Disqus
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 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’ popular OMAP platform.
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
