THE BFA IS PROUD TO REPRESENT

Dolby Laboratories, Inc
Wootton Bassett
Wiltshire
SN4 8QJ
England
Telephone: (44) 1793-842100
Fax: (44) 1793-842101

WWW:
http://www.dolby.com

Dolby’s latest range of technologies for the consumer continues to bring multi-channel audio of the highest quality into a variety of entertainment environments. "Our dream is to get more people than ever excited about surround sound for movies, music, and games at home, in cars, in planes, even while jogging," says Roger Dressler, Technical Director. "All our efforts in launching technology of late have been in this direction, whether it is MLP Lossless for DVD-Audio, Dolby Headphone for private surround enjoyment, Dolby Digital Live for games, or Pro Logic II for bringing stereo content into the 5.1-channel world."

Read on for an explanation of the new technologies.

Pro Logic II technology is a “must-have” feature on surround decoders. Pro Logic II enhances soundfield spatiality with full-range stereo surround outputs, giving a 5.1-channel effect from all your existing programmes. It not only greatly improves the reproduction of Dolby Surround encoded movies and television broadcasts, but creates an incredible surround ambience from ordinary stereo music sources such as CDs and MP3 files.

Dolby® Pro Logic® IIx delivers the mostseamless sound of any surroundtechnology available today, deriving thesurround information from directionalcues that occur naturally in music and movie soundtracks. Dolby Pro Logic IIxis the only decoding technology you need to expand any stereo ormultichannel source to six, or seven channels. And it's totally compatiblewith Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Surround EX™, and, depending on theA/V processor, with DVD-Audio and SACD.

Dolby Digital EX was made available to the consumer electronics industry in November 2001. It allows you to decode the additional centre-back surround channel encoded in Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtracks. Home cinema amplifiers and receivers with Dolby Digital EX use one or two extra loudspeakers placed behind you, in addition to the normal pair of surround speakers off to the sides. Fly-overs and such other special effects become even more realistic and localised. Surround EX soundtracks are of course fully compatible with all Dolby Digital 5.1-channel receivers.

Dolby Headphone is a sophisticated signal processing system that enables any stereo headphones to give realistic surround sound. It emulates the acoustics of a well-defined home cinema resulting in a natural and “open” listening sensation, as opposed to the “in-the-head” effect normally associated with headphones. Dolby Headphone lets you enjoy 5.1-channel Dolby Digital movies and video games with thrilling surround that is natural and non-fatiguing even after long listening sessions.

Many laptop PCs products incorporate DVD players with Dolby Headphone, and a growing number of software players can be downloaded from the Internet. Dolby Headphone processing is also integrated in a growing number of audio-visual amplifiers and portable MiniDisc players.

DVD-Audio is an advanced resolution multichannel music format, providing the highest quality audio for the ultimate musical experience.

While the Compact Disc format uses pure PCM audio, it provides just two channels, each limited to 20 kHz frequency response and 16-bits resolution. DVD-Audio goes beyond CD - and the bounds of human hearing - in every dimension, allowing up to six audio channels, double the frequency response, and up to 24-bits resolution.

For stereo fans, DVD-Audio can provide stereo recordings with four times the audio response of CD and 24-bits resolution.

This level of performance can only be achieved with the most advanced audio system ever perfected: pure PCM with MLP Lossless from Dolby Laboratories. As a result, DVD-Audio has less noise and distortion than any other “96/24” or “1-bit” delivery system available.

SURROUND IN MOTION™

Almost everyone has experienced the excitement of surround sound in the cinema or at home. Now the same experience can be enjoyed on the move with new car entertainment systems featuring some of the latest technologies from Dolby Laboratories, including Pro Logic II, Dolby Digital and Dolby Headphone.