How Dolby is innovating in India

Dolby is a brand that doesn't need any introduction. Over the last two decades, its surround sound expertise made the company a household name. However, Dolby isn't stopping at audio, in fact, it wants to provide a complete immersive content experience on whichever platform you choose. Here are 5 ways in which Dolby is making that happen in India

Dolby Atmos is an end-to-end audio solution, which enables the engineers to get a new level of creative control with directional object-oriented sound immersing the audience further than any other cinematic audio technology. Introduced in 2012 in India, Atmos has become an industry standard across the various film industries in the country.

Although a feature found on premium devices in initially, Atmos has reached the masses as a result of various implementations on smartphones and laptops,thus simulating the audio effect that one gets in a cinema with more than 50 speakers on something that works with headphones.

Dolby was at the forefront when the Indian cable television industry was transitioning towards DTH, starting with Sun Direct. Today all HD broadcast channels in India have Dolby Surround sound.

If Dolby's surround sound technology and Atmos revolutionized how we experienced audio, Vision is geared towards accomplishing the same with how we experience content visually. Vision is a technology based around HDR and can provide up to 10,000 nits of peak brightness and REC 2020 color space, showing content with better contrast and more natural colors.

Earlier, Dolby Vision technology was found only in premium televisions that cost over a lakh. However, accessibility to Dolby Vision is no longer a privilege for wealthy few after LG adopted the technology to its G6 smartphone. More recently, Apple has adopted the standard in the new Apple iPhone X, making it more prominent.

Dolby prides itself on being more than just a feature or technology found in a device, but rather a creator of industry-wide norms that in return provides complete and immersive content to the audience.Dolby creates the tools for the content creators, they work with the content delivery platforms and work with OEMs to integrate their technologies in hardware that consumers end up buying or consuming.

With the creation of low bit rate AC4 codec and over 13 mixing facilities across the country, Dolby played a key role in transforming the audio post-production process for television.

Dolby was at the forefront when the Indian cable television industry was transitioning towards DTH, starting with Sun Direct. Today all HD broadcast channels in India have Dolby Surround sound.

Dolby currently dominates the HD content space with over 15 million set-top boxes delivering Dolby powered content. According to Dolby's senior director for emerging markets Pankaj Kedia, Dolby is working towards sports broadcasting with the Atmos technology, with English Premier League at the focus.

Dolby plays an end-to-end role in the media consumption process. Another key area Dolby is making serious strides forward is in over the top (OTT) content space. In recent times, Dolby has been working closely with Netflix so as to provide an immersive experience to the viewer, especially on the Netflix only movie Okja. Currently, Dolby has a similar arrangement with Amazon for Prime video also.