coders do not allocate any bits for FEC and rely on strong error protection and correction in the communications channel.
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Comfort noise handling for MELPe follows the procedures in Appendix B of SCIP-210 [SCIP210]. After Voice Activity Detection (VAD) no longer indicates the presence of speech/voice, a minimum of two comfort noise vocoder frames (serving as a grace period) are to be transmitted. The contents of the comfort noise frames are described in the next section.
Packet loss concealment (PLC) exploits the FEC (and, more precisely, any combination of two set bits in the pitch/voicing parameter) of the 2400 bps speech coder. The pitch/voicing parameter has a sparse set of permitted values. A value of zero indicates a non-voiced frame. At least three bits are set for all valid pitch parameters. The PLC erasure indication utilizes any errored/erasure encodings of the pitch/voicing parameter with exactly two set bits, as described below.
The MELPe codec uses 22.5, 67.5, or 90 ms frames with a sampling rate clock of 8 kHz, so the RTP timestamp MUST be in units of 1/8000 of a second.
The RTP payload for MELPe has the format shown in Figure 1. No additional header specific to this payload format is needed. This format is intended for situations where the sender and the receiver send one or more codec data frames per packet.
The RTP header of the packetized encoded MELPe speech has the expected values as described in [RFC3550]. The usage of the M bit SHOULD be as specified in the applicable RTP profile -- for example, [RFC3551], where [RFC3551] specifies that if the sender does not suppress silence (i.e., sends a frame on every frame interval), the M bit will always be zero. When more than one codec data frame is present in a single RTP packet, the timestamp is, as always, that of the oldest data frame represented in the RTP packet.
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The assignment of an RTP payload type for this new packet format is outside the scope of this document and will not be specified here. It is expected that the RTP profile for a particular class of applications will assign a payload type for this encoding, or if that is not done, then a payload type in the dynamic range shall be chosen by the sender.
The total number of bits used to describe one frame of 2400 bps speech is 54, which fits in 7 octets (with two unused bits). For 1200 bps speech, the total number of bits used is 81, which fits in 11 octets (with seven unused bits). For 600 bps speech, the total number of bits used is 54, which fits in 7 octets (with two unused bits). Unused bits, shown below as RSVA, RSVB, etc., are coded as described in Section 3.3 in support of dynamic bitrate switching.
In the MELPe bitstream definitions, the most significant bits are considered priority bits. The intention was that these bits receive greater protection in the underlying communications channel. For IP networks, such additional protection is irrelevant. However, for the convenience of interoperable gateway devices, the bitstreams will be presented identically in IP networks.
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Notes: g = Gain BP = Bandpass Voicing P = Pitch/Voicing LSF = Line Spectral Frequencies FEC = Forward Error Correction Parity Bits FM = Fourier Magnitudes AF = Aperiodic Flag B_01 = least significant bit of data set
Table 1: Bitstream Definition for MELPe 2400 bps
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The 2400 bps MELPe RTP payload is constructed as per Figure 2. Note that bit B_01 is placed in the least significant bit (LSB) of the first byte with all other bits in sequence. When filling octets, the least significant bits of the seventh octet are filled with bits B_49 to B_54, respectively.
Notes: BP = Bandpass voicing FS = Fourier magnitudes LSP = Line Spectral Pair Pitch&UV = Pitch/voicing GAIN = Gain JITTER = Jitter
Table 2: Bitstream Definition for MELPe 1200 bps
The 1200 bps MELPe RTP payload is constructed as per Figure 3. Note that bit B_01 is placed in the LSB of the first byte with all other bits in sequence. When filling octets, the least significant bit of the eleventh octet is filled with bit B_81.
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Notes: xxxx (0) = LSB xxxx (nbits-1) = MSB LSF1,p = MSVQ* index of the pth stage of the two first frames LSF2,p = MSVQ index of the pth stage of the two last frames GAIN1 = VQ/MSVQ index of the 1st stage GAIN2 = MSVQ index of the 2nd stage * MSVQ: Multi-Stage Vector Quantizer
Table 4: Bitstream Definition for MELPe 600 bps (Part 2 of 2)
The 600 bps MELPe RTP payload is constructed as per Figure 4. Note that bit B_01 is placed in the LSB of the first byte with all other bits in sequence. When filling octets, the least significant bits of the seventh octet are filled with bits B_49 to B_54, respectively.
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Table B.3-1 of [SCIP210] identifies the usage of MELPe 2400 bps parameters for conveying comfort noise.
+-------------------------------------+----------------+ | MELPe Parameter | Value | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | msvq[0] (line spectral frequencies) | * See Note | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | msvq[1] (line spectral frequencies) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | msvq[2] (line spectral frequencies) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | msvq[3] (line spectral frequencies) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | fsvq (Fourier magnitudes) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | gain[0] (gain) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | gain[1] (gain) | * See Note | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | pitch (pitch - overall voicing) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | bp (bandpass voicing) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | af (aperiodic flag/jitter index) | Set to 0 | +-------------------------------------+----------------+ | sync (sync bit) | Alternations | +-------------------------------------+----------------+
Note: The default values are the respective parameters from the vocoder frame. It is preferred that msvq[0] and gain[1] values be derived by averaging the respective parameter from some number of previous vocoder frames.
Table 5: MELPe Comfort Noise Parameters
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Since only msvq[0] (also known as LSF1x or the first LSP) and gain[1] (also known as g2x or the second gain) are needed, the following bit order is used for comfort noise frames:
Table 6: Bitstream Definition for MELPe Comfort Noise
The comfort noise MELPe RTP payload is constructed as per Figure 5. Note that bit B_01 is placed in the LSB of the first byte with all other bits in sequence. When filling octets, the least significant bits of the second octet are filled with bits B_09 to B_13, respectively.
A MELPe RTP packet MAY consist of zero or more MELPe coder frames followed by zero or one MELPe comfort noise frame. The presence of a comfort noise frame can be deduced from the length of the RTP payload. The default packetization interval is one coder frame (22.5, 67.5, or 90 ms) according to the coder bitrate (2400, 1200, or 600 bps). For some applications, a longer packetization interval is used to reduce the packet rate.
A MELPe RTP packet comprised of no coder frame and no comfort noise frame MAY be used periodically by an endpoint to indicate connectivity by an otherwise idle receiver.
All MELPe frames in a single RTP packet MUST be of the same coder bitrate. Dynamic switching between frame rates within an RTP stream may be permitted (if supported by both ends) provided that reserved bits RSVA, RSVB, and RSVC are filled in as per Table 7. If bitrate switching is not used, all reserved bits are encoded as 0 by the sender and ignored by the receiver. (RSV0 is always coded as 0.)
It is important to observe that senders have the following additional restrictions:
Senders SHOULD NOT include more MELPe frames in a single RTP packet than will fit in the MTU of the RTP transport protocol.
Frames MUST NOT be split between RTP packets.
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It is RECOMMENDED that the number of frames contained within an RTP packet be consistent with the application. For example, in telephony and other real-time applications where delay is important, then the fewer frames per packet the lower the delay, whereas for bandwidth- constrained links or delay-insensitive streaming messaging applications, more than one frame per packet or many frames per packet would be acceptable.
Information describing the number of frames contained in an RTP packet is not transmitted as part of the RTP payload. The way to determine the number of MELPe frames is to count the total number of octets within the RTP packet and divide the octet count by the number of expected octets per frame (7/11/7 per frame). Keep in mind that the last frame can be a 2-octet comfort noise frame.
When dynamic bitrate switching is used and more than one frame is contained in an RTP packet, it is RECOMMENDED that the coder rate bits contained in the last octet be inspected. If the coder bitrate indicates a comfort noise frame, then inspect the third last octet for the coder bitrate. All MELPe speech frames in the RTP packet will be of this same coder bitrate.
The target bitrate of MELPe can be adjusted at any point in time, thus allowing congestion management. Furthermore, the amount of encoded speech or audio data encoded in a single packet can be used for congestion control, since the packet rate is inversely proportional to the packet duration. A lower packet transmission rate reduces the amount of header overhead but at the same time increases latency and loss sensitivity, so it ought to be used with care.
Since UDP does not provide congestion control, applications that use RTP over UDP SHOULD implement their own congestion control above the UDP layer [RFC8085] and MAY also implement a transport circuit breaker [RFC8083]. Work in the RMCAT working group [RMCAT] describes the interactions and conceptual interfaces necessary between the application components that relate to congestion control, including the RTP layer, the higher-level media codec control layer, and the lower-level transport interface, as well as components dedicated to congestion control functions.
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RFC 8130 RTP Payload Format for MELPe Codec March 2017
This RTP payload format is identified using the MELP, MELP2400, MELP1200, and MELP600 media subtypes, which are registered in accordance with RFC 4855 [RFC4855] and per the media type registration template from RFC 6838 [RFC6838].
Subtype names: MELP, MELP2400, MELP1200, and MELP600
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters:
ptime: the recommended length of time (in milliseconds) represented by the media in a packet. It SHALL use the nearest rounded-up ms integer packet duration. For MELPe, this corresponds to the following values: 23, 45, 68, 90, 112, 135, 156, and 180. Larger values can be used as long as they are properly rounded. See Section 6 of RFC 4566 [RFC4566].
maxptime: the maximum length of time (in milliseconds) that can be encapsulated in a packet. It SHALL use the nearest rounded-up ms integer packet duration. For MELPe, this corresponds to the following values: 23, 45, 68, 90, 112, 135, 156, and 180. Larger values can be used as long as they are properly rounded. See Section 6 of RFC 4566 [RFC4566].
bitrate: specifies the MELPe coder bitrates supported. Possible values are a comma-separated list of rates from the following set: 2400, 1200, 600. The modes are listed in order of preference; first is preferred. If "bitrate" is not present, the fixed coder bitrate of 2400 MUST be used. The alternate encoding names "MELP2400", "MELP1200", and "MELP600" directly specify the MELPe coder bitrates of 2400, 1200, and 600, respectively, and MUST NOT specify a "bitrate" parameter.
Interoperability considerations: Early implementations used MELP2400, MELP1200, and MELP600 to indicate both coder type and bitrate. These media type names should be preserved with this registration.
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Published specification: N/A
Applications that use this media type: N/A
Additional information: N/A
Deprecated alias names for this type: N/A
Magic number(s): N/A
File extension(s): N/A
Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Victor Demjanenko, Ph.D. VOCAL Technologies, Ltd. 520 Lee Entrance, Suite 202 Buffalo, NY 14228 United States of America Phone: +1 716 688 4675 Email: victor.demjanenko@vocal.com
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: These media subtypes depend on RTP framing and hence are only defined for transfer via RTP [RFC3550]. Transport within other framing protocols is not defined at this time.
Author: Victor Demjanenko
Change controller: IETF Payload working group delegated from the IESG.
Provisional registration? (standards tree only): No
The mapping of the above-defined payload format media subtypes and their parameters SHALL be done according to Section 3 of RFC 4855 [RFC4855].
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The information carried in the media type specification has a specific mapping to fields in the Session Description Protocol (SDP) [RFC4566], which is commonly used to describe RTP sessions. When SDP is used to specify sessions employing the MELPe codec, the mapping is as follows:
o The media type ("audio") goes in SDP "m=" as the media name.
o The media subtype (payload format name) goes in SDP "a=rtpmap" as the encoding name.
o The parameter "bitrate" goes in the SDP "a=fmtp" attribute by copying it as a "bitrate=<value>" string.
o The parameters "ptime" and "maxptime" go in the SDP "a=ptime" and "a=maxptime" attributes, respectively.
When conveying information via SDP, the encoding name SHALL be "MELP" (the same as the media subtype). Alternate encoding name subtypes "MELP2400", "MELP1200", and "MELP600" MAY be used in SDP to convey fixed-bitrate configurations. These names have been observed in systems that do not support dynamic frame-rate switching as specified by the parameter "bitrate".
An example of the media representation in SDP for describing MELPe might be:
m=audio 49120 RTP/AVP 97 a=rtpmap:97 MELP/8000
An alternative example of SDP for fixed-bitrate configurations might be:
If the encoding name "MELP" is received without a "bitrate" parameter, the fixed coder bitrate of 2400 MUST be used. The alternate encoding names "MELP2400", "MELP1200", and "MELP600" directly specify the MELPe coder bitrates of 2400, 1200, and 600, respectively, and MUST NOT specify a "bitrate" parameter.
The optional media type parameter "bitrate", when present, MUST be included in the "a=fmtp" attribute in the SDP, expressed as a media type string in the form of a semicolon-separated list of
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parameter=value pairs. The string "value" can be one or more of 2400, 1200, and 600, separated by commas (where each bitrate value indicates the corresponding MELPe coder). An example of the media representation in SDP for describing MELPe when all three coder bitrates are supported might be:
Parameter "ptime" cannot be used for the purpose of specifying the MELPe operating mode, due to the fact that for certain values it will be impossible to distinguish which mode is about to be used (e.g., when ptime=68, it would be impossible to distinguish if the packet is carrying one frame of 67.5 ms or three frames of 22.5 ms).
Note that the payload format (encoding) names are commonly shown in upper case. Media subtypes are commonly shown in lower case. These names are case insensitive in both places. Similarly, parameter names are case insensitive in both the media subtype name and the default mapping to the SDP a=fmtp attribute.
For declarative media, the "bitrate" parameter specifies the possible bitrates used by the sender. Multiple MELPe rtpmap values (such as 97, 98, and 99, as used below) MAY be used to convey MELPe-coded voice at different bitrates. The receiver can then select an appropriate MELPe codec by using 97, 98, or 99.
In the Offer/Answer model [RFC3264], "bitrate" is a bidirectional parameter. Both sides MUST use a common "bitrate" value or values. The offer contains the bitrates supported by the offerer, listed in its preferred order. The answerer MAY agree to any bitrate by listing the bitrate first in the answerer response. Additionally, the answerer MAY indicate any secondary bitrate or bitrates that it supports. The initial bitrate used by both parties SHALL be the first bitrate specified in the answerer response.
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For example, if offerer bitrates are "2400,600" and answer bitrates are "600,2400", the initial bitrate is 600. If other bitrates are provided by the answerer, any common bitrate between the offer and answer MAY be used at any time in the future. Activation of these other common bitrates is beyond the scope of this document.
The use of a lower bitrate is often important for a case such as when one endpoint utilizes a bandwidth-constrained link (e.g., 1200 bps radio link or slower), where only the lower coder bitrate will work.
A primary application of MELPe is for radio communications of voice conversations, and discontinuous transmissions are normal. When MELPe is used in an IP network, MELPe RTP packet transmissions may cease and resume frequently. RTP synchronization source (SSRC) sequence number gaps indicate lost packets to be filled by PLC, while abrupt loss of RTP packets indicates intended discontinuous transmissions.
If a MELPe coder so desires, it may send a comfort noise frame as per Appendix B of [SCIP210] prior to ceasing transmission. A receiver may optionally use comfort noise during its silence periods. No SDP negotiations are required.
MELPe packet loss concealment (PLC) uses the special properties and coding for the pitch/voicing parameter of the MELPe 2400 bps coder. The PLC erasure indication utilizes any of the errored encodings of a non-voiced frame as identified in Table 1 of [MELPE]. For the sake of simplicity, it is preferred that a code value of 3 for the pitch/voicing parameter (represented by the bits P6 to P0 in Table 1 of this document) be used. Hence, set bits P0 and P1 to one and bits P2, P3, P4, P5, and P6 to zero.
When using PLC in 1200 bps or 600 bps mode, the MELPe 2400 bps decoder is called three or four times, respectively, to cover the loss of a MELPe frame.
RTP packets using the payload format defined in this specification are subject to the security considerations discussed in the RTP specification [RFC3550] and in any applicable RTP profile such as RTP/AVP [RFC3551], RTP/AVPF [RFC4585], RTP/SAVP [RFC3711], or RTP/SAVPF [RFC5124]. However, as discussed in [RFC7202], it is not an RTP payload format's responsibility to discuss or mandate what solutions are used to meet such basic security goals as confidentiality, integrity, and source authenticity for RTP in general. This responsibility lies with anyone using RTP in an application. They can find guidance on available security mechanisms and important considerations in [RFC7201]. Applications SHOULD use one or more appropriate strong security mechanisms. The rest of this section discusses the security-impacting properties of the payload format itself.
This RTP payload format and the MELPe decoder do not exhibit any significant non-uniformity in the receiver-side computational complexity for packet processing and thus are unlikely to pose a denial-of-service threat due to the receipt of pathological data. Additionally, the RTP payload format does not contain any active content.
Please see the security considerations discussed in [RFC6562] regarding VAD and its effect on bitrates.
RFC 8130 RTP Payload Format for MELPe Codec March 2017
[MELP] Department of Defense Telecommunications Standard, "Analog-to-Digital Conversion of Voice by 2,400 Bit/Second Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction (MELP)", MIL-STD-3005, December 1999.
[MELPE] North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), "The 600 Bit/S, 1200 Bit/S and 2400 Bit/S NATO Interoperable Narrow Band Voice Coder", STANAG No. 4591, January 2006.
[SCIP210] National Security Agency, "SCIP Signaling Plan", SCIP-210, December 2007.
[RFC4585] Ott, J., Wenger, S., Sato, N., Burmeister, C., and J. Rey, "Extended RTP Profile for Real-time Transport Control Protocol (RTCP)-Based Feedback (RTP/AVPF)", RFC 4585, DOI 10.17487/RFC4585, July 2006, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4585>.