Together with Karlheinz Brandenburg, Ernst Eberlein, Heinz Gerhäuser (former Institutes Director of Fraunhofer IIS), Bernhard Grill, Jürgen Herre (all Fraunhofer IIS), he developed the widespread MP3 method for audio data compression.
Popp was educated at Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU), Nuremberg, where he studied electrical engineering from 1975 to 1981 and obtained a graduate Diploma.
[1] From 1982 to 1984 Popp worked on a technology transfer project for cable fault location of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg.
[3] 1990 he began with the development of studio audio codecs ("ASPEC 91") for high-quality sound transmission over ISDN telephone lines.
[1][6] In his free time, Harald Popp works with his wife Isolde as the author of the fantasy role-playing game Midgard.