Vision - March 2009 - (Page 21) “The [sound beam] steering is directed through a TV-based user interface.” —Dave Naranjo ing areas in the home are home theater rooms, dens or recreation rooms. Thus, in the first 10 months of 2008 consumers snapped up 1.8 million next-generation DVD players, including Blu-ray and HDDVD components, Koenig says. For the full year CEA was projecting shipments of 2.3 million next-generation DVD player components, up from 1.1 million in 2007. In addition, home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) and component audio-video receivers also enjoyed brisk sales last year, Koenig notes. “What’s interesting is the artistic progression of the medium into the future,” declares Tomlinson Holman, a professor of sound at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts and the Viterbi School of Engineering in Los Angeles, and a founder (with film maker George Lucas) of THX Ltd., the audio technology and certification company based in San Rafael, Calif. Taking Surround to New Heights Holman in 1987 was the first to give the name “5.1-channel” to the most basic surround sound technology used today, and he describes it as “the best, smartest compromise that emerged” for surround sound on film at the time. To fit the full frequency range and dynamic range of a surround soundtrack on a 70mm film print at the time, he recounts, it was necessary to cleverly throw away bits of sound data. About one-thirteenth of the data was discarded and the loss was essentially inaudible most of the time, he says. Listeners were treated to 5.1 channels of surround sound through two front corner speakers, a front center speaker and two rear corner speakers plus a subwoofer. In 1997 the DVD transferred 5.1-channel surround sound from movie theaters to homes, using embedded technologies— named codecs—from Dolby Laboratories, Inc. and DTS Inc. Since then, surround sound codecs have evolved and “bit rates” have increased, so that less audio data is discarded. And in the best “lossless” codecs, no bits are discarded. In addition, for two years both Dolby and DTS have marketed lossless 7.1-channel codecs that add two side speakers to the audio mix on Blu-ray discs. These are named Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. But it www.ce.org was only about a year ago that a significant number of audio-video receivers and Blu-ray players started to feature both codecs, says John Kirchner, president and CEO of DTS in Agoura Hills, Calif. This year, Kirchner says he expects DTS HD Master Audio to move into lower priced audio-video receivers and HTIB packages. But the biggest evolutionary change for surround sound this year could be in moving it higher—quite literally, says Craig Eggers, senior manager for partner marketing at Dolby in San Francisco, Calif. At CES, Dolby unveiled Pro Logic IIz, a new surround sound codec that extracts uncorrelated sounds coming from the left and right-front speakers—audio that typically creates ambience—and redirects it to “height” speakers installed above these front speakers. The setup is intended to create a 7.1-channel surround experience in rooms that aren’t big enough to accommodate side speakers. And where a 7.1-channel setup is already in place, Eggers says Pro Logic IIz can be used to create a 9.1-channel surround sound experience. By adding height speakers, Eggers says Pro Logic IIz offers audio with more depth and dimension—in a movie, for example, allowing rain to sound like it is falling on a roof. However, he says, the new codec also will not violate the sound creator’s intent. “If there are footsteps walking on the ground, you’re not going to hear them in the air,” he declares. In playing music, Eggers says Pro Logic IIz can add “airiness.” Onkyo this year will be one of the first manufacturers to integrate Pro Logic IIz in an audio-video receiver. Moreover, Dolby is talking with videogame developers about incorporating Pro Logic IIz to add height special effects in games like the sound of a helicopter hovering above. More Speakers at Lower Prices Yet while Dolby Pro Logic IIz provides more flexibility in how to arrange a surround sound setup, what consumers really want—along with high audio quality—is more simplicity of design and easy installation, experts say. One solution: A singlepiece speaker system that reproduces either simulated surround sound or a true surround experience. T hese frontmounted speaker arrays and soundbars create surround soundfields without help from speakers arranged around a room, and their proliferation will be the biggest trend in surround sound— from engineering to retail—through 2010, predicts Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering Group in Seaford, NY. One big reason for this, Doherty says, is that new advanced chip technologies are allowing these single-piece speaker systems to fit into more lifestyle scenarios, from a student’s dorm room to a lavish home theater. Another is affordability, notes Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group in San Jose, Calif. A rich audio experience at a lower price is the direction of the industry until at least 2010, Enderle forecasts. For an example of this direction, Doherty points to new LCD TVs from Mitsubishi that contain what the manufacturer has dubbed an “integrated sound projector” or “iSP.” Using an array of 16 one-inch speakers built into a single cabinet that is attached below the TV screen, it reproduces genuine 5.1-channel surround sound—not simulated surround sound—through the use of an advanced algorithm built into an audio processing chip supplied by Micronas. The algorithm delivers the audio to each of the 16 speakers at different time intervals, to “steer sound beams around a room,” explains David Naranjo, director of product development at Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Inc., in Irvine, Calif. The steering is directed through a TV-based user interface, and creating the surround sound experience requires bouncing the sound off walls. Available since last July and debuting at CES, these iSP-equipped TVs sold twice as well as Mitsubishi TVs without iSP in the second half of last year, Naranjo says. Two models are available, with 46-inch and 52-inch screen sizes. This year, he says, it is possible Mitsubishi will expand the technology to reproduce a 7.1-channel surround sound experience using the new lossless codecs. Currently, the TVs are compatible only with the older 5.1-channel Dolby Digital codec. According to Naranjo, Mitsubishi has March/April 2009 21 http://www.ce.org
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