Digital Dolby Surround Encoder Previewed at IBC
Dolby Laboratories has announced the European introduction of a new digital Dolby Surround encoder, the Model DP563. Designed for recording, post-production and TV facilities, the DP563 offers producers a fully digital encoding solution for Dolby Surround. A pre-production DP563 was featured at the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam (September 10-14, 1999). ""Currently within the audio industry, two certainties exist,"" said John Couling, Professional Product Manager at Dolby Laboratories. ""Multichannel audio has become a key requirement for new productions and more and more audio production is moving into the digital domain. Dolby Surround is an important stepping stone for many studios and production companies on the road from conventional stereo to Dolby Digital 5.1 audio delivery."" The DP563 complements the existing SEU-4 encoder within Dolby's professional audio product line. For those involved in analogue broadcast or post-production, the Dolby SEU-4 Dolby Surround encoder, with its analogue inputs and outputs, may still be a suitable choice for production. However, for those working in an all-digital environment, the DP563 with its digital inputs and outputs will drop right into a digital studio, complementing the existing DP562 decoder that provides a digital reference version of Dolby Surround decoding, as well as reference Dolby Digital decode. Audio Facilities In addition to providing a digital implementation of the industry standard SEU-4 Dolby Surround encoder, the DP563 can take up to 5.1 channels of audio in a pre-processing stage and pre-mix within the unit to a four-channel input for the Dolby Surround matrix encoding stage. The balance of the pre-mixed audio can be adjusted as necessary, since the Center, Surround and LFE channels all have individual level trims. The Low-Frequency Effects (LFE) channel also includes a switchable limiter and lowpass filter. Among the post-processing capabilities included in the Model DP563 are a limiter, an adjustable output word length with dither, a variable delay to compensate for corresponding video delays and a bypass mode. Calibration to studio operating levels is quick and simple, utilizing a calibration mode and an internal test-tone generator to produce reference level outputs for associated recording equipment.