Dolby Media Producer goes "Universal"
updated 01:55 am EDT, Tue April 17, 2007
NAB: Dolby Media Producer
Dolby at NAB showcased its latest audio-enhancing broadcast solutions, including Universal versions of Dolby Media Producer, a professional line of four software products for audio mastering, including encoding, decoding, and supporting tasks. The solutions support Dolby audio technologies for disc-based media formats such as HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc, DVD-Video, and DVD-Audio. The company also announced Dolby Media Encoder SE, which provides the same quality and functionality as the Dolby Media Encoder network version but is designed for single-computer use. The Universal versions of its applications for all Dolby Media Producer products will run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based systems. A bundle of all three Dolby Media Producer professional software products, including Dolby Media Encoder, Dolby Media Decoder, and Dolby Media Tools is $11,000; it requires Mac OS X v10.4.
Dolby Media Encoder, available separately for $8,000, is a professional non-real-time software encoder for mastering Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and MLP Lossless files for DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc formats. It includes three Media Encoder Clients enabling operators to set up and submit jobs locally or over a network to a centralized server. Additional clients are $500.
The new Dolby Media Encoder SE, available for $2,900, is a single-computer software encoding solution designed for smaller facilities preparing audio files for DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc formats. It offers all the powerful features of the Dolby Media Encoder network version, supporting all Dolby technologies for packaged media formats—Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, Dolby TrueHD, and MLP Lossless. It requires Mac OS X version 10.4.2 or higher.
Dolby Media Decoder is the company's software reference decoder that provides decoding and monitoring of Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and MLP Lossless formats for use in mastering files for DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc formats. It also supports all consumer listening modes and is optimized to run locally on a single computer running Mac OS X v10.4.
Dolby Media Tools ($1,800) is a software utility program for repair and update of previously encoded files without reencoding. Features include metadata editing, file trimming, timecode striping, and file concatenation. The company says it is optimized to run locally on a single computer and requires Mac OS X 10.4.
