Consumers’ growing appetite for a better audio experience

Consumers’ growing appetite for a better audio experience on the road is driving renewed interest in surround sound in vehicles, Alan Cohen, vice president of marketing at DTS, told Consumer Electronics Daily. After announcing last week that China-based automaker BYD would install DTS Digital Surround in model year 2013 vehicles this summer, the company told us Wednesday that two U.S. automakers will also launch DTS-certified surround systems this summer for vehicle year 2013. Vehicle maker names were not available due to confidentiality agreements. DTS Digital Surround was launched in 2009 and is currently available on Lincoln vehicles, said Keith Burnett, vice president of home AV and automotive for DTS. Some 1,500 FM radio stations in the U.S. transmit DTS Neural Surround signals, he said. The most recent figures the company could cite for programming data showed that in the top 15 metropolitan markets in 2009, 29 percent of stations broadcast DTS Neural Surround-encoded material during rush hour drive time between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., according to data from CEA and NAB. In 2010, some 650 stations were broadcasting in Neural Surround, according to data. DTS announced at NAB that the Guangzhou Broadcasting Network and an Anhui FM radio station are the first to offer surround sound radio broadcasts in China and additional stations are performing internal evaluations of the technology, Burnett said. Neural Surround technology can be carried on both digital and analog frequencies, and in the U.S. it works in parallel with many HD radio broadcasts in digital broadcasts. China’s FM radio infrastructure is all-analog currently, Burnett said. China eventually is expected to convert to digital FM broadcasts, but the DTS short-term roadmap is “an analog strategy,” he said. Unlike in the U.S. where consumers are purchasing fewer CDs in favor of streamed or downloaded digital music, the China CD market “has taken hold,” Cohen said. Roughly 600 CDs have been encoded in DTS-HD for the China market to meet the “appetite for high-quality audio” both in cars and home, he said. A DTS spokeswoman added that DTS is integrating with companies including Rovi, Digital Rapids and castLabs to help create end-to-end encoding/decoding solutions that are compatible with the UltraViolet ecosystem.