Dolby Laboratories

::Dolby redirects here. "Dolby" may also refer to the engineer Ray Dolby or the musician Thomas Dolby

History

Dolby Labs was founded by Ray Dolby in England in 1965. He moved the company to the United States in 1976. The first product he made was Type A Dolby Noise Reduction, a simple compander. One of the features that set Dolby's compander apart was that it treated only the quiet sounds that would be masked by tape noise. Dolby marketed the product to record companies.

Related Topics:
Ray Dolby - England - 1965 - United States - 1976 - Dolby Noise Reduction - Compander

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Dolby was persuaded by Henry Kloss of KLH to manufacture a consumer version of his noise reduction. Dolby worked more on companding systems and introduced B-type in 1968.

Related Topics:
Henry Kloss - KLH - 1968

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Dolby did not manufacture consumer products outright; it licensed the technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.

Related Topics:
License - Consumer electronics

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Dolby also sought to improve film sound, which at the time was optical and monaural. In 1975 Dolby released Dolby Stereo, which included a noise reduction system in addition to more audio channels (Dolby Stereo could actually contain additional center and surround channels). Dolby reworked the system slightly and introduced Dolby Surround and Dolby Pro Logic.

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Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Digital was first featured on the 1992 film Batman Returns. Introduced to the home theater market with the 1995 laserdisc release of Stargate, the format didn't 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 USA, DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers.

Related Topics:
Surround sound - Compression - 1992 - Batman Returns - 1995 - Laserdisc - Stargate - DVD - HDTV - ATSC - USA

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On February 17, 2005, the company became public, offering stock for sale on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DLB.

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On March 15, 2005, Dolby celebrated 40 Years of enhancing entertainment at the ShoWest 2005 Festival in San Francisco.

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