Calabasas, Calif. — DTS said Tuesday that a handful of content solution providers, including Digital Rapids, Elemental Technologies and Rovi, are now supporting DTS Express surround sound to create content in the UltraViolet Common File Format (CFF).
DTS Express, which is part of the DTS-HD family of audio solutions used extensively on Blu-ray Disc productions, is said to be fully optimized for digitally delivered content.
“While the content sources may be changing, the demands and expectations for quality are not, which is why we are thrilled to be working with content solutions providers to ensure that consumers receive the same high-quality DTS audio experience that they’ve come to know and demand, directly from UltraViolet-enabled content,” said Brian Towne, DTS COO and executive VP.
“The industry’s development and phase-in of the UltraViolet Common File Format will bring substantial added benefits to UltraViolet users, and to the industry,” said Mark Teitell, general manager of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the industry organization behind UltraViolet. “DTS has been among the leaders in investing expertise and resources to help bring CFF to market.”
DTS Express is described as a high-performance adaptive bit-rate technology that delivers surround sound from content, whether streamed or downloaded. The system is said to adapt to bit-rate changes without audio dropouts, making it useful for limited bandwidth conditions.
Specs include: constant bit rates from 64kbps (two-channel) and higher; 5.1-channel support from 160kbps to 512kbps; support for up to 7.1 channels from 288 kbps to 768kbps; adaptive bit-rate capability (without audio anomalies) and backward compatibility with legacy products via the DTS real-time transcoder.
UltraViolet, which is described as a digital content locker system, offers viewers a wide range of device options for playing back movies they’ve purchased. Viewers can pay one price for a movie they can play back on a mobile device, computer, smart television, game console, etc.
DTS said it has been actively working with content solutions partners in support of the UltraViolet CFF.
Content creation tools that support CFF with DTS include Digital Rapids Transcode Manager 2.0 powered by Kayak, Elemental Server from Elemental Technologies, and Rovi TotalCode.
In addition, for quality control DTS said it has partnered with Solekai for validation tool support, CastLabs on an Android tablet-based media player, and has adapted its DTS-HD MediaPlayer to become a professional real-time player and quality-control tool for CFF confidence monitoring.
