SAN FRANCISCO – Dolby Laboratories announced today that the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) has incorporated Dolby Digital Plus into the ATSC standard.
Specifically, says the press release, ATSC “approved a revision to the A/52A Standard (entitled A/52B) that incorporates Dolby(R) Digital Plus into an ATSC Standard.”
The ATSC membership vote happened on June 14, and the Standard was published July 26. Additionally, in a subsequent membership vote completed on July 27, the ATSC approved a revision of the ATSC Digital Television Standard that specifies Dolby Digital Plus as the high-efficiency audio coding system to be used for robust mode transmission of E-VSB.
“In December 2002, the ATSC released a request for information seeking new advanced video and audio coding technology,” says the release. “The committee sought to apply more efficient codecs to the newly developed E-VSB enhanced transmission technology that allows delivery of a reduced data rate signal with substantially improved "receivability". Dolby Laboratories submitted its Dolby Digital Plus codec for consideration at that time.”
“In April 2004, the ATSC elevated Dolby Digital Plus to Candidate Standard status as part of its work on the development of the E-VSB robust mode. Candidate Standard stage is an explicit call for implementation and technical feedback that precedes the technology’s official inclusion in an ATSC Standard.”
Dolby Digital Plus is an audio codec based on Dolby Digital and is designed to adapt to the changing demands of future audio delivery, video delivery, and audio storage systems. It can offer extremely high-quality audio while reducing the size of the overall program package, says Dolby Labs.
As well, Dolby Digital Plus decoders will maintain backward compatibility with the existing Dolby Digital 5.1-channel home theater systems in use today.
