Dolby Technologies for High-Definition Disc Media

Optical disc formats with much greater capacities (Blu-ray Disc™) bring high-definition video to packaged media. Dolby has developed Dolby® Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD technologies which offer comparable advances in audio for these HD optical media. These technologies combine exceptionally high-quality audio performance with the flexibility and efficiency for expanded channel configurations. Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD are optional formats for the Blu-ray Disc.

Dolby Digital Plus, for HD media, extends the capabilities of Dolby Digital, allowing higher data rates (up to 6 Mbps) and up to 13.1 discrete channels of audio. The actual channel configuration is dependent on the format chosen. At present Blu-ray support up to 7.1 audio channels. Home listeners can hear the same pristine mix created in the studio. As with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus includes metadata that allows content producers to optimize listening experiences for consumers.

Dolby Digital Plus is also ideal for interactive delivery of audio to accompany future packaged-media applications. For example, viewers can watch a movie while listening to the director's comments streamed from the studio website.

TrueHD is a lossless audio technology designed for the new high-definition packaged media. Only Dolby TrueHD guarantees lossless HD audio playback from supporting Blu-ray Disc players, and offers the most efficient lossless coding available. It supports up to eight channels (7.1-channel surround) of 24-bit/96 kHz audio, with expandability to accommodate more channels in the future while retaining compatibility with all Dolby TrueHD decoders. (For fewer than eight channels, Dolby TrueHD allows sampling frequencies as high as 192 kHz.) Dolby TrueHD gives content creators new capabilities to position sounds for the most realistic effects. And with audio playback that is bit-for-bit identical to the highest-resolution studio masters, listeners experience sound as stunning as the high-definition picture.

Both Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD bitstreams are transportable over version 1.3 of HDMI™ and are compatible with HDMI v.1.1 as decoded PCM output signals for A/V receivers. HDMI is the new single-cable digital connection for high-definition audio and video that eliminates the confusion of multiple connectors.

Dolby Media Producer: A Comprehensive Software Solution for DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and Blu-ray Disc

Dolby Media Producer, our new suite of professional software DVD creation tools, is the ultimate authoring tool for DVD and HD packaged media formats. It supports today’s DVD-Video and DVD-Audio formats, and the new high-definition optical media formats such as Blu-ray Disc. It is also designed to support any future HD media.

The Dolby Media Producer product line consists of four separate software programs designed to work together or separately: Dolby Media Encoder, Dolby Media Encoder SE (Stand-alone Edition), Dolby Media Decoder, and Dolby Media Tools.

All four Dolby Media Producer programs feature an intuitive graphical interface on the Mac OS® X platform (version 10.4.2 or higher) and can be run on both Power PC and Intel® Macs. These will allow the programs to run natively on Intel and Power PC systems alike, and give all Mac users the best possible performance. Current Dolby Media Producer users can register their products at dolbysupport.com to obtain information on Universal applications updates.

There are two versions of the Dolby Media Producer encoder programs available. The Dolby Media Encoder package includes three Media Encoder Clients and one Media Encoder Server. Each Media Encoder Client allows an operator to set up and submit jobs via a network to a central facility server. The Media Encoder Server can also be installed on the same computer as a Media Encoder Client to allow for local encoding. Additional Media Encoder Clients can be purchased for the Dolby Media Encoder software version. Dolby Media Encoder SE (Stand-alone Edition) is the cost-effective encoder choice for use on a single computer. Both encoder versions support all Dolby technologies for mastering the audio files for DVD and HD media formats.

Learn more about the Dolby Media Producer.