Dolby E Packages Digital Multichannel Sound Plus Metadata Onto Digital VTR Or AES3 Track Pair

At the International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam (September 10-14, 1999), Dolby Laboratories demonstrated the 25 frame / 50 Hz version of its new digital technology, Dolby E for the first time. Dolby E enables broadcasters and post production facilities to distribute and transport digital multichannel surround audio far more conveniently and economically than previously possible, while maintaining professional quality and ease of switching and editing on frame boundaries.""Dolby E is for audio professionals to use in-house"" said Tony Spath, Dolby's Marketing Director, Technology. ""It makes multichannel audio production and distribution possible with existing infrastructures and working practices, thus saving capital expense and smoothing the path to the multichannel audio future.""Also demonstrated was audio Metadata, carried in the Dolby E stream and used in the consumer's decoder. This allows the sound engineer to optimize consumer playback options with reduced dynamic range and to normalize average loudness from program to program. The audio Metadata parameters will usually be entered in the Dolby E stream by a professional audio engineer or mixer so that it is carried from the production environment to the Dolby Digital transmission coder along with the audio.""Metadata is a boon,"" continued Spath. ""The broadcaster can send Metadata along with a single 5.1 audio bitstream to the consumer's decoder where it can adapt that full 5.1 audio signal to whatever audio system the consumer has, from a mono TV set in a noisy environment to a top-end wide-dynamic-range multichannel home cinema system. What's more, a broadcaster receiving a Hollywood blockbuster film on a master encoded with Dolby E is therefore able to transmit the original Metadata, as produced by the mixing engineer in Hollywood, direct to the consumer.""