New DTS Encoders Announced for October Release

Digital Theater Systems Inc. (DTS) announced Wednesday the October availability of two new audio software encoders for audio professionals to create multi-channel DTS soundtracks for DVD-Audio, DVD-Video and 5.1 CD titles.

Announced were the Pro Series 6.1 Surround Encoder, a standalone solution designed to work on Mac OS X and Windows-equipped computers, and the DTS Pro Series Network Encoder, which allows up to 99 users on Macs or Windows computers to encode audio using an Apple Xserve and Xserve RAID system.

Both the DTS Pro Series 6.1 Surround Encoder and the DTS Pro Series Network Encoder offer a full suite of DTS technologies, including Digital Surround for 5.1-channel surround sound, DTS-ES 6.1 discrete for enhanced surround precision, DTS 96/24 for the highest resolution DVD-Video with 5.1 discrete channels, 44.1k for use on CDs, 88.2k for CDs, 48k for DVD-Video, 96k for the highest resolution on DVD-Video, 764kbps bit rate for the best balance of quality when optimizing bit budget, 1.5Mbps bit rate when the goal is highest quality possible, and 1.235Mbps for multi-channel music CDs.

Both encoders were announced earlier this year, and will be available later this month.

System requirements for the Pro Series 6.1 Surround Encoder require a G4 Mac or faster, 256 meabyte of memory, a 7200 revolution per minute hard drive, 100MB of free disk space, an available USB port for a license dongle, Mac OS X v10.2.8 or higher, and Java Runtime Environment 1.4.0 or higher.

System requirements for the DTS Pro Series Network Encoder are a Apple Xserve G5, Mac OS X Server 10.2.8 or higher with Java Runtime Environment 1.4.1 or higher, a network connection, a USB port for a license dongle, 256MB RAM, and 200MB of hard disk space.

Pricing was not announced.