Intelligent Audio Loudness Analysis and Correction System Now Available
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB) today announced market availability of the highly anticipated Dolby® DP600 Program Optimizer. The DP600 is an innovative solution to audio and loudness concerns for cable, satellite, IPTV, and terrestrial TV broadcasters working in a file-based environment.
Compatible with many of the broadcast and video-on-demand (VOD) media file formats currently in use, this innovative and flexible system offers an automated file-based loudness analysis and correction. The DP600-C version additionally offers faster-than-real-time encoding and decoding of Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby E, and MPEG-1 Layer II content, as well as enabling transcoding between any of these formats.
The Dolby DP600 ensures consistency in the delivery of broadcast media and audio files. Applications include broadcast media file quality control, automatic loudness correction (including commercial spots), broadcast media file transcoding, automated digital program insertion (DPI), and VOD file analysis and loudness correction.
“With our new DP600 Program Optimizer, Dolby is taking the guess work out of intelligently controlling loudness levels by automatically setting or correcting the dialogue normalization — or dialnorm — value for many of the most popular broadcast file formats in use today,” said Jeffrey Riedmiller, Senior Broadcast Product Manager, Dolby Laboratories. “The DP600 expands on the technology developed for the Dolby LM100 Broadcast Loudness Meter and allows broadcasters to automatically regulate the loudness of all of their file-based Dolby audio programming and commercials without impacting the original dynamic range.”
The Dolby DP600 and DP600-C Program Optimizer are now available worldwide through Dolby’s dealers and distributors for a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $17,500 and $26,000, respectively.
Dialnorm and Metadata: Key Ingredients to Consistent Audio Levels
Dolby Digital technology contains a method for controlling loudness through the digital broadcast chain by the use of audio metadata, specifically the dialnorm parameter, which indicates the average program loudness. Carried in the Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, or Dolby E bitstream, metadata describes the encoded audio, and conveys information that precisely controls the reproduced audio level and dynamic range within consumer decoders. It enables content producers and broadcasters to deliver the highest quality audio to consumers for a wide range of listening environments. The Dolby DP600 works with programming files and can automatically set as well as correct previously set audio metadata parameters.
About Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories (NYSE:DLB) develops and delivers products and technologies that make the entertainment experience more realistic and immersive. For more than four decades, Dolby has been at the forefront of defining high-quality audio and surround sound in cinema, broadcast, home audio systems, cars, DVDs, headphones, games, televisions, and personal computers. More information about Dolby Laboratories or Dolby technologies is available online at www.dolby.com.
Certain statements in this press release, including statements regarding the performance and capabilities of the Dolby DP600 Program Optimizer, the potential benefits that broadcasters, postproduction facilities, and consumers may derive from these technologies, and the demand for these technologies, are "forward-looking statements" that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations. The following important factors, without limitation, could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements: risks that the Dolby DP600 Program Optimizer may not perform as anticipated; risks associated with building customer and consumer acceptance of and demand for Dolby’s technologies in the broadcasting industry; competition risks; rapid changes in technical requirements for audio technologies; and other risks detailed in Dolby’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings and reports, including the risks identified under the section captioned "Risk Factors" in its most recent Periodic Report on Form 10-Q or 10-K. Dolby disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.