The Birth of 5.1 SOUND

Since joining Dolby Laboratories in 1969, Ioan Allen (Senior Vice President ) has been directly involved in the origination and development of all the major audio advancements emanating from the Dolby film program. During his tenure at the company, Mr. Allen has spearheaded the introduction of many of Dolby's breakthrough audio formats-from Dolby Stereo in 1974 to Dolby SR in 1986 and Dolby Digital in 1992—each representing another step forward in the company's successful transition from analog audio pioneer to digital entertainment leader.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• surround
• sound
• dolby
• digital
• cinema
• lfe
• education

[IntermittentSprocket]

This is a good interview and its true most users in the home do play the sub bass way too loud.

[HeddyGreen]

The older Todd-AO full 6 channel mix sounded much better than any 5.1 mix. The dialogue was clear and separation was great. How soon we forget.

[norrobbins]

I agree. Even at home watching a dvd the sound is kinda 'funky' in regards to dialouge using 5.1.

It's much kinder to music and sound efects. I'm not really sure why, probably has something to do with the frequencies I suppose.

A 'YOUTUBER' I subscribe to (mrdigitunes) is soon uploading several original songs done with 5.1 techonology.  It'll be very interesting to hear what he can do with the techonology. So far his uploads are very cool just in plain ol' stereo.

[DSM1G90]

In each cinema processor, there are three main cards that represent the L,C,R information. Each of these cards have 27 one-third octave settings to achieve a flat response from a "pink noise" loop - a loop that contains the entire audio spectrum and is played as such. Trick would be to turn off the lower frequencies, lower the higher frequences to emphasize the 1kz frequencies that are basically the dialog frequencies. You'll still have great stereo, but dialog more understandable.

[digitaldave1234]

This is good, but he never mentions that the dialog in movies is very soft, while the sound effects are too loud.