Dolby and Vestel demonstrate the potential of Atmos immersive sound in both DTT, satellite and hybrid TV

Dolby has demonstrated in collaboration with Vestel, an OEM manufacturer and under brands such as Toshiba, Hitachi, JVC or Telefunken, a service under HbbTv in UHD with Dolby Atmos.

The demonstration that took place last Friday at the Vestel headquarters in Madrid, revealed the quality of Ultra High Definition with Dolby Atmos on AC-4 encoding of new generation audio as was already evident in the presentation what UHD Spain organized just a few days ago at the RTVE Institute.

The UHD Spain association, an initiative of the Andalusian production company Medina Media, organizer of the 4K HDR Summit since 2015, aims to promote 4K, 8K, HDR and next-generation audio in Spain. It has the support of the three most important organizations worldwide: The UHD Alliance, the UHD Forum and the 8K Association.

At this moment, UHD Spain is broadcasting a bubble with content from Medina Media, Radio and Television of Andalusia, Spanish Radio and Television, Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals and Dolby. Most of the content is originally created in stereo and has been remixed in Dolby Atmos over AC-4 encoding, which allows you to get an exact idea of ​​the possibilities of this technology and the excellent results it achieves.

The content is available through an HbbTv application, accessible from the television; by satellite (Hispasat), and openly through a DTT test channel that Cellnex It broadcasts in the main Spanish cities, so that any of its members can access it to carry out their own technical tests.

In the case of the demonstration powered by Dolby and Vestel, it was carried out with JVC, Hitachi and Android televisions with both Android and Linux operating systems.

Javier Foncillas, Vice President Commercial Partnerships Europe at Dolby, commented on this pilot test and the association with Vestel that "Dolby has been working with Vestel for years because for us it is a strategic partner. And it is because it is democratizing access to the technologies that we are developing for television, and far from offering them to a niche of the population, it makes them available to the general public in truly affordable products."

to which Javier Morago, Country Product Manager at Vestel, added: “being able to offer this Dolby technology and the incredible audio and image experience it enables across our entire product line, even in the most economical ranges, makes us feel very satisfied and very close to the user.”

Impact of design on audio

“The objective is to obtain the greatest immersiveness of image and sound, introducing the viewer into the scene with a Dolby Atmos sound experience and next-generation multichannel and multidirectional AC-4 encoding that starts from two very simple speakers,” he added. Precisely, the design of new televisions in accordance with consumer trends is a challenge, as Morago admits, since the industry seeks greater immersion and power in extremely flat televisions in which small speakers are integrated.

Along these lines, Foncillas stressed that Dolby is collaborating closely with manufacturers to determine where to set the limits to ensure not only the best image quality, with standards such as Dolby Vision, but also sound quality with new generation Atmos audio.

"Our goal is for all televisions to sound better. In the coming years we will see how mid-range TVs will even incorporate a rear subwoofer. At Dolby, starting from an ideal design in relation to cost-benefit, we carry out developments that we make available to the industry free of charge in order to collaborate in an ecosystem in which the AC-4 will play a key role in understanding dialogue thanks to its greater dynamic range or, through Dolby Vision, to make it easier for the viewer to enjoy of content as it was created in the studio,” Foncillas stressed.