Dolby Surround Comes To Mobiles February 11, 2008

Read more Entertainment , Gadgets , Gizmodo UK , Mobile Devices , Mobile phones , Movies , Music

Dolby, the well known standard in surround sound, has decided to shrink its expertise and cram it into mobile phones.

At this week’s 2008 Mobile World Congress, the company unveiled Dolby Mobile, a new audio processing technology platform that promises “rich, vibrant surround sound to music, movies, and television programmes on mobile phones and portable media players”. Considering Dolby’s pedigree, this could be a real audio performance jump for mobile entertainment.

Dolby also showed off aacPlus, a high-quality, efficient audio compression format designed for download, streaming, and broadcast apps on mobiles.

"Entertainment can sound better on mobile phones and portable media players," said Francois Modarresse, Vice President of Marketing, Dolby Laboratories. "We developed Dolby Mobile to help create products that stir the senses and excite people's imaginations so the industry can deliver on the promise of mobile entertainment."

Great, so who’s using it then? The snag, for now, is that the first two phones using Dolby Mobile are from Sharp and NTT DoCoMo and are available in Japan only. What's new there then?

Still, the company has also inked deals with Symbian, Texas Instruments and ARM, so it’s just a matter of time.

Dolby Mobile has also been integrated with the new RMI Alchemy processor used in portable players from the likes of iRiver and Cowon so keep a sharp lookout for some of the newer PMPs. -Martin Lynch

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