Podcast #1118: The History of Dolby Laboratories

On this week’s show we take a look at the history of a company that is synonymous with home theater, Dolby Laboratories. We also read your emails and take a look at the week’s news. News: LG Outlines Plans to Become a Media and Entertainment Platform | TV Tech Watch out Amazon and Roku, Vizio’s new 4K TVs are vying to be the best budget TVs Comcast's Xumo-Branded Smart TVs Are Getting Good Reviews But Are Already Deeply Discounted LG Stops Integrating ATSC 3.0 Tuners Into Smart TVs After Losing Patent Dispute, Samsung and Sony Could Follow | Next TV Other: Hisense Smart Short Projector Renewed The Dolby Laboratories History Story in Chronological Order 1965 - Dolby Laboratories is a longtime innovator of developing electronic devices and systems to improve recorded sound. Founded by Ray Dolby in 1965, the company’s first development was Dolby A-type noise reduction. It was basically a specially designed electronic circuit contained in a compact metal case. It was not a recording machine, but it could be attached to a recorder to improve its sound. 1966 - Dolby creates first product to reduce noise in music recordings. 1968 - Ray Dolby next developed a consumer version of the Dolby A system at the urging of Henry Kloss, an American audio pioneer and president of KLH Research and Development Corporation. The result was the 1968 introduction of Dolby B-type noise reduction, intended for home tape recorders. Following a relocation of the company from London to San Francisco, Dolby B was released into the world. Designed primarily for cassettes, it went on to completely alter the way music was both recorded and received world-over. It was simple and cheap, and by the mid-70s it was the standard for all cassette tapes – and is the type of noise reduction and is still used to this very day. Yes – people still like their cassette tapes! 1971 - The first film with Dolby sound was A Clockwork Orange (1971), which used Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, but a conventional optical sound track on release prints. 1974 - Callan was the first film with a Dolby-encoded optical soundtrack. 1975 - Dolby Laboratories introduced Dolby Stereo, a product aimed at motion picture producers and theaters. Dolby Stereo was used with existing 35-mm optical soundtracks, but with important changes. At the studio, stereo soundtracks were recorded using Dolby equipment. At the theaters, a Dolby unit and new loudspeakers were added to the existing projection equipment. The result was much higher sound quality.  1976 - The first true LCRS (Left-Center-Right-Surround) soundtrack was encoded on the movie A Star Is Born in 1976. In less than ten years, 6,000 cinemas worldwide were equipped to use Dolby Stereo sound. Dolby reworked the system slightly for home use and introduced Dolby Surround, which only extracted a surround channel, and the more impressive Dolby Pro Logic, which was the domestic equivalent of the theatrical Dolby Stereo. 1977 -  Star Wars opens with Dolby Stereo®. 1982 -  the company was receiving $6 million annually in licensing fees from approximately 125 audio equipment manufacturers. With circuits in about 70 million different consumer products, Dolby had a monopoly in the consumer noise reduction field. In the 1980s, virtually all pre recorded cassettes used Dolby B.  The first major threat to Dolby's positioning began quietly in 1980, when dbx--a Newton, Massachusetts company--sold its system to several audio manufacturers, including the major Japanese company Matsushita Electric. In April 1982, the competition began to look more serious. Dbx pulled ahead of Dolby, developing the first miniature noise-reduction circuit for Walkmen, which at this time represented the fastest-growing consumer audio segment. Dbx, which had been developed in 1971, was a serious threat to Dolby because it reduced background noise by 40 decibels, a considerable improvement over Dolby's 10.  Initially, high prices had made dbx unfamiliar to consumers, but the system was favored by recording professionals. By 1982, dbx had already far overtaken Dolby and held 70 percent of the commercial recording equipment market. In response to the threat posed by dbx's competition, Dolby introduced an upgraded version of its system, Dolby C, as well as a portable product. 1986 - Dolby Spectral Recording (or SR) worked on magnetic soundtracks for film as well as music cassettes, producing digital clarity from an analog sound system. Dolby SR used the same basic principle as Dolby's original circuit, monitoring the sound signal and adjusting frequency boost to suit the loudness level, with different signal levels boosted at different amounts. The result was a system that was dynamic and almost infinitely flexible. The system was used by many professional studios instead of digital recording, and in 1988 Dolby SR was in use at movie theaters showing the films Robocop and Space. 1992 - Dolby achieved $40 million in revenues, with a third from royalty payments that headed straight to the bottom line. Dolby sound reduction was now featured on approximately 380 million tape players, boom boxes, headphones, and car stereos, as well as a few billion audio-cassette packages.  Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Stereo Digital (now simply called Dolby Digital) was first featured on the 1992 film Batman Returns. Introduced to the home theater market as Dolby AC-3 with the 1995 laserdisc release of Clear and Present Danger.  The format did not become widespread in the consumer market, partly because of extra hardware that was necessary to make use of it  until it was adopted as part of the DVD specification. Dolby Digital is now found in the HDTV (ATSC) standard of the United States, DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers. Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the TV series The Simpsons. 1998 - First live HDTV broadcast with 5.1-channel Dolby Digital audio. 1999 - Star Wars: Episode I—The Phantom Menace debuts in Dolby Surround EX. 2007 - Dolby announced the arrival of Dolby Volume at the International Consumer Electronics Show. 2010 - Dolby introduced Dolby Surround 7.1, and set up theaters worldwide with 7.1 surround speaker setups to deliver theatrical 7.1 surround sound. The first film to be released with this format was Pixar's Toy Story 3 which was later followed by 50 releases using the format. About eighty percent of films released are mixed in Dolby Surround 7.1 by default. 2014 - Dolby introduced its Dolby Atmos, a new cinematic technology adding overhead sound, first applied in Pixar's motion picture Brave. In July 2014, Dolby Laboratories announced plans to bring Atmos to home theater. The first television show to use the technology on disc was Game of Thrones. Dolby launches Dolby Vision™. 2019 - Dolby adds Atmos to hundreds of newer songs in the music industry.