Studio-quality surround sound

Automotive Industries,  May, 2005  

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In the area of in-car entertainment, Panasonic has collaborated with five time Grammy Award-winning producer/engineer Elliot Scheiner to market the ELS Surround Audio System. This materialized first in the U.S., when the sound system was chosen as standard equipment for 2004 Acura TL, luxury sedan.

The system has six independent, discrete channels (center, left front, right front, left rear, right rear and subwoofer) of audio source material. It features the six-disc in-dash DVD-Audio/CD changer radio that plays DVD-Audio discs, DTS CDs and standard CDs. The unit plays the six, discrete channels of DVD-Audio in high-resolution 24-bit, 96kHz, and can also play DVD-Audio 2-channel recordings at 24-bit, 192kHz. Panasonic Automotive Systems Europe's sound strategy takes a European specific approach, too. While the Digital Audio Broadcast (DAB) system will be the main foundation for broadcasters after the projected abandonment of analog FM services in Europe between 2010 and 2015, in further enhancing its usability, the researchers at Fraunhofer Institute fur Digitale Schaltungen (IIS) has developed "Spatial Audio Coding" (SAC), an add-on feature to DAB. The newly defined coding scheme allows fully discrete surround sound transmissions over DAB with a minimum overhead of 16 kBit/sec, while still maintaining the downward compatibility to stereo. Panasonic, in collaboration with Fraunhofer IIS and DAB operator T-Systems, will present this technology at the IFA in Berlin, the world's largest consumer electronic show in early September 2005. Incidentally, Digital Radio Mondial (DRM) or AM digitalization will also be demonstrated at IFA. The Main driver is Luxemburg based RTL, a leading European broadcasting corporation. Panasonic Automotive Systems Europe will support this activity by presenting the first prototype of a DRM capable car radio.

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