14 DAY TRIAL // Dolby Laboratories has just announced an important update to its four-year old PC Entertainment Experience program, comprised of a suite of audio technologies, such as audio post-processing and connectivity.
The latest technology update consists in the addition of a second-generation Dolby Home Theater, that immerses the listeners right in the middle of the action. The second-generation Dolby Sound Room delivers an enhanced listening experience, no matter what type of speakers or headphones the listener is using.
The Dolby Sound Room is especially aimed at two-speaker and headphone setups, and comes with some new additions to smoothen and widen the sound field. The Sound Space Expander technology is used for widening the sound field, while the Natural Bass provides psychoacoustic bass response enhancements. Users who are mostly listening to music using headphones can now enjoy the surround virtualization implemented via the Dolby Headphone technology.
Moreover, the Dolby PC Entertainment Experience program has undergone a facelift to improve the aesthetics of the Dolby Control Center interface. The refurbished graphics interface features on-screen controls and interactive visual elements that allow the user to select the desired speakers or even finely adjust the surround sound effects to the desired values. The simple application also allows the user to adjust the amount of bass enhancement or sound stage expansion, among other functions.
The Dolby Home Theater covers some of the features included in the Sound Room technology, but it also comes with Dolby Pro Logic IIx decoding to emulate 7.1-, 6.1-, or 5.1-channel audio from a two-channel input source. Additional functions include Dolby Digital Live, that can convert analog audio signals into Dolby Digital, which eases up connection of PCs or game consoles to Dolby Digital home theater systems.
The New Dolby Digital gear is available immediately from Dolby Laboratories' OEM partners, but the first Dolby Sound Room and Dolby Home Theater devices running at the second-generation specifications will be available until the second quarter of 2008.