The "Dolby Myth"

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Fascinating. Very good writing. I graduated from IU so was pleased to see the IU Press credit.

Are you also a member at the Steve Hoffman Forums by any chance?
 
No, although I read quite a lot from that forum (usually found w/Google).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_(1975_film)^^^
Some film prints used Sansui QS + dBx NR, so there was a little competition for Dolby (I recall staying to the very end of Tommy [in the theater] just to see the Quintaphonic Sound title card at the end of the end credits [heard the movie in mono in an older downtown theater]).

IMHO, the contributions of Dolby Labs to surround sound (theater and home) shouldn't be minimized, they carried the burden of reintroducing "Quad" basically alone.


Kirk Bayne
 
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10...id=excelsior:37eb3a128ebaa374c95d76afa178574c^^^
Contrary to popular anecdotes,
Dolby did not dramatically transform Hollywood surround sound.


Kirk Bayne

A FASCINATING article, Kirk. So EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN and the fact that entrepreneur Ray Dolby liberally borrowed from previous Hollywood 'audio mavericks' to create what was to become his billion dollar DOLBY LABS empire is a testament to his 'aural vision!'

I did get to 'experience' Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse NOW" in 70mm with 6 track Dolby Sound at a midnight showing in New York City and still count it as among my most memorable cinematic encounters. From the film's opening Door's masterpiece THE END to the final frames, the audio was PLUPERFECT and to this day even in remastered DVD~Audio, I've never heard this song reproduced with such startling realism as in sound engineer's Walter Murch's brilliant sound design.

Agreed, Ray Dolby was NOT the first to invent SURROUND SOUND for motion pictures but I believe we can agree he catapulted the benchmark to new heights......DOLBY ATMOS notwithstanding!
 
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