Dolby has announced, for the occasion of a press release, that the giant Microsoft has chosen to integrate multichannel interactive sound processing developed by the Dolby Labs into their X-Box (see also our article of 14th March).
This new multichannel sound format will thus give the X-Box the capability of 5.1 sound reproduction in real time, either during video sequences or in games.
This process is highly innovative in the World of multichannel audio: it is in fact thanks, in part, to the utilisation of the original Dolby Digital 5.1 specifications that the Dolby Labs were able to develop this product. This variant will allow the licensees of the developer to include an interactive 5.1 reproduction process in their machines (game consoles, computers, etc.)
This standard is based on the so-called matrix part of the front channels, but also on the installation in the game section, as for the DVD, of a track which is encoded at its origin (which, for us, appears to be somewhat illusory, especially for a game).
This process, which for the moment is in the marketing phase, risks being very rapidly emulated, and this, despite the developers and distributors of games as well as (why not?) in other areas, such as TV broadcasts (where the viewer is confronted “live” with the encoding of the programme’s “sound space”).
See the Press Release
NB: Certain people will object, saying the PSX2 is Dolby Digital compatible. Perhaps, but only during the playing of pre-recorded tracks (Video sequences and DVD).