Cirrus Logic Fixes Variable Audio – Loud Commercials

Written on Oct 14, 2008 by Brian and filed under News

Cirrus Logic announced the CS49DV8 audio DSP, a solution that stops loud commercials and elevates the TV listening experience.

The CS49DV8 is an eight-channel, dual-core, 32-bit audio DSP with Dolby Volume technology that allows consumers to set their audio volume at their preferred listening level – and have it stay that way. The solution targets multichannel surround sound applications such as home theater in a box systems, and speaker bars.

“Variable volume levels in broadcast television, such as blaringly loud commercials, are a huge consumer complaint – so big in fact that the U.S. Congress has even recently introduced legislation that attempts to mandate a solution,” said Terry Ritchie, DSP marketing director, Cirrus Logic. “Cirrus Logic is the only semiconductor company to recognize the future demand for technical solutions to this problem and subsequently offer a full complement of stereo and multichannel audio DSPs featuring Dolby Volume. Solving the problem of volume level inconsistency presents a large market opportunity that CE manufacturers are now realizing that they can benefit from.”

Dolby Volume technology is comprised of two powerful volume control technologies: Volume Modeler and Volume Leveler. Volume Modeler continually analyzes and modifies the audio depending on both the content and playback level, restoring the sound to its reference playback level. The result is improved imaging, intelligibility and audibility of the audio content. The Leveler continually measures the perceptual loudness of audio content and applies multiband gain modifications using its perceptual processing engine. This allows audio from multiple sources to have the same perceived loudness level.

It will be some time before the Cirrus product makes it into market, but little touches like this will certainly make the home theater experience much more enjoyable.