April 20, 2005

BLU-RAY DISC ASSOCIATION EMBRACES DOLBY TECHNOLOGY

LAS VEGAS - Dolby Laboratories' Dolby audio technologies have been selected as optional audio codecs by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). Dolby Digital Plus and MLP Lossless audio technologies have been approved for the next generation Blu-ray Disc, which was developed to enable recording, re-writing and playback of high definition video, as well as for storing large amounts of data (25GB/single layer; 50GB/dual layer) on a single-sided disc.

Dolby Digital Plus is a versatile audio codec based on Dolby Digital technology. It has been designed to adapt to the changing demands of future audio, video delivery, and audio storage systems while retaining backward compatibility with existing Dolby Digital 5.1-channel home theater systems. Dolby Digital Plus has been accepted by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) as a candidate standard. The DVD Forum has also selected it as a mandatory audio format for HD DVD.

The BDA selected Dolby Digital as a mandatory audio standard for Blu-ray Disc media last September.