Joined: Apr 2004

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From: Dulles, Virginia

Surround Sound in the Sky and On The Air - We recently reported that Sirius Satellite Radio had added surround sound to at least one of their 60 commercial-free music streams via satellite. They are using Dolby Pro Logic II because it delivers surround over stereo channels and works with any of the 100 million receivers out there. They use Dolby encoders to transfer multichannel SACD and DVD-A sources to matrixed stereo. Now the other service, XM Satellite Radio, has announced they will also provide surround using a different approach. XM currently uses preprocessing software from Neural Audio. In the terrestrial and cable TV world, matrix surround is also widespread.

SRS Labs, the owners of several special audio techniques, have promoted their Circle Surround as an alternative to Dolby Pro Logic. The latest version of CS enables any program telecast in stereo to deliver up to 6.1 channels of surround to viewers; if they only have stereo the signal is unaffected but if they have any sort of matrix decoder they will realize up to 6.1 channels of surround. Of course the most accurate results are found with a Circle Surround decoder but Dolby Pro Logic II works very well. SRS has just introduced an inexpensive CS-encoding software package which works on either Macs or PCs. CS technology is currently being used by ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, TNT and others.

Joined: Jan 2004

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From: NYC

Joined: Aug 2004

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From: Chicago