DolbyÆ Laboratories Debuts New Hand-Held Diagnostic Tool At NAB

DM100 Portable Audio Monitor Enables End-To-End Testing Of DolbyÆ And PCM Bitstreams

12-Apr-00

DolbyÆ Laboratories, the world leader in multichannel sound technology, debuted its new DM100 Portable Audio Monitor at the 2000 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The DM100 is a hand-held diagnostic tool for monitoring Dolby Digital, Dolby E, and PCM bitstreams. The unit allows systems integrators and service engineers to quickly test the integrity and composition of these bitstreams in production facilities, broadcast facilities, and home theatre systems. ""Our new DM100 can decode Dolby Digital and Dolby E bitstreams, as well as PCM audio, and it can also generate test streams in these formats,"" said Tim Carroll, Product Manager, Professional Products. ""This makes it an invaluable tool for anyone involved with multichannel audio.""The DM100 identifies the format of the input bitstream and decodes it appropriately. Through headphones, users can monitor individual channel pairs or a two-channel downmix of any multichannel program, while the sum of the two channels can be monitored through a small built-in speaker. Test bitstreams are stored in internal non-volatile RAM, and can be changed in the field via software update. A pass-through mode allows modification of the input signalís AES channel status bits before passing to the output connectors. A two-line by 16-character LCD displays Dolby Digital and Dolby E metadata information.The DM100 will be available to the public during the last quarter of 2000.About Dolby LaboratoriesDolby Laboratories is the developer of signal processing systems used worldwide in applications that include motion picture sound, consumer entertainment products and media, broadcasting, and music recording. Based in San Francisco with European headquarters in England, the privately held company also has offices in New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Tokyo.