Kevin Hilton, on 17-09-2008
Surround sound grows in stature and importance with each IBC and the 5.1 and 7.1 formats for broadcast and Blu-ray Disc (BD) respectively are now serious topics of discussion around the halls, despite the emergence of 22.2 audio for Hi Vision, which is intriguing due to its sheer scale. This year's show saw the first fruits of Dolby's acquisition of Coding Technologies and a defiant showing by the recently slimmed down DTS.

Dolby launched Pulse, a technology aimed at low bit-rate broadcasting and new media applications. The system comprises a bit-stream, encoder and decoder and is based on the HE-AAC (High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding) open standard that was developed by Coding Technologies, which was bought by the American developer last year.

Also during 2007 the EBU declared that there could be no single 5.1 format for the various broadcasting platforms. It recommended either Dolby Digital Plus or DTS' HE-AAC offering, so the launch of Pulse gives Dolby the potential to secure a greater share of the surround market.

The number of European broadcasters working in 5.1 is increasing and Jason Power, sales director for broadcast systems at Dolby, said that some are beginning to consider 7.1 as well. "Those that are most interested see it as a way to offer a Blu-ray experience and as sales of BD players and discs increase more consumers will have expectations of what the additional audio channels can do."

DTS has been through a period of re-organisation since its digital cinema division was sold to Beaufort California Inc, part of the Beaufort International Group, which is in turn owned by satellite services provider Datasat Communications. The US company retains its corporate headquarters in California and now trades in Europe as DTS Licensing, with a new head office in Limerick, Republic of Ireland. The research and development and certification centre in Bangor, Northern Ireland continues to operate as before.

DTS Licensing's recently-appointed director of marketing for Europe, Anthony Wilkins, said the take-over of Coding Technologies by Dolby did not have a big effect as the HE-AAC algorithm was an open standard. He added that DTS was seeing an upsurge in demand for 7.1 on BD and was actively involved in the new Norwegian DVB platform, which was rolling out across the country.

Looking at stands around this year's IBC one could be forgiven for thinking that there was going to be yet another player in the surround sound game. While MPEG Surround was being promoted around the show, this technology has a specific purpose that does not conflict with what Dolby and DTS are doing already.

There was a MPEG Surround in the mid-1990s, promoted by Philips and other manufacturers as a non-proprietary rival to Dolby's AC-3 format, now known as Dolby Digital. This quietly slipped away by the end of the '90s but Philips and Dolby, together with LSI and the Fraunhofer Institute, have dusted down the name and applied it to a new format designed for even lower bit rates than those handled by HD-AAC. Applications include mobile and web audio.

Source: Rapid TV News 2008

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