Nationalchip Plans to Offer Chip Designs with Dolby Digital Plus for Next-Generation Broadcast Systems

Dolby Laboratories Developing Implementation Licensing Program in China

SHANGHAI — Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE:DLB) today announced plans to develop an implementation licensing program in China. The company also stated that it is working with Nationalchip to offer chip designs that support Dolby® Digital Plus.

Dolby Digital Plus is a versatile digital audio coding technology that extends the capabilities of Dolby Digital. Dolby Digital Plus delivers up to 7.1 channels of surround sound, with scalable sound delivery and a wide range of bit rates enabling optimized sound quality and efficiency for the available bandwidth.

“Dolby is excited to be developing an implementation licensing program to bring the power and performance of technologies such as Dolby Digital Plus to more companies in China,” said Mahesh Sundaram, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Dolby Laboratories. “Dolby is honored to be working with Nationalchip, one of China’s leading chip designers, to support high-definition surround sound for broadcast systems.”

Dolby Digital Plus is well suited for digital broadcast delivery formats–including cable, IPTV, satellite, and terrestrial TV–and can easily be implemented in set-top boxes and digital TVs.

“We are delighted to offer chip designs with Dolby Digital Plus and applaud Dolby’s efforts to make its technologies more accessible to licensees in China,” said Vincent Huang, Vice President and CTO, Nationalchip. “Dolby Digital Plus raises the bar for audio quality and consistency in the region. As one of the first chip designers in China to offer products and services with this technology, Nationalchip provides more value and functionality for its customers around the world.”

Dolby Digital Plus has been adopted by the world’s leading suppliers of set-top box integrated circuits and system-on-a-chip (SoC) devices and is also used for HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc™ players and discs, next-generation A/V receivers, game consoles, and software.

Dolby Digital Plus offers the following benefits to chipset manufacturers choosing audio coding technology for their designs:

• More surround channels: Dolby Digital Plus delivers up to 7.1 channels of surround sound for HD broadcasts, providing a more involving entertainment experience.
• Rich, interactive audio: Dolby Digital Plus adds interactive mixing to broadcast audio, enabling audio tracks–such as audio description services for the visually impaired or a movie director’s commentary streamed from a studio website–to be mixed into a single bitstream.
• Increased flexibility: Dolby Digital Plus easily scales from limited-bandwidth systems to high-bandwidth video-on-demand scenarios. The Dolby Digital Plus bitstream can be configured for available system resources, giving operators the option to deliver enhanced sound.