Dolby Surround Encoding Goes DigitalDigitally Implemented Dolby Surround Encoder Previewed At AES

Dolby Laboratories, the world leader in multichannel sound technology, has announced the U.S. introduction of a new Dolby Surround encoder, the Model DP563. Designed for recording, postproduction, and TV facilities, the DP563 offers producers a fully digital encoding solution for Dolby Surround. A preproduction DP563 was featured at the recent Audio Engineering Society (AES) convention.""Currently two certainties exist within the audio industry,"" said Nancy Byers-Teague, Marketing Manager, Professional Audio Products 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 5.1 Dolby Digital audio delivery.""The DP563 is a digital implementation of the industry standard SEU4 Dolby Surround encoder (as used with the SDU4 decoder). The DP563 complements the SEU4 decoder in Dolby's professional audio product line as both units provide the matrix encoding required for Dolby Surround content generation. For those involved in analog broadcast or postproduction, the Dolby SEU4 Dolby Surround encoder, with its analog inputs and outputs, may still be a suitable choice for production. For those working in an all-digital environment, however, the DP563-with its digital inputs and outputs-will fit perfectly into a digital studio, complementing the reference DP562 Multichannel Dolby Digital Decoder that provides both digitally-implemented Dolby Surround Pro Logic decoding, as well as a Dolby Digital decode.Audio FacilitiesIn addition to providing digital Dolby Surround audio, the DP563 can take up to 5.1 channels of audio in a preprocessing stage and premix those channels within the unit to a four-channel input for the Dolby Surround matrix encoding stage. The balance of the premixed audio can be adjusted as necessary, as the Center, Surround, and LFE channels all have individual input level trims. Producers can also disable the Low-Frequency Effects (LFE) channel and choose the source of the surround channel.Among the postprocessing 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 using a calibration mode and an internal test-tone generator to produce reference level outputs.