DTS:
An Innovative History, a Visionary Future
Loren Nielsen, VP, Content & Strategy, DTS (an Xperi company)
Y
et, in addition to transforming the cinema experience, DTS now applies its future-focused
mission
to
bring
solutions to wireless home audio, incabin connected car sound and sensing,
and
home
theatre
experiences. With 30 years of experience and innovation, DTS has delivered a ‘Dedication to Sensational’. DTS’ journey began with a dream of creating an audio experience as engaging and authentic as the dinosaurs on the screen.
It Started with a Roar Before DTS, theatres projected film with two-channel audio
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DTS introduced the Digital Theater System to the world in 1993 with immersive sound in the blockbuster film, “Jurassic Park”, forever changing the game...
world-class mixing stages in 15 countries have installed DTS:X production tools
Beard remixed scenes from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in DTS and presented them to Spielberg. The world-famous director nearly leapt from his chair. “I was flabbergasted,” Spielberg said, and recalled switching back and forth from the traditional soundtrack to DTS, “It [DTS] sounded exactly like a 70 millimeter six-track sound.” While other digital audio codecs compressed their soundtracks onto the film’s limited real estate, DTS brought uncompressed 5.1 audio into the cinematic audio experience, initially via synchronized optical disc. With
Spielberg’s
and
Universal
Studios’
“Jurassic Park” soon to be released, DTS deployed its
on an optical track printed alongside the sprockets. Thanks
digital audio hardware in over 2,000 theatres. If you know
to the foresight of Terry Beard, a Caltech-trained engineer
your cinema technology history, then you will also note
with a 20-year history of inventing stereo optical recording
how similar this was to the first steps into the talkies when
equipment, digital audio caught a big break. A friend offered
movie audio was produced using shellac records that
an introduction to Steven Spielberg, and Beard knew he’d
played in sync with the celluloid film running through the
have only one chance to make his mark.
projector.
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