Death of Ray Dolby

From: Leo Enticknap <[email protected]>

Obituary at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/10307407/Ray-Dolby.html
.

I thought this was worth noting on a list dealing with the history
of cinema: alongside Eastmancolor (and its competitor substantive,
dye-coupler stocks), widescreen and VHS, Dolby's stereo variable area
audio mastering and playback system was one of four essential
technologies that redefined the aesthetics of cinema production and
consumption in the second half of the twentieth century. Before the
invention of a stereo sound system that could be mass-produced at a
price that made it viable for the average suburban theatre (stereo
optical sound had been demonstrated successfully by Alan Blumlein as
early as 1936, but never made it out of the laboratory), multi-channel,
high dynamic range sound in the theatre was restricted to experimental
initiatives, roadshows and prestige city centre venues. Indeed, one of
the reasons why the exhibition sector found itself close to collapse by
the mid-1970s was that most consumers had higher quality sound
reproduction equipment in their homes than was in use at their local
cinemas.

And Dolby stereo was, I suspect, the last major technological
innovation in cinema history to have become a mainstream industry
standard, but which was essentially invented by an individual working
alone.

Its impact has started to be explored in humanities academia a
little bit, principally in Gianluca Sergi's book, but the wider economic
and cultural impact of stereo sound becoming the norm in theatre
exhibition in the developed world during the 1980s remains comparatively
under-researched.

Leo

-- 
Leo Enticknap
Institute of Communications
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NEW BOOK: Film
Restoration [4] (published by Palgrave Macmillan on October 11)


Links:
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[1] http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/people/leo-enticknap
[2]
http://leeds.academia.edu/enticknap
[3] http://www.enticknap.net
[4]
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=344520

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