dolby digital question

[Matt Broeska]

hey i was wondering when dd 5.1 first came out in theaters. anyone know? i'm just a "whippersnapper" as some might put it and i really have no clue... and for bonus points for fellow winnipegers, where and when did it first debut here?

[Markj]

This is a trick question isn't it, because doesn't DD in theaters has more than 6 channels? If so than the asnswer would be never.
I am not sure when the first DD sound track was produce but I would guess it has been around for years.

[Matt Broeska]

ahhahhahahah... yeah... trick question. i wish.

so i guess i either had forgotten or just didn't know that whole "more than 6 channels" thing about theaters. kay so seriously then... anyone know?

[Andrew Pratt]

I'm not sure about DD but I know jurassic Park 1 was the debut of DTS. I'd be willing to bet that http://www.dolby.com has the answer though

[John Holmes]

I think it was Batman Returns.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Lexman]

I know that True Lies was among the first 5.1 laser discs.

Lex

[Andrew Pratt]

direct from Dolby's site...

Dolby Digital - General

First introduced to moviegoers in 1992 with Batman Returns, and heard on almost a thousand films around the world since then, Dolby Digital is the latest sound innovation from Dolby Laboratories.

Dolby revolutionized tape recording in the late 1960s and early 1970s with Dolby A-type (for professional applications) and Dolby B-type (for consumer applications) noise reduction. Later in the 1970s Dolby revolutionized film sound with the Dolby Stereo analog sound system. Dolby Stereo brought 4 channel sound to the movie theater with three channels of sound in the front (left and right for music and effects and center for dialog) and a surround channel for effects and atmospheres. Then in the 1980s both tape recording and film sound saw significant improvements through the use of Dolby SR ("Spectral Recording").

Dolby also revolutionized home entertainment in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the Dolby Surround and later Dolby Pro Logic home theater systems (basically using the Dolby Stereo technology in the home environment for video tapes and laser discs). This allowed home viewers to create the same 4 channel theater-type setup in the home.

Today's Dolby Digital system takes the next step, providing six channels of crystal clear digital surround sound. Left, center and right channels in front of you provide precise, clear positioning of dialogue. Separate or "discrete" left and right surround channels on the side and in the rear immerse you in the film with atmospherics and ambient sounds. And a subwoofer/bass effects channel contributes extra punch to action and special effects sequences.

The principles of Dolby Digital follow from the analog noise reduction work that Dolby has been engaged in for more than 30 years. Dolby noise reduction works by lowering the noise when no audio signal is present, while allowing strong audio signals to cover or mask the noise at other times. Thus it takes advantage of the psycho acoustic phenomenon known as auditory masking. Even when audio signals are present in some parts of the spectrum, Dolby noise reduction reduces the noise in the other parts so the noise remains imperceptible. This is because audio signals can only mask noise that occurs at nearby frequencies.

When moving from analog recording to a digital recording medium like the compact disc, one finds that the digital audio coding used on CDs yields an amount of data often too immense to store or transmit economically, especially when multiple channels are required. As a result, new forms of digital audio coding - often known as "perceptual coding" - have been developed to allow the use of lower data rates with a minimum of perceived degradation of sound quality. Dolby's third generation audio coding algorithm (AC-3) is such a coder.

This coder has been designed to take maximum advantage of human auditory masking in that it divides the audio spectrum of each channel into narrow frequency bands of different sizes optimized with respect to the frequency selectivity of human hearing. This makes it possible to sharply filter coding noise so that it is forced to stay very close in frequency to the frequency components of the audio signal being coded. By reducing or eliminating coding noise wherever there are no audio signals to mask it, the sound quality of the original signal can be subjectively preserved. In this key respect, a coding system like AC-3 is essentially a form of very selective and powerful noise reduction.

Indeed, Dolby Laboratories' unique experience with audio noise reduction is essential to AC-3's effective data rate reduction: the fewer the bits used to describe an audio signal, the greater the noise.

In the film industry, the Dolby Digital soundtrack is optically encoded right on the filmstrip, in the space between the sprocket holes. Having the soundtrack directly on the film allows it to coexist with the analog track without involving any other media like a CD - this not only makes it simple for film distributors and theater owners to handle, but also allows Dolby Digital prints to be prepared at virtually no additional cost. The sprocket hole area has also proven highly resistant to wear and tear, so that a Dolby Digital soundtrack will remain free of pops and hiss for the useful life of the print.

In the consumer electronics industry the Dolby Digital soundtrack can be found on the latest generation of laser discs (in space where one of the analog tracks used to be), can be found as the standard audio track on Digital Versatile Discs (DVD), is the standard audio format for High Definition Television (HDTV), and is being used for digital cable and satellite transmissions.

[Lexman]

Thanks Andrew for the information!

Lex

[Andrew Pratt]

isnt' that what we're here for