The Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project has announced that it will support DTS digital Surround Sound as a broadcast option in its DTV standard. DVB is a technical consortium of more than 300 companies to promote the DVB standard of digital broadcasting, which is used in Europe and elsewhere.
The DVB says it added DTS support to its standard in response to member requests to carry the multi-channel audio format. DTS audio is primarily found in film, pro audio and consumer electronics products.
DTS coding within a digital stream offers broadcasters scalability by letting them choose whatever audio bandwidth they want to transmit. The DTS proposal loads the MPEG-2 stream with Packetised Elemental Streams in a similar way to that used by AC-3. Any device supporting AC-3 can be used for DTS transmission.
The DTS Digital Surround Sound signal can be received and processed by a standard set-top box with digital audio output. The upgrade required to recognize the DTS stream can be made over the air from the broadcast head. The signal can then be fed to and decoded by an AV receiver equipped with a DTS decoder in the same manner as a DVD.
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