bit-tech News: Dolby Volume Technology impressions

news · December 22, 2008

Hi all,

We have just published a look at *Dolby Volume Technology*. If you could

post a link on your site that would be very much appreciated.

*Link:*

*Picture:*

*Quote:

*/Arguably its greatest potential use - in mobile audio (read: MP3

players) - is furthest away from reality. Currently Dolby Mobile is a

miniaturisation of Dolby Headphone technology and goes someway to

correct the tins in your ears, but it also includes "tick box features"

like spatial surround, although it also does extend bass response which

is very important. What it doesn't do though is manage the bass in line

with the mid-tones without having to really crank the volume to compensate.

Some of you may enjoy deafening yourselves while completely ignoring the

world around you, and there is obviously an inherent limitation of

dynamic range depending what headphones you buy, but potentially Dolby

Volume could better stretch out the potential of any hardware, and its

on-off nature that's tied into the volume control directly makes it

completely intuitive.

We asked about getting it on the PC and unfortunately were told it was

pretty much the same as above. Currently PC Dolby technologies are

entirely software driven, but dependent on chipset support (to some

degree) whereas Dolby Volume currently requires specific hardware. We've

love to see it on some HTPC soundcards though and the sooner the better.

Like we said above, future versions will be more suitable and the

possibility of having them on a dedicated soundcard, whether software or

hardware driven, would be fantastic, but that still requires additional

software development to use it.

In conclusion, we love it, but c'mon Dolby, we can't wait a few years!

Please crank that development up a notch for those of us with PCs and

MP3 players!/

*

*Cheers guys!

Tim Smalley

www.bit-tech.net

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