Dolby Laboratories announced that it has entered into a two-year agreement with Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC vendor, to include Dolby Home Theater v4 or Dolby Advanced Audio v2 technologies in select Lenovo products, including future ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, IdeaPad and IdeaCentre PC product lines.
“At Lenovo we recognize how crucial it is to keep pace with consumer demands for a top quality entertainment experience available through PCs and laptops”, said Bai Peng, Vice President and General Manager, IdeaPad Business Unit, Lenovo. “We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with Dolby, a consumer trusted brand, to provide a uniquely rich audio experience, ensuring a great, all-around multimedia entertainment device for our customers.”
“Adding to our reputation as a significant supplier of business laptops, we are excited that people are using Lenovo PCs for entertainment and social interaction, and that is why we are working with Dolby to bring high-quality audio and cinematic surround-sound to Lenovo consumer and enterprise product lines.” said Dilip Bhatia, Vice President and General Manager, ThinkPad Business Unit, Lenovo. “By delivering the best audio features and listening experiences, Lenovo aims to meet the evolving needs of our customers, who want a powerful and versatile way to enjoy music, movies, television and games on a PC.”
Today’s connected world has changed the way people enjoy movies, music and games. Dolby’s entertainment technologies are designed to solve a number of challenges associated with providing a high-quality PC or mobile audio entertainment experience. For example, distortion and, low volume playback are common problems with the small speakers built into today’s laptops. Also several audio problems arise when transferring an experience intended for the cinema environment to smaller personal entertainment devices such as PCs, tablets and cell phones.
As a leader in delivering premium quality audio, Dolby helps preserve and maintain the integrity of the artist’s vision from creation, through distribution and rendering.
“Dolby is thrilled to expand our relationship with Lenovo, so that more Lenovo customers can enjoy entertainment in the way it was envisioned by creators, delivered right to their laptop,” said Mike Chao, Managing Director, Greater China, Dolby Laboratories. “Together with Lenovo, we aim to address a rapidly growing demand for high-definition content delivered across a wide range of devices.”
The Dolby PC Entertainment Experience program offers two technology suites, Dolby Home Theater v4, which delivers immersing surround sound and high fidelity audio for all forms of entertainment content, and Dolby Advanced Audio v2, which delivers a consistent listening experience and virtual surround sound via built-in PC speakers as well as high-fidelity audio for all forms of entertainment content.
The following features are included in Dolby Home Theater v4:
- Surround Decoder: converts stereo content into 5.1- or 7.1-channel surround sound and converts 5.1 surround sound into 7.1 surround sound
- Surround Virtualizer: creates a virtualized surround sound experience over the PC’s built-in speakers or over headphones
- Dialogue Enhancer: improves intelligibility of dialogue across all types of content
- Volume Leveler: maintains a consistent volume across all content and applications according to where the user sets the volume level
- Volume Maximizer: boosts the level of the audio signal so users can turn up the volume without causing noise or clipping
- Intelligent Equalizer: monitors and adjusts audio to match the user’s chosen preset
- Graphic Equalizer: lets consumers tailor audio to their exact specifications using high-quality digital filtering
- Dolby Digital Output: provides real-time encoding of PC content into the Dolby Digital format over S/PDIF or HDMI outputs; users can then enjoy audio content from their PCs in surround sound on their home theater systems
- Audio Optimizer: improves the frequency response of the PC’s built-in speakers so content sounds true to the creator’s intent
- Audio Regulator: eliminates or reduces distortion caused by the combination of overdriven speakers and amplifiers
Dolby Advanced Audio v2 offers Surround Virtualizer (for built-in speakers), Volume Leveler, Volume Maximizer, Graphic Equalizer, Audio Optimizer, and Audio Regulator.
