CES: tool measures audio quality in super flat-panel TVs

Boston-based dbx-tv has announced an audio measurement and calibration tool that it claims can be can be used to optimise sound quality from TVs, regardless of speaker size.

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Called Total Cal, when paired with dbx-tv’s Total Sonics audio software suite, can be used to optimise bass, treble and immersive 3D sound from TV speakers.

Total Cal, which is being demonstrated at CES 2012 in Las Vegas this week, is a PC-based acoustic measurement and configuration system that simplifies configuration of a TV’s audio system.

The tool automatically assesses the TV hardware’s audio capabilities and then adjusts its audio performance using dbx-tv’s Total Sonics audio software suite to match specific audio objectives.

Running on processor-based system-on-chip ICs, the Total Sonics software agorithms are intended to address audio quality challenges that result from increasingly thinner and sleeker flat-panel TV designs.

It includes dynamic equalisation that generates maximum bass, 3D sound that broadens and deepens acoustic images from two-speaker systems, and dynamic range control that enhances TVs with limited dynamic range.

“Consumers are demanding — and deserve — high quality sound to complement today’s brilliant flat-panel pictures, and they want that sound from the audio system built into the set,” said Les Tyler, President of THAT Corporation (dbx-tv’s parent company).

“By optimizing audio quality and generating the maximum bass possible, Total Cal enables manufacturers to affordably and quickly calibrate any TV to deliver the best possible sonic experience from its own built-in speakers,” said Tyler.

The company’s technology originated as the Emmy-award winning BTSC noise-reduction system that is now part of the North American analog-TV audio standard. It is headquartered just outside Boston and has offices in Silicon Valley, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul.