Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder
The Dolby® MS11 Multistream Decoder provides television and set-top box manufacturers with a single-package technology solution for decoding all premium audio formats, including Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, HE AAC with Dolby metadata, and all HE AAC/AAC bitstreams. It ensures optimal compatibility with the worldwide installed base of home theater systems and with future broadcast audio standards.
New Content Delivery Models: More Sources, More Formats
Televisions and set-top boxes are rapidly evolving into multipurpose digital media platforms for the home. They will enable viewers to receive content not only from traditional broadcast and operator sources, but also over the Internet or transferred from other media and storage devices such as PCs, game consoles, and mobile devices.
Content will include downloadable movies, television programs, or music files using an array of different audio codecs. This poses a challenge for consumer equipment and chip manufacturers who want to implement these codecs to match traditional broadcast and new content delivery models.
New Product Types: Thinner TV Panels, More Inputs
With the physical challenges of modern product design, loudspeaker components can sometimes suffer from less than ideal selection or placement. In order to redress the loudspeaker audio output for ideal performance, Dolby Multistream Decoders offer a suite of postprocessing features. Virtualization, dialogue enhancement, stereo expanding, and speaker EQ—to name a few—are among the technologies designed to optimize TV loudspeaker quality.
Certain Multistream Decoder blocks can also be re-used in combination Blu-ray™/ broadcast products (such as a TV with integrated Blu-ray player), thus simplifying the internal decoder structure. File playback from ASF and MP4 containers ensures relevancy in an industry where media often arrives at a device from many sources. A reencode of any stereo PCM audio into Dolby Digital increases the connection possibilities to home amplifiers.
Further, complex user setups and content from any source can be leveled using the Dolby Volume leveling solution, giving confidence to the consumer that any media played through the device will be aligned in loudness at excellent quality.
Dolby’s Comprehensive and Cost-Effective Solution
The Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder provides a cost-effective solution for IC and consumer electronics manufacturers, decoding all the audio formats required to match worldwide and specific local market broadcast standards. Dolby simplifies implementation by providing all the necessary deliverables, technical support, and testing.
The Dolby Multistream Decoder will decode Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, and HE AAC with Dolby metadata, providing full Dolby metadata support to ensure consistent audio delivery from content creation to consumer playback. Additionally, all AAC bitstreams can be decoded. All of these input signals for the main audio can also be passed through directly for output over HDMI® interfaces.
Simultaneously, the Dolby Multistream Decoder always creates a decoded twochannel downmix, from any of the multichannel inputs, that feeds the stereo output. This ensures that consumers who listen to broadcasts in stereo or mono will receive a signal that matches their home systems.
For maximum compatibility with the worldwide installed base of home theater systems that incorporate Dolby technologies, and for connectivity over S/PDIF interfaces, the decoder also generates a standard Dolby Digital bitstream output (up to 5.1 channels) from any incoming audio coding format, which can also be an encode of the 5.1 mix from dual 5.1 decoders, all contained within the one Multistream Decoder package.
Table 1 Possible Multistream Decoder Configurations
Table 2 Features and Benefits of the Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder
With the expanded role of content providers to serve all consumers, including those with visual impairments, dual decoding in receivers is a vital part of the best, most cost-efficient audio solution. Dual decoding is offered as standard in Multistream Decoders.
Single Package Solution
The Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder provides IC and consumer broadcast product manufacturers with a universal decoder that reduces the complexity and the cost of integrating multiple audio technologies in new receivers to meet both traditional broadcast and new content delivery models. It also simplifies product development and testing.
Configurable to Any Requirement
The Multistream Decoder offers a modular approach for building the right products for the right markets. Certification can be achieved with any combination, as shown in Table 1.
Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder: Dolby Digital Plus and HE AAC with Dolby Metadata Technologies
Dolby Digital Plus
Dolby Digital Plus is a versatile digital audio coding technology that extends the capabilities of Dolby Digital, giving broadcasters the flexibility they need to create the highest-quality audio experience for existing and nextgeneration applications.
Dolby Digital Plus delivers up to 7.1 channels of surround sound, providing an enhanced audio experience similar to that available on Blu-ray Disc™. It also offers scalable sound delivery, advanced services like bitstream mixing, associated services such as those for the visually impaired, and a wide range of bit rates ensuring optimized sound quality and efficiency for available bandwidth.
Using Dolby Digital Plus, broadcasters can provide a richer and more enveloping audio experience via HDTV, IPTV, cable, satellite, online streaming, or terrestrial broadcast television.
HE AAC with Dolby Metadata
HE AAC combined with Dolby metadata offers the audio coding efficiency of HE AAC with Dolby’s proven quality and broadcast expertise.
The metadata parameters of HE AAC with Dolby metadata align closely with those in Dolby Digital and Dolby Digital Plus, assuring broadcasters and content creators that their content will deliver a reliable, consistent experience on every consumer device. All upstream Dolby products and technologies will fully support this combination.
Dolby’s implementation of HE AAC lets broadcasters deliver stereo and 5.1-channel audio at the lowest bandwidth rates while maintaining high audio quality, perfect for applications where there are significant bandwidth constraints. HE AAC with Dolby metadata is also the one HE AAC solution that eliminates the need for a stereo simulcast along with the 5.1 broadcast, further reducing bandwidth.
Finally, Dolby metadata added to HE AAC helps manufacturers meet the requirements for HE AAC in HD receivers, as specified by major European standards bodies
Only from Dolby
Dolby Laboratories is one of the world’s most recognized and trusted brands in entertainment. More than 500 consumer electronics manufacturers and software development licensees, located in nearly 30 countries, use Dolby technologies, including them in more than 2.8 billion products.
What to Tell Your Customers
For your customers, the essential benefits of a TV or set-top box incorporating the Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder solution come from the ingredient technologies: Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, and the HE AAC family. Together, these ensure the best possible surround sound through any home theater system incorporating Dolby technologies, regardless of the broadcast transmission format. The following points can provide some guidelines for talking to your customers:
• Dolby Digital Plus enables optimal surround sound playback on your home theater system.
• Broadcasters are implementing various formats to meet new DTV audio standards worldwide. MS11 ensures that your TV or set-top box is ready for all of today’s programming and future programming as well.
• Dolby Digital Plus is fully compatible with current home theater systems that include Dolby Digital technology. This allows your customers to retain their existing home theater systems, since the Dolby Multistream Decoder always provides a Dolby Digital compatible output regardless of the broadcast transmission format.
Dolby has a long history of developing innovative technologies for every step of the content chain, from production to playback, in broadcast, cinema, and home entertainment. Dolby focuses on providing the best technology solutions to ensure maximum efficiency, consistency, and compatibility.
Get Started on a License
For more information about the Dolby MS11 Multistream Decoder, visit our website at www.dolby.com/get-licensed, or contact licensinginquiries@dolby.com.
You can also get more information about the Dolby Multistream Decoder, including a comprehensive technical paper, at www.dolby.com/professional/ solutions/broadcast/dolby-ms11.html.
Visit www.dolby.com/EuroHDTVSpecs for information on existing specifications requiring Dolby Digital Plus and HE AAC.
By dolby.com
