Dolby Laboratories is encouraging studios, authoring houses, and mastering facilities to use its Dolby Media Producer software and take advantage of the Dolby TrueHD with 96k upsampling prior to mastering of Blu-ray discs. Dolby TrueHD is a 100% lossless audio coding technology that supports up to 7.1-channel playback of 96 kHz/24-bit audio on Blu-ray Disc.

"The new Dolby TrueHD coding solution enables facilities to integrate the benefits of 96 kHz playback quality audio into the final master while simultaneously reducing the incidence of digital artifacts introduced during the content-creation process," Dolby says.

Lossless audio is a key distinguishing feature of Blu-ray content. All things being equal, you cannot improve on the quality of lossless audio coding. However, Dolby says that studios can improve on the quality of the source PCM content prior to lossless encoding using the company's 96k upsampling technology.

Many Hollywood content has been captured in native 48 kHz. By implementing Dolby TrueHD with 96k upsampling, authoring houses can elevate the quality of PCM audio prior to lossless Dolby TrueHD encoding, according to Dolby.

Besides enabling optimum 96k upsampling, Dolby TrueHD technology features an apodizing filter that "masks" the unwanted digital artifacts known as "preringing," which is introduced during the content-capture and content-creation process. These digital artifacts can introduce an unnatural edginess or harshness to the audio. Dolby claims that the Dolby TrueHD with advanced 96k upsampling "restores the natural tonality of the soundtrack."

Content mastered with Dolby TrueHD with upsampling is playback compatible with all Dolby TrueHD enabled Blu-ray players and A/V receivers.

Dolby TrueHD with 96k upsampling is provided through the Dolby Media Producer Encoder v2.