Dvd Labs Champions Dvd-a

As its name suggests, DVD Labs has emerged as a leader in the evolution of DVD-Audio (DVD-A) discs. As the high-resolution, surround-sound, multimedia format begins to show signs of mainstream adoption (see story, page 1, and spotlight, page 47), the Cambridge, Mass., mastering, encoding, and authoring facility is well-positioned to capitalize on the expertise and experience of its engineers.

With 10 years' experience as an engineer at New York's Hit Factory Studios and several more at digital media production tools provider Sonic Solutions, DVD Labs founder Roger Talkov has long been on the leading edge of audio production. "When we put [DVD Labs] together three or four years ago," he says, "I was at Sonic Solutions, creating DVD-Audio discs. Because of our love for audio, that was one of the things we focused on here, along with DVD-Video. We really put our foot forward from the beginning."

Providing a range of production services from its inception, DVD Labs has worked on more than 20% of currently available DVD-A titles, with clients including Telarc, Warner Europe, and Digital Theater Systems (DTS). The latter's label arm, DTS Entertainment, has employed DVD Labs for the authoring of new and upcoming DVD-A releases by Insane Clown Posse and Everclear.

"We're doing all of our DVD-Audio titles on the Sonic DVD-Audio Creator tool," DVD Labs engineer Paul Angelli says, referring to the first full-specification DVD-A authoring workstation, introduced in 2001 and incorporating core technology from Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. "Right now, all the major stuff is being done either on that or the original Matsushita tool."

Angelli, a veteran of New York mastering facility Sterling Sound, also notes that interest in DVD authoring equipment was high among engineers attending the recent National Assn. of Broadcasters convention, suggesting a banner year for the DVD-A format, and, by extension, surround sound. "People were saying they were up and running in surround at home and asking about the tools for themselves," he recalls. "I think there are two things going on. It's not just the higher-ups at the labels who want to push new product in order to sell stuff, but the artists and engineers down in the trenches now are doing surround, and I think that's going to create really good momentum from both sides."

"With all these home-theater-in-a-box products," Talkov adds, "surround sound is going to be ubiquitous by the end of 2003, 2004. Now that the [authoring] tools have really matured, it's not that hard to make a disc anymore. Now, record companies have got to jump in and do some good same-day release stuff that they're doing on CD. And we need a little more hardware out in the field.

"We're watching this and comparing it to the way DVD-Video started out," Talkov says. "I'm hoping we're going to follow the same curve."