Dolby brings surround sound to mobile phones and portable media players

So it’s not just SRS which wants to improve the sound on mobile devices (and portable media players). Dolby also wants a piece of the action, hence at the Mobile World Congress, as we’ve expected, they’ve announced Dolby Mobile, an audio processing technology platform that brings “rich, vibrant surround sound” to music, movies, and TV programs on mobile phones and portable media players.

Will and I had a chance to briefly test both technologies and honestly we’re not sure whether Dolby prepared its demo better than SRS, but they certainly sounded much better. We watched few scenes from The Cars, Spiderman 3 and Harry Potter and the sound simply rocked. That’s not to say SRS sucks — quite the contrary — we just found Dolby’s demonstration to be a more compelling one.

Anyway, we can only hope handset makers will start incorporating these technologies in the near future… In the meantime you can read Dolby’s full release after the jump.

PRESS RELEASE – At the 2008 Mobile World Congress, Dolby Laboratories, Inc. demonstrated technologies that elevate the mobile entertainment experience by improving the sound and performance of mobile phones and portable media players.

At stands 2.1B37 in Hall 2 and 7C62 in Hall 7, Dolby showed Dolby Mobile, an audio processing technology platform that brings rich, vibrant surround sound to music, movies, and television programs on mobile phones and portable media players.

Dolby also showed aacPlus, a high-quality, highly efficient audio compression format designed for download, streaming, and broadcast applications on mobile phones.

“Entertainment can sound better on mobile phones and portable media players,” said Francois Modarresse, Vice President of Marketing, Dolby Laboratories. “We developed Dolby Mobile to help create products that stir the senses and excite people’s imaginations so the industry can deliver on the promise of mobile entertainment.”

Dolby recently announced an agreement with NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) and Sharp to offer two mobile phones with Dolby Mobile technology, the FOMA SH905i and FOMA SH905iTV, which are now available to customers in Japan.

To make its technologies more broadly available, the company announced an agreement with RMI Corporation to implement Dolby Mobile on the RMI Alchemy platform for portable media player applications.

At Mobile World Congress, Dolby also demonstrated a prototype device with Dolby Mobile built on Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN)’ popular OMAP platform.