Dolby PC Entertainment Expereince for ‘Home Theater’ Notebooks

Dolby’s updated its PC Entertainment Experience program to help users get more out of their notebook’s speakers and audio jacks. Audio performance is something that’s pretty low on many notebook users’ wish lists, but Dolby’s trying to change that. I visited Dolby’s headquarters to talk to Keith Kowal about the new technology.

Keith is a marketing manager at Dolby, responsible for the company’s PC business. He gave me a tour of Dolby’s headquarters and we talked about the components of the PC Entertainment Experience, including second-generation Dolby Soundroom and second-generation Dolby Home Theater.

Notebooks loaded with new technology will include an application called Dolby Control Center, which is a very simple way of telling the system what kind of speakers or headphones you’re listening to and optimizing the surround-sound effects.

Dolby is partnering with major notebook manufacturers to bring this audio experience to multimedia enthusiasts. Acer is the first to announce notebooks with the updated Dolby technology. The first two Acer notebooks that will feature this technology are the Acer Aspire 6920G and 8920G and announced the Gemstone Blue series was announced last week

Sound processing is a complex business, but Keith says the end consumer will have “a much improved listening experience over a product not have Dolby Technologies.”

Keith set up a demo for me in one of Dolby’s listening rooms and I liked what I saw and heard. I watched a scene from Spiderman 3 on a Toshiba Qosmio entertainment notebook with only its built-in speakers and could hear objects whizzing by me. I used the SPDIF port to hook the notebook up to a receiver and listened to the same scene some high-end home speakers and the Dolby Control Center made switching speakers very easy. The full surround-sound system made the 17-inch notebook’s screen feel tiny and out of place.

Home theater sound out of a notebook isn’t top priority for most notebook users, but if your notebook’s the center of your entertainment world you might want to look for the Dolby Soundroom and Home Theater logos on your next computer. To get the most out of the new technology, you’ll need high-definition audio source, such as integrated Blu-ray disc player.

After experiencing it myself I can say you can definitely get more out of your entertainment library, but it’s not something I consider a must have.

Here’s a summary of Dolby Home Theater and Dolby Soundroom’s improvements:

Second-generation Dolby Home Theater now offers the following:

- Sound Space Expander is a sound stage enhancer that produces a wide stereo image and in the process improves the separation of instruments without diminishing the center of the mix.

- Natural Bass is a bass enhancement system for speakers and headphones that provides up to an octave of downward extension in the bass response of most speakers.

- Dolby Pro Logic IIx creates a vivid 7.1-channel surround sound experience from any stereo (two-channel), 5.1, or 6.1 movie, music, TV, or game audio source.

Dolby Digital Live converts any audio signal from a PC or game console into Dolby Digital for easy connection to home theater systems through a single digital cable.

Dolby Headphone technology creates a personal surround sound experience using any set of headphones and makes listeners feel like the action is happening all around them.

Second-generation Sound Room now offers the following:
-Sound Space Expander is a sound stage enhancer that produces a wide stereo image and in the process improves the separation of instruments without diminishing the center of the mix.

-Natural Bass is a bass enhancement system for speakers and headphones that provides up to an octave of downward extension in the bass response of most speakers.

-Dolby Headphone technology creates a personal surround sound experience using any set of headphones and makes listeners feel like the action is happening all around them.

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