WEBVTT - TechStuff Listens to Dolby 0:00:04.280 --> 0:00:11.680 Get in text with technology with text Stuff from dot com. 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.760 Say everyone, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.320 and I'm Lauren bob Obam And today we wanted to 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:22.320 talk about a particular person who was very influential in technology, 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.520 someone whom we lost last year in two thousand and thirteen. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:30.440 Ray Dolby and Dolby. You know the name. If you're 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.160 at all familiar with audio equipment, the name just jumps 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.280 out at you. I mean, even if you are, you're not. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.160 Even if you've seen a movie in a theater basically 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.560 ever or maybe watched one on a DVD. If you've 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.280 ever owned a stereo in the history of ever, you've 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.440 probably seen the Dolby logo, which is that Yeah, certainly 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.680 in the history of the past thirty years. Yeah, which 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:58.000 I think for most of our listeners that that qualifies. Uh. 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:00.560 I know that we have some listeners who maybe have 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.600 owned stereos that are older than thirty years. We appreciate 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.920 you as well, of course. So Dolby, who was this guy? 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.400 What did he do? While he was an electrical engineer, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.400 famous for his work in developing audio technology, which was 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:18.959 used in everything from movies to uh, to studio equipment, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.840 to the stuff that you could buy like consumer electronics. 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:28.279 And he has absolutely no relation to the musician Thomas 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.440 Dolby known for us. She blinded me with science, right. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:37.360 Apparently Thomas Dolby took that stage name based on Dolby. Yes, yeah, yeah, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.960 his his actual name is Thomas Robertson, but his stage 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.680 name is Thomas Dolby, presumably taking the name because of 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:49.600 Dolby Laboratories and Dolby himself, Ray Dolby, Ray, by the way, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.360 had still has a son named Tom so also a 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.320 little confused and confusion there, um. But apparently and and 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.400 you uncovered this little tidbit that that Thomas are Yes, yes, 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.360 Thomas Dolby, the musician stage name person, had an agreement 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:07.560 laid out that he would not name any electronics equipment 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.040 under the Dolby brand, right right, He could not he 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:16.280 you know, there was some initial um tension between Dolby 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.720 Labs and Thomas Dolby, but that eventually got kind of 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.320 settled down in the agreement essentially was kind of a 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.880 gentleman's agreement. It was that Thomas Dolby could perform and 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.920 and record under the name Thomas Dolby as long as 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:33.120 he didn't put out like the Dolby Stereo, because I 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.600 could be confused with the actual Dolby Labs brand. So 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:41.360 let's talk about Tom, not Thomas Dolby. That's a totally 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.840 different podcast that we could do, because Thomas Dolby has 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.040 been very active in digital distribution. But Ray Dolby. So, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.440 he was born back in nineteen three in Portland, Oregon. 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:56.639 His father was a salesman yep. Ray Delby as a 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.200 kid got interested in electronics. He apparently, according to one 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:04.559 report I read, at age nine, rigged up an electronic 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:09.120 signaling system that would allow you to alert someone, similar 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.720 to using something with Morse code. I imagine this is 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:16.040 something similar, like like a simple switch and uh, something 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.000 that either made noise or lit up. There weren't details 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:21.440 about exactly what it was. Yeah, I think that this 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.040 was from an interview that he had done with a 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.640 member of the um I e. The I Tripolie back 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.360 in the eighties at some point. So I didn't have 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:32.919 extreme details, but I found that very charming. He was 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.040 also fascinated as a child by the mechanics of music. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.360 As a kid, he apparently played clarinet and remembered being 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.640 um just engrossed by the vibrations of the reds, and 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.080 in fact, that fascination with music would go throughout his 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.960 entire life. His sons would talk about how he was 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.000 not just an engineer, nor did he ever wish to 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.760 be seen that way. He was an adventurer at heart 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:59.600 and a musician at heart, someone who truly appreciated the 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:04.240 sound owned of talented artists making music. And that was 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:07.560 part of what he was so interested in when he 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:11.280 got into electronics, was being able to have a device 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:16.039 that could record and play back such stuff without any 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.320 other artifacts getting in the way. So in high school 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.760 he uh joined the projectionist clubs. So clearly a big 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.000 man on campus. Uh. Obviously these are the the kids 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.240 who are really interested in cinema. They're interested in in 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.279 all aspects of electronics technology. Yeah, you know, all of 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.480 that kind of stuff. And through that, in nine he 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:45.320 met one um Alex Pantov excellent. Yeah, he was the 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.320 founder of a company called Ampex Corps. Yep. And uh 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.279 and so here's here's the deal. Here's the scenario. Alex 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.320 Pontia comes to town and he's gonna have a meeting 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.359 and in order. Part of this meeting involves showing a 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.720 film and he needs to have someone to run the projectors, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.719 so he reaches out to the local school and says, hey, 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.719 can you send me a kid who can run the projector, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.880 and Dolby volunteers. He says, this sounds like something I 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.280 would really like to do, so he comes over and 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.240 runs the projector and he and Poniatof hit it off. 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.760 I mean they you know, it's clear that Dolby is 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.640 truly interested in technology, and Ampex was really getting into 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:30.480 building recording devices, both for UM industry, like geophysical recorders, 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.080 and also for you know, entertainment industry as well eventually, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:39.760 so he Dolby shows this incredible interest in the subject matter, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.919 and Poniatof is obviously impressed and tells Dolbie, hey, you know, kid, listen. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.240 I know you're in school and all, but I tell 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.760 you what, on weekends and on vacations, if you like, 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:54.000 you can come and work for me, And Dolby says sure. Yeah. 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.479 Delbie was only sixteen years old at the time and 0:05:56.640 --> 0:05:58.320 wound up working a little bit more than I think 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.480 that they originally expected. Dolby said that he was far 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:03.320 enough I had with his credits in high school that 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.360 he wasn't really worried about getting into colleges. He figured 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.320 he had it in the bag. So he wound up 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.480 at a certain point spending like three hours a day 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.719 at school and five hours a day at Ampex. It 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.559 turns out that eventually Dolby's not so so concerned about 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.080 staying in college either, at least initially. So. Yeah, his 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:24.440 he was obviously really eager to get hands on experience 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.200 with this. It was, you know, he didn't want to 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.919 just learn theory. He wanted to actually be working, and 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.640 he found it really exciting. By nineteen fifty one, he 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.720 was attending San Jose State College in California and had 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.000 picked the major of electrical engineering. Uh, and he was 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.440 still working with Ampex at that time, and within the 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.080 first year of his schooling, actually just after he was 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.240 just about to start a sophomore year, Ampex began to 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.640 develop something that would revolutionize the entertainment industry and the 0:06:53.720 --> 0:07:00.400 home entertainment market. Eventually, the video recorders, so videotaper orders 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.320 were not a thing yet, right, this is a brand 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.520 new technology, and he had the opportunity to work on 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.360 an early implementation of that videotape had the potential to 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.840 be a truly disruptive type of technology, which, of course, 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:15.920 as we all know, that's what happened. I mean, you 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.240 saw it happen again and again. But he had the 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.200 chance to get in on the ground floor, and he 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:23.200 was so excited by that that he made the decision 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.840 to drop out of college and uh work full time 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.120 at Ampex. But that also meant right, this was during 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.680 during the Korean War was about to really ramp up, 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.840 and he was He's spoken about being very aware at 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.080 the time that this decision would make him eligible to 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.240 be drafted, and being a little bit concerned about that, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.080 which would turn out to be a fair concern. Yeah, 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.400 he um, you know, by not being a college student, 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.800 that made him eligible for the draft, and in fact, 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.680 he was drafted and he went into the army on 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.520 April first, nineteen fifty three. He was drafted into the army. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.480 And during this was during the Korean War. Delby later 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.080 said that, uh, that was with it because he got 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.560 to work on the video recorder. Meanwhile, even you know, 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.480 Dolby was removed from the picture. He had to go 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.840 and serve in the army. UH. Ampex ended up shelving 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:15.280 the video recorder project, not because Dolby was removed from it. 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.520 I mean, Dolby himself said, it's not because I wasn't there. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.440 That's not why they did it. They did it because 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.240 the company itself was in financial trouble. There was a 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.760 recession going on at the time, and the company was 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.320 hit pretty hard by it, and so to to save 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.520 money and and to cut back on things that were, 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.520 you know, obviously big projects that could pay off, but 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:38.400 it would be a long term gain, they decided to 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:40.640 pull back on those. So this was one of the 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.199 projects they shelved. So he goes off and he joins 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.800 the army. While he's in the army, he teaches classes 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.200 on electronics because why not. Yeah, he still hasn't completed 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.480 college himself. But on January one, nineteen fifty five, he 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.360 was discharged from the army and rejoined Ampex, which had 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.959 started UH to decide go back and and launched the 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.320 video recorder project again. So he was working on that. 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.600 He also went back to college. This time. He did 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:10.920 not go to San Jose State. He went to a 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:15.439 little college called Stanford UM, and he completed his degree 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.800 at Stanford. So by nineteen fifty six the video recorder 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.720 goes into production. So this is a big deal. And Dolby, 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:26.840 I think his name is even on one of the patents, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.199 at least one of the patents. Yeah, this is Ampex's 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.400 specific video. Yes, and it's the first to go into production. 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.080 So Dolby goes to then uh he he applies and 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:39.760 is accepted to go to Cambridge University to work towards 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.000 a PhD in physics. Um, he would finally receive that 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.679 in nineteen sixty one. Yeah, and uh, and of course 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.040 you know, obviously PhD in physics, he's looking at acoustics, right, 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.160 that was his main focus. No, that's not his main focus. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.960 His main focus actually was an X rays, long wavelength 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.719 X rays. He was, yeah, he was. He was convinced 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:00.640 that this was what he really he was going to 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:02.040 do for the rest of his life. He was going 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.800 to work in experiments and build things that worked with 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.880 X rays. Apparently at the time, very popular guy in Cambridge, 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.959 partially because he had access to professional recording equipment and 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.000 there were a lot of musical groups in the area 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.040 that wanted to be able to record stuff, but they 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.839 didn't have access to professional recording equipment, you would get 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.040 these really poor recordings. So he started getting invited to 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.680 all sorts of events and he would have people over 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.440 at his place to play music. Not keep in mind, 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.160 this is you know, this is great stuff for Dolbie 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.920 who loves music. You know, this is again him continuing this, uh, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:43.439 this keen interest in music. So I'm sure he found 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:46.200 it to be a wonderful time of his life. Oh sure. 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.240 He was also making a big impact on the community 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.079 in general. He around the same time was consulting for 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.520 the UK's atomic energy authorities, so getting some good stuff 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.320 on his resume. Oh yeah, yeah, No, this for someone 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:02.120 who was interested in making the first video recorder. He's 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.320 already branching out quite a bit by this time. Also 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.960 in nineteen sixty two, he meets Dagmar ballmert Uh in 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.439 Cambridge and she would become the love of his life. 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.280 I mean, every report I ever read about the two 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.640 of them talking about very sweet talked about how parties 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.160 they were always right there, you know, backing each other up, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:26.920 and they they complemented one another in various ways. So 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.640 she was actually from Germany. She was in Cambridge for 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.760 a summer program when they met, and the rest is, 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.319 they say, is history. We'll we'll talk more about them 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.800 a little bit later on to UM. But then in 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:44.800 nineteen sixty three, really cool, Yeah, Dolby read about this 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:49.280 opportunity in a newspaper for the United Nations Educational, Scientific 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.560 and Cultural Organization a k a. UNESCO as most people 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:55.360 would know about it, UM to to go to India 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.000 and help consult to to build up a little bit 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:03.120 more of a kind of infrastructure, Yeah, scientific laboratory infrastructure, 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.280 specifically in the Punjab region which is known as a 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:09.839 very culturally rich area. And he spent two years there. 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.760 And while he was doing that, he continued to be 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:17.040 really interested in creating equipment that would be allowed to 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.960 allow you to make high fidelity audio recordings. Well, he 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.480 had brought one of those professional level Ampex I think 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.640 it was the Ampex six hundred tape recorders along with him, 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.200 and UH would would invite musicians to complay at his 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.640 house so that he could experiment with recordings. And UH 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:37.360 and he started to really be bothered by something that 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:42.040 is inherent in magnetic tape recordings analog recordings, which is 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:46.040 that you get this hiss sound, particularly if you're playing 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.840 the tape at lower speeds. And we'll talk more about 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:53.840 that as well. Because in nineteen sixty five, once he 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:58.480 had concluded his two year stint with UNESCO, he decided 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.120 to go back to London. There was a dressmaker factory. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.679 I assume it was a factory for dresses, not for dressmakers. 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.760 Think they actually built dressmakers. I think the robotics wasn't 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:15.000 quite it's advanced at the time. So yeah, he rented 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.680 essentially what was a corner in an old factory and 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:23.040 created Dolby Laboratories. He was using twenty dollars in startup money, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:26.880 which was what he had saved plus borrowed from other folks, 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.000 and it had a grand total of four employees when 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.800 it first started, and their first product that they were 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:37.200 working on was something called Signal to Noise Stretchers. Now 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.760 that's the technical name for what Dolby created. However, that 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.360 they are to this day called Dolby's. Yeah, in the 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:46.920 industry they're called Dolby's and it didn't take very long 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.680 for that to happen. So the whole point of signal 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.559 to noise Stretchers, it kind of comes in the name 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.319 signal to noise. So if you think of something that's 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.920 been recorded to magnetic tape, the signal is whatever it 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.960 was you were trying to record, right, Noise is noise, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.000 it's stuff you don't want, it's artifacts, it's it's static. Yeah, 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.320 it distracts from what you were trying to capture. So 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.400 if your goal is to create a recreation of the 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.720 moment that a sound was created, then you want to 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.480 reduce that noise as much as possible. And so this 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:22.560 was a method really of recording and playing back stuff 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.920 so that you would reduce that noise so that it 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.920 was inaudible, it was unnoticeable. And we'll talk about how 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.240 he did that in the second half of this of 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.800 this episode. But anyway, this was you know, really meant 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.320 to be kind of a a side project. It was 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.760 meant to be the thing that allowed him to make, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.240 you know, to fund the other things he was going 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.240 to do, specifically X ray experimentation. But as it turns out, 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.120 Don't Be hit on something that a lot of people 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:57.480 found really fascinating and valuable and it took over his life. Well, 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.720 even even at the time very high qualit uality media 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.720 like a like like an LP like a record. Um, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.640 we're recorded from a master tape, a master magnetic tape. 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.400 So this impacted a huge segment of a few different industries. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:14.920 Oh sure, if your master tape has a hiss on it, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.480 then that hiss gets transmitted to every other copy that 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.120 you make. Right, So if you're able to create a 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.360 system where you remove that hiss so that you have 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:28.600 the highest quality master tape, then whenever you are making 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.920 a new copy, then you are there across your copying 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.040 the hiss as well. Yeah, so if you if you 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.000 can get rid of the hiss, that's awesome. And that's 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.760 why it ended up being such a big deal. Um. 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.880 And so early on it was really focusing mostly on 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:48.840 on studio level quality, right, we're talking professional recording studios, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.080 not something that you would find in your average uh 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:56.520 playback device that a consumer would have right right right there. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:00.840 Their first customer was Decca Records. Yeah uh ended up 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:05.360 being a pretty important customer. So Decca Records, they come 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:07.320 up and they say they want to use the Dolby 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:11.880 system on a series of recordings made by Vladimir Ashkenazi 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:16.280 of Mozart Piano Concertos, which you know already it's speaking 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:20.480 to Dolby's heart, and so Dolby says that, uh, you know, 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.560 he realized that the noise reduction, which he thought was 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:27.600 gonna be that little side project, was going to become, uh, 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.560 the main thing he worked on for the at least 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:35.640 the foreseeable future. So nineteen sixties six, Dolby Mary's Dagmar. 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.880 So uh. They end up eventually having two children, Tom 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.480 and David. Tom is a novelist and a journalist and editor, 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.000 and David sits on the board of directors for Dolby Labs. 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.840 So they're both very successful. Um. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.480 Dolby is convinced by a man named Henry Class, who 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.160 at that time was president of the k l H 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:01.000 Research and Development Corporation, to create a consumer version of 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.840 his signal to noise stretcher technology. All right, because up 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.359 until this point it had all been these these really 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:11.520 high end, pretty expensive versions for for that professional studio 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.200 that for doing like doing those master tapes, right, it 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:17.520 was it was meant as a as an industry thing. 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.480 So it was you know, Originally Dolby was thinking that 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.760 his stuff that he was working on it would trickle 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.240 down to consumers. But in a way that the consumer 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.360 would never notice, or in a way that the consumer 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.720 would never have any direct participation in. Yeah, exactly, because 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.399 because you know, the consumer would be able to enjoy 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:39.439 the benefits by playing something and not hearing that sounds 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:41.359 better than that other things, right, but they wouldn't be 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:46.000 able to create their own stuff. Right Well, this class 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.159 ends up saying to to Dolby that, hey, you should 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.320 really make a consumer version of this. Dolby says, there's 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.439 not really a market for it. I can't see consumers 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:57.880 jumping at this. So then what Class does is something 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.520 kind of sneaky to convinced Dolby otherwise. He goes back 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.680 and he tells some of his engineers, hey, guys, let's 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.600 kind of reverse engineer this. Take Dolby's Type A what 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.040 would eventually be called the Type A Dolby's UM and 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.600 reverse engineer so that we can make a consumer level 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.359 of our own. They do that. He then takes that 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.040 to Dolby and says, look at what I did. I 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.919 took your stuff and I made a cheaper version for consumers. 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.440 Someone else is gonna do that and they're gonna beat 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:27.160 you to the market, so you should do it. First, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.679 and Dolby says, huh, how about that. You're right, I 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.560 should do that, And so Dolby that goes to create 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.440 a consumer version of his signal to noise stretchers called 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.520 Type B. So Type A is for the professional studios, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.320 it's it's more sophisticated, it covers a greater range of sounds, 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.359 and we'll go over that in the second half. To 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:52.840 Type B is less expensive, more limited. But then for 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:57.840 your average consumer it was perfectly unless unless you're an 0:18:57.840 --> 0:18:59.680 expert in the field and have an extremely good year 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.879 end cetera, etcetera. Was basically fine. And then later on 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:06.600 Dolby Labs would end up releasing updates. They had a 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.840 Type C come out that was a more sophisticated version, 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.280 and then eventually they had a spectral recording which was 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.760 an even more sophisticated version of the same basic approach. 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:20.959 Class would wind up continuing to to interact with Delby 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.760 in this industry. Yeah, he ends up creating a company 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.480 called Advent Corporation, which would produce the first consumer cassette 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.960 deck that had the Dolby technology in it. Now, that 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.399 wasn't the first one that was a consumer product. The 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.320 first consumer product was real to real deck So this 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:39.120 is before cassettes really had had started to become a thing, 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.679 but real to real recorders. If you were, you know, 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.960 an amateur musician or even a professional musician, but you 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.600 want to record your own stuff, then this is the 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:50.120 kind of technology you were using at the time. So 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:54.600 nineteen seventy one that's when Dolby Labs begins to experiment 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.280 by going outside of just the audio recording industry. There's 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.879 still very much it's still audio centric, but they're looking 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:05.600 at another industry that they can impact, and that that 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.479 was movies. And this would be this would be a huge, 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.280 huge player in in a Delby's personal success and and 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.000 be just the film industry. Yeah, so they're looking at 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:21.240 making movies sound match the quality of the images because 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.119 uh and Lauren, I saw that you you pulled this 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.919 into the notes as a perfect example. The problem was 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.919 that movies at that time we're relying on the same 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.840 basic sound systems that have been developed decades earlier. Oh yeah, 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.679 there had been so many innovations in um in film 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.439 quality itself over the past, of the recent past of 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.440 of the nineteen sixties and fifties, but really like gone 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.120 with the wind was the industry standard of of audio production, 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.880 and that had happened thirty five or forty years previously, right, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:57.000 So Dolby ends up looking into creating a system that 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.359 would make much more clear, crisp sound or movies. Uh. 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.280 And so the first film that gets released that has 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.200 the Dolby treatment to it is a little film called 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.119 Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange And oh, my, Drew gis if 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.840 you don't vitty, well, what I say, things changing sus 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.040 scory these days, and people quick to forget. Just remember 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.840 that without this, our movies wouldn't sound nearly as good. 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:27.359 And here here's the reason why Dolby was so influential, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.280 really early early on, because not only did it work, 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.920 but it wasn't expensive for theaters to incorporate into their systems. 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.080 Like this is this is not surround sound we're talking 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.560 about here. This is just the sound quality. Yeah, this 0:21:39.600 --> 0:21:42.440 is just the clarity, removing that hiss, because the same 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.240 hiss was apparent in uh in film as it was 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:49.040 in yeah, in magnetic tapes. So this was a way 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.199 of being able to create this, this crisp sound that 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.320 theaters didn't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:59.320 to fit. They didn't have to do that. So it 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:02.280 ended up the coming in industry standard because it worked 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:04.840 and it was cheap. And when it works and it's 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.359 cheap and becomes a standard, that means you have a 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:13.119 constant supply of customers. So Dolby had struck gold with this. 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:15.439 This was going to end up being one of the 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:20.000 biggest businesses for Dolby moving forward, because you had an 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.960 entire industry dependent upon that that particular methodology to make 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:27.480 movies sound good. And it became one of those things 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:31.359 where if you saw that the movie incorporated Dolby Sound, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.200 you knew you were in for a special treat. So 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.679 we've got a lot more to talk about here, including 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.800 some some developments that also tied back into sound and 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.639 the movies. But before we do that, let's take a 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.040 quick break to thank our sponsor. Al Right, getting back 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:53.360 to ray Dolby, So he was already seeing success in audio, 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.520 uh well, audio hardware, both on the on the the 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.480 professional side and on the consumer side, was starting to 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.600 see success in the motion picture industry. Um and then 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:06.359 starts to work on some other stuff for movies. In 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:10.560