In Europe, a variety of industry groups like Digital Video Broadcasting, the European Broadcasting Union and DIGITALEUROPE formerly known as EICTA, have recommended Dolby Digital Plus and HE AAC as the audio coding systems for new broadcast transmissions. Additionally, individual national forums have specified these audio systems for their respective HD formats. The Dolby Digital Plus decoding brings premium audio support and full compatibility with existing Dolby Digital broadcasts. Dolby Pulse (Dolby’s implementation of HE AAC) can extend the Dolby experience to an even broader range of bandwidth constrained services and new online opportunities.

The new decoder is also called as Dolby MS10 Multistream Decoder, which decodes both Dolby Digital Plus and HE AAC audio and consequently can help the manufacturers in meeting new MPEG-4 terrestrial receiver specifications in many European countries, incorporating Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Norway (HE AAC only with transcoder), Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

We’re confident that the Dolby Multistream Decoder will not only aid manufacturers in reducing the cost and complexity of integrating audio technologies into their TVs and set top boxes, but it also will aid greatly in simplifying product development and testing, stated Tom Daily, senior director of marketing, Broadcast Segment at Dolby Laboratories.

Other key benefits of the Dolby Multistream Decoder incorporate:

Full compatibility with the Dolby metadata and consumers’ existing DVD home cinema systems with all Dolby and HE AAC transmission formats;

Full multichannel support, transcoder, for Dolby Pulse additionally to Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus decoding and conversion, one Dolby Digital output for all input formats;

Support for audio description services delivered receiver-mix style using two simultaneous instances of Dolby Pulse, Dolby Digital, or Dolby Digital Plus decoders, respectively, all for the price of a single decoder instance;

Support for multiprogram Dolby Digital Plus streams, main and related audio delivered in the same audio stream;

Ability to decode AAC, HE AAC v.1, and HE AAC v.2 bitstreams.

Dolby Pulse:

Dolby Pulse is the new addition to Dolby Laboratories’ complete portfolio of high-quality audio technologies. The new Dolby Pulse is designed to meet the varying requirements of broadcasters and operators in different regions. Complementing Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, the new Dolby Pulse addresses new applications where bandwidth efficiency is critical. The new Dolby Pulse is based on a consistent code base and equipped with support of a variety of metadata. Dolby Pulse is designed to offer consistent and predictable results all over the broadcast chain.

As it is based on AAC family of codecs, a Dolby Pulse decoder can decode AAC, HE AAC v.1, and HE AAC v.2 bitstreams. The new Dolby Pulse stands apart from the standard MPEG-4 HE AAC core because it combines all the metadata parameters as needed to be considered a broadcast audio system, like Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Digital.

Dolby Pulse also provides significant enhancements in the following areas:

Decoder stability: Provides highly optimized switching times between the channel configurations and enhanced reliability when utilized in a system with Dolby Pulse encoders;

Error concealment: Ensures reliable broadcast audio performance;

Decoder needs in terms of memory and computational complexity: The new Dolby Pulse decoding within the Dolby Multistream Decoder platform is integrated into a combined code base that is optimized for H.264 system-on-chip architectures;

Encoder audio quality: Provides advance audio quality compared to other parametric audio codecs.

Dolby Laboratories is a US-based developer and supplier of products and technologies that improve the entertainment experience.