With all the focus on the latest videos, mobile TV shows and music libraries on wireless handsets, the quality of the viewing and listening experience often gets overlooked. But let’s face it: access to your Napster music library or feature-length films on your cell phone isn’t worth having if the sound quality is sub par. Recognizing this, Dolby Laboratories and Symbian Limited today announced that Dolby Mobile will offer surround sound quality audio for Symbian smartphone users on a plethora of content, including music, movies, TV and games.
Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian, said the Dolby partnership is meant to complement all the other multimedia stuff going on today. As he pointed out, going to the cinema and seeing a fantastic movie is great, but if you’re listening to it through small speakers, it just doesn’t achieve the experience and level of performance you’re looking for.
That is where Dolby Mobile comes in. The surround sound specialist will provide the auditory effect to complement the visual effect of mobile video, networking gaming applications or any sound-driven app you can dream up for the smartphone. “The sound and power of the sound is part of the experience,” Clifford said. “I think it is a very good thing.”
Through Dolby Mobile, Symbian licensees can differentiate their multimedia-focused products with an immersive audio experience to the more than 200 million mobile phones based on Symbian OS on over 250 mobile network operators. The first mobile phones featuring Dolby Mobile technology are already available in Japan, but the timeline for U.S. rollouts has not been announced.
The Dolby platform looks a look like a TV surround sound might. The user can control the volume, bass and treble, surround sound and audio quality all from their handset. Even at the TV set level, surround sound is one of those features, like high-definition, that you don’t know what you’re missing out on until you see the potential. Likewise, consumers who are used to accepting shoddy audio quality as a natural byproduct of mobility may raise their expectations when they see the possibilities of surround-sound audio quality. The Symbian/Dolby Mobile partnership has the potential to be one of those seemingly obvious bar-raising technologies that has other operators wondering why they didn’t think of it first.