Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 11, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. announced that Dolby(r) Vision, part of its High Dynamic Range (HDR) technology suite, will be available in the first quarter of 2009. In addition, the company is presenting a prototype SIM2 LCD display featuring the Dolby Vision reference design at its CES booth.
“With Dolby Vision, manufacturers of the next generation of LCD displays can ensure outstanding contrast combined with clear brightness. This produces image quality that matches the real world in depth, detail and color,” said Bharath Rajagopalan, Director of HDR Marketing at Dolby Laboratories. “The SIM2 LCD display prototype uses Dolby Vision to control LEDs with local-dimming technology and demonstrates what manufacturers can achieve by implementing this technology.”
Dolby Vision includes a proprietary algorithm that controls the LEDs behind the liquid-crystal panel. Each LED is controlled individually according to the displayed image. By selectively switching off areas of the backlight behind black portions of the image, Dolby Vision ensures that true black is displayed there. Dolby Vision can also selectively brighten areas of the backlight behind bright portions of the image, making them truly shine.
Dolby worked with SIM2 to develop a prototype HDR-capable flat-panel LCD display using the Dolby Vision reference design. Using Dolby Vision, SIM2 created a groundbreaking prototype capable of delivering spectacular images. The prototype display uses a programmable Xilinx Virtex(r) field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chipset approved by Dolby. The Xilinx(r) FPGA chipset is available now, helping displays using Dolby Vision’s complex HDR algorithms reach the market quickly.
“The images delivered by Dolby Vision are so realistic that they are like a window on the world,” explained Domenico Toffoli, Director of SIM2’s Professional Systems business unit. “SIM2’s prototype display truly sets a benchmark for what manufacturers can achieve with the HDR technology developed by Dolby.”