Dolby Surround TDM Plug-In Now Shipping

September 26, 1997 -- Developed in response to the growing demand for surround sound with everything from TV shows to video games, Dolby Surround Tools^TM TDM Plug-Ins for Digidesign® Pro Tools workstations are now available from Digidesign dealers and distributors worldwide. These new Plug-Ins provide Pro Tools users with Dolby Surround encoding and Dolby Pro Logic decoding without the need for separate hardware, making it more efficient for them to create software for the more than 25 million consumers worldwide already enjoying home theater, multimedia, and music systems equipped for Dolby Surround playback.

Intended for use with Pro Tools digital audio workstations for NuBus and PCI-based Macintosh computers, Dolby Surround Tools operates entirely within the Pro Tools environment. They not only allow mixing Dolby Surround videos, TV shows, ads, CDs, multimedia, music videos, and video games digitally, but also make it possible to preview the result of matrix encoding ("4-2-4 monitoring") on discrete four-channel elements (left, center, right, surround) that will subsequently be combined with other elements during the final mixing of film soundtracks.

"The future of audio is clearly multichannel," reports Nancy Byers-Teague, Marketing Manager, Professional Audio Products. "But while new multichannel digital formats like DVD and HDTV are exciting to contemplate, it is still a two-channel world-and Dolby Surround can deliver multichannel audio right now, everywhere, from any stereo source, over the existing two-channel infrastructure."

Dolby Surround Encoder and Dolby Surround Decoder TDM Plug-Ins are supplied on 3.5" Macintosh-formatted diskettes. Among the encoder's features are built-in surround panners, and game mode encoder and positioner functions for use by video game and multimedia developers. Decoder features include selectable mono, stereo, and surround monitoring modes; a set-up calibration system and surround delay controls; and center speaker monitoring options.

For more information, visit their web site at www.digidesign.com.