Dolby® DP600 Program Optimizer Manual 1
Chapter 1

Introduction

Welcom etoDolby®filebasedaudio!
TheDolbyDP600ProgramOptimizerisadirectresultofDolbyLaboratories’continued
leadershipinthedevelopmentofinnovativebroadcasttechnologies.Thisinnovativetool
isdesignedspecificallyforcable,satellite,IPTV,andterrestrialTVbroadcastersthat
employafilebasedinfrastructureandworkflow.TheDP600includestheworld’sfirst
intelligentaudioanalysisandautomatedloudnessnormalizationengineformanyofthe
mostcommonbroadcastmediafileandaudioformatsinusetoday.Inaddition,itoffers
DolbyE,DolbyDigital,andDolbyDigitalPlusencoding,decoding,andtranscoding,allin
anopenarchitecture.
UsingtheDP600,broadcasterscanprovidetheirviewerswithaconsistentaudio
experienceandreduceloudnesscomplaintsacrossalloftheirprograms,channels,and
networks.ExpandingupontheuniqueDialogueIntelligence™technologydevelopedfor
theDolbyLM100BroadcastLoudnessMeter,theDP600normalizestheloudnessofaudio
programswithnoimpactontheiroriginaldynamicrange.
TheDP600automatespreviouslylengthyqualitycontrolprocesses,andperformsthemin
fasterthanrealtime.ItautomaticallyanalyzesaudiobitstreamscodedinDolbyE,Dolby
Digital,andDolbyDigitalPlus,foranychannelconfigurationandloudnesslevel.It
intelligentlyandautomaticallysets,validates,andcorrectsthedialoguenormalization
(dialnorm)audiometadataparameterwithouttheneedfordecodingandreencoding—
ensuringaproperlyencodedbitstream.TheDP600alsoprovidesintelligentandautomatic
speechbasedloudnessnormalizationforbothPCMaudioandMPEG1LIIaudio.
Forcompressedaudioformatsthatincludemetadata(forexample,DolbyE,DolbyDigital,
andDolbyDigitalPlus),theDolbyDP600canautomaticallysetorcorrectthedialnorm
parameter(seeFigure11).Foraudioformatsthatdonotincludemetadata,theDolby
DP600canautomaticallysetorcorrectthedialnormparameterbyreferencinga
userdefinedtargetlevel(seeFigure12).
TheModelDP600CaddsfasterthanrealtimefilebasedencodinganddecodingofDolby
DigitalandDolbyDigitalPlus,andthefirstfilebasedimplementationofDolbyE.In
addition,thismodelenablesmultichannelaudiotranscodingofDolbyEtoDolbyDigital
orDolbyDigitalPlusformats.Italsoprovidesauniquehighquality,singlestepDolby
DigitaltoDolbyDigitalPlustranscoderthatpreservesthemetadataandminimizes
tandemcodinglosses.Thisallowstheaudiofromexistingmediaarchivestobeconverted
tonextgenerationbroadcastformats.