Dr. Dieter Seitzer was born in 1933, and studied telecommunications at the Technical University of Stuttgart, where he obtained his PhD. From 1962 to 1970 Dr. Seitzer worked in the research laboratory of IBM in Zurich, Switzerland. During his time with IBM, Dr. Seitzer was promoted to head of the department for experimental communication systems. His interest in communication systems, information transfer and audio coding led him to play a major role in the development of the MPEG Layer 3 codec better known as MP3. This audio compression technique made it possible to transmit traditionally-large audio files over the slower internet connections of the past.  Depending on desired quality, a digital audio file could be compressed to a tenth of its original size. These smaller files were better suited to be transmitted over slow internet connections based on phone lines.

In the 1970s, Dr. Dieter Seitzer, while a professor at the University of Erlangen, had an idea to compress and transmit audio data in high quality over phone lines, later focusing on transmitting specifically music as improvements were made to telecommunications infrastructure. In 1979, a team led by Dr. Seitzer developed the first digital signal processor capable of audio compression, and with its creation the hardware foundation was laid for the development of audio compression schemes. When the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, a portion of the German research organization the Fraunhofer Society, was establish in 1985, Dr. Seitzer was named founding director. Dr. Seitzer led the institute from 1985 until 1998.

Seitzer was awarded medals of merit from the Chamber of Commerce in 1995 and the State of Bavaria in 1996. Thanks to Dr. Seitzer’s vision and determination, the Internet and our lives have become interwoven with digital sound – in MP3 format.