Historical context

film

The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908)

The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1908)

Mono Sound Era (1927 - late 1970s)

King Kong (1933)

Fantasia (1940) and Fantasound

Fantasia and Fantasound

Dolby Stereo Era (mid-1970s to mid-1990s)

Early Dolby Stereo (1975–76)

Dolby Stereo intro A Century of Innovation - Timeline

Dolby Stereo - Three-Channel

Dolby Stereo - Four-Channel

Star Wars (1977)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978)

The Digital Surround Era (the early 1990s to present)

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)

Digital Surround Era (early 1990s to present)

Dolby Digital – Batman Returns (1992)

Batman Returns – Dolby Digital

Dolby Surround EX - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

DTS - Jurassic Park (1993)

Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) - Last Action Hero (1993)

  • 1908 – First original film score (The Assassination of the Duke of Guise)
  • 1927+ – Mono optical sound in standard “talkies”
  • 1940 – Fantasia and Fantasound experiment with multi-channel playback
  • 1975–76 – Dolby Stereo ushers in matrixed multichannel cinema
  • 1992 – Batman Returns launches digital 5.1 (Dolby Digital) in theaters
  • Mid-1990s – DTS and SDDS compete with alternative digital systems
  • 1999 – Dolby Surround EX expands to 6.1 (matrixed rear center)
  • 2010 – Dolby Surround 7.1 arrives (first with Toy Story 3)
  • 2012 – Dolby Atmos introduces object-based immersive audio

Home-Audio Migration (DVD → Blu-ray → Streaming)

  • DVD-Video (1996+)
    • Common codecs: Dolby Digital (AC-3) and DTS; PCM and MP2 also supported (region-dependent).
    • Most Hollywood titles favored Dolby Digital; some offered DTS tracks.
  • Blu-ray Disc (2006+)
    • Adds lossless options: Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, plus LPCM.
    • Many titles carry Atmos or DTS:X as extensions on TrueHD/DTS-HD MA.
  • Streaming
    • Immersive mixes commonly delivered as Dolby Atmos over Dolby Digital Plus (DD+ JOC) for bandwidth efficiency.

Activity: which film do you remember seeing or hearing about first?