Audio News for May 22, 2012

Dolby Enhances Their TrueHD Codec – Dolby Laboratories Inc. has announced the availability of the first Blu-ray discs premastered with their advanced 96K upsampling. The process elevates playback performance of lossless audio on Blu-rays by using the apodizing filter by Meridian for their high end 802.2 CD player. Many soundtracks are only recorded at 48K and suffer from pre-ringing artifacts that audibly degrade sound. Better quality Blu-ray players often have upsamplers to clean up the pre-ringing in 48K content, but this is only a partial fix.  Dolby set out to develop a method which could improve the sound in Blu-ray discs themselves by upsampling those recorded at a native 48-96K sampling rate.  Dolby TrueHD shifts the artifacts into post-ringing, which is naturally masked, giving consumers the best audio performance possible from their Blu-ray decks.
Samsung & LG to Offer Dual View OLED TVs – Samsung & LG are battling over shutter vs. passive 3D, but at the same time both are planning to offer later this year TVs which allow two people to view two different programs simultaneously from different angles on the same screen. For example, one person can watch a drama while another enjoys a ball game, on one TV, simultaneously. The “smart dual view” OLED TVs use fast switching speeds to show the two channels simultaneously. The hope is that some consumers will be willing to pay the higher price (and smaller screen sizes) of OLED TVs in order to have the dual view technology.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Donna Summers Die – Two widely varied vocalists passed away this week. German singer Fischer-Dieskau was perhaps the most-recorded classical baritone in history, with hundreds of recordings of art song, oratorio and opera in the catalog. He died in Bavaria just short of his 87th birthday. Donna Summer was a five-time Grammy winner who gained prominence during the 70s disco era. She eventually became fluent in German and moved to Vienna. She died at age 63.
Oregon Electronics Recycling – The Oregon E-Cycles program requires electronics manufacturers to provide free statewide recycling, and has increased the amount collected since it started in 2009. For 2011 it recycled nearly 26 million pounds of worn-out TVs, computers, monitors and other electronic devices. Manufacturers selling devices in Oregon must register their brands with the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which reviews recycling reports and inspects collection sites.