A high-def picture is nothing without high-quality audio and a French TV station is the world’s first to broadcast a Dolby Digital Plus track over a terrestrial signal. The Dolby system is ideal for limited bandwidth applications like terrestrial broadcasts, as the original Dolby Digital bitstreams are maintained and can still be decoded. The French TV station, TNT, is broadcasting three digital TV stations, including one with the 5.1 audio track, within the 24Mbps limitations and without the efficient Dolby codec, this would not be possible. We just hope that we here in the States will hear the 5.1 audio Dolby tracks sometime soon. Think about it; how sweet would Lost and Monday Night Football be in true Dolby 5.1 surround sound?

I talked with Dolby a bit at PAX and they seemed pretty excited about this stuff. They asked me what I thought needed to be improved about voice communication in a game. Essentially I told them that the voice needs to take place in the game and not in a sort of meta-layer where you can hear everyone perfectly and sound quality is universally low. They said that was exactly what they were working on, and today they’ve announced their new voice communication technology Axon at the Austin GDC.

I hope this gets picked up by a lot of games because it addresses all the problems I have with voice comms in games. It adds 3D positioning, occlusion, environmental factors, and basically optimizes and modularizes the system so that it’s not some half-assed walkie-talkie tacked onto your game.

The latest audio solution from Dolby Labs attempts to bring the Dolby experience to broadcast, mobile, PC and online mediums through the MPEG-4 HE-AAC open-standard audio codec. The sound geeks combined the advance bit-rate efficiencies of the codec with the goodies of Dolby audio. Think of 5.1 audio sound but at a lower bit-rate that mobile and broadcast platforms could support. Pulse can carry all the metadata found in other Dolby codecs, just in a more efficient, bandwidth-saving way. Expect to see Pulse applications in 2009.

PR

Today Airfonix announced their AFX-19DD051 wireless transmitter for delivering wireless audio to the home theater. The two-channel transmitter with built-in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Pro-Logic II decoding delivers uncompressed, 24-bit wireless digital audio at 48-MHz transmission rate to active and passive speakers.

It features two S/PDIF coaxial/optical inputs and stereo RCA Line-in connectivity. It has three built-in 100W RMS digital amplifiers for powering front left, center and right channel speakers and a LFE channel line out for connection to an active subwoofer. The transmitter also utilizes the Airfonix Smart Channel technology, which enables the unit to search out and choose an un-congested channel in the 2.4GHz and 4.9-5.8GHz bands.

No pricing info yet, but it looks to be available in production quantities in early 2009.

From the standard fare of receivers to gaming headsets, Dolby has invaded IFA this year. Harman Kardon is going to launch the first receiver with Dolby’s touted Volume technology that ensures constant volume across all content media. Then there is the Plantronics GameCom 777 headset aimed at gamers with surround sound. PCs are getting a sound upgrade as well with Dolby Home Theater and Dolby Sound Round. Finally, thank goodness, Dolby is taking their experience on the go with Dolby Mobile. Apparently, they feel that they can make that tiny speaker sound so much better. 

Dolby has been around for a while and the label is on just about everything AV, but does it really sway your purchasing decision on outside devices. If product A has Dolby certs on the front bezel that product B doesn’t, which one are you more likely to buy? I totally buy Dolby supported receivers but I really don’t know if seeing their logo on my cell phone will move me to buy one verse another. 

PR

LG announced plans to launch mobile phones that include Dolby’s Mobile audio platform, which according to the release, is built on “Dolby’s extensive portfolio of technologies,” and has been “optimized for mobile applications.” Dolby announced its mobile platform in February.

LG said it is the first handset maker to include Dolby Mobile in handsets geared for the worldwide market, and that it plans to begin launching phones that incorporate the audio technology beginning in the fourth quarter.

For more features you can can expect to find in upcoming LG handsets, check out MobileCrunch.

I think Matt wet himself.

These look like very old-school flying saucers, the broken down wobbly ones that low-income aliens fly. To be fair, such technology is still far more advanced than tooling around in a Honda Element all day, so let’s cut poor Zanzork some slack.

Anyway, in a desperate attempt to get back on track I’d like to tell you that the devices listed above are not spacecraft. They are external USB audio devices that eliminate surrounding electromagnetic interference and use a digital to analog converter to clean up whatever sounds or music emanate from your laptop.

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Laptop speakers generally need all the sound-quality help they can get. Thankfully Dolby Laboratories is lending some audio technologies to Acer’s Aspire notebooks, which will now feature the Dolby Home Theater suite offering “advanced home theater audio features and premium surround sound experiences.”

Acer Aspire notebooks featuring Dolby Home Theater will be available worldwide and will support all of the technologies in the suite. This includes Dolby Digital for 5.1-discrete channels of digital surround sound, Dolby Digital Live, which converts any audio signal from the PC into Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II for simulated surround sound experience from any stereo audio source, Dolby Headphone, which does 5.1 for headphones and last, but probably most important, Dolby Virtual Speaker, which delivers a surround-sound experience from a 5.1-channel soundtrack to stereo speakers.

Not huge news, but kinda exciting. The last Acer Aspire I tested had some weak speakers and they could’ve used any bit of help to make them sound beefier.

JVC just dove into the home media center market and its latest offering is the Sophisti DD-3. Aside from an odd name, the DD-3 system is based upon speakers and a main unit. The main unit acts as a network media player, as well as a DVD player, AM/FM radio, CD player, and can stream audio from another PC. But one of the cooler features that makes the DD-3 stand out is the dedicated USB host port, which allows you to hook up an iPod, Zune, or whatever up to the system for playback. It’ll also stream music, video, and pictures from your home PC to a TV.

Of course, with JVC, you’ll be getting big names with big quality on the inside. Dolby Digital, DTS, and Pro-Logic II decoding are built-in and the total system’s power is a sweet 220 watts. I saw the speakers used on the DD-3 during CES and boy do they sound incredible. Maybe that’s why the price-tag for the whole Sophisti DD-3 system is $1000. Ouch. Better start saving your pennies real quick, because it’s available now.

Press Release