WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Listens to Dolby 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.000 Jonathan Strickland of an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.160 and I love all things tech, and today we're going 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.760 to listen to another tech Stuff classic. This episode originally 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.760 published February third, two thousand fourteen. It is titled tex 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.360 Stuff Listens to Dolby. Yep, we're gonna learn about the 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:37.040 Dolby sound system and how that works. So let's listen 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:42.240 to this classic episode. If you've ever owned a stereo 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.680 in the history of ever, you've probably seen the Dolby logo, 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.600 which is that Yeah, certainly in the history of the 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.320 past thirty years, which I think for most of our 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.360 listeners that that qualifies. Uh. I know that we have 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.360 some listeners who maybe have owned stereos that are older 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.120 than thirty years. We appreciate you as well, of course. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.040 So Dolby, who was this guy? What did he do? 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.280 While he was an electrical engineer famous for his work 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.160 in developing audio technology which was used in everything from 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.440 movies to uh to studio equipment to the stuff that 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:22.320 you could buy like consumer electronics. And he has absolutely 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.160 no relation to the musician Thomas Dolby known for us. 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.720 She blinded me with science, right. Apparently Thomas Dolby took 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:35.320 that stage name based on Dolby. Yes, yeah, his his 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.720 actual name is Thomas Robertson, but his stage name is 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:43.640 Thomas Dolby, presumably taking the name because of Dolby Laboratories 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:47.440 and Dolby himself, Ray Dolby, Ray, by the way, had 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.040 still has a son named Tom. So also a little 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:53.920 confused and confusion there um. But apparently and and you 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.840 uncovered this little tidbit that that Thomas or yes, yes, 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:02.080 Thomas Dolby, the musician stage person, had an agreement laid 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.800 out that he would not name any electronics equipment under 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.079 the Dolby brand, right right, he could not he you know, 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:14.400 there was some initial um tension between Dolby Labs and 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.960 Thomas Dolby, but that eventually got kind of settled down 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.640 in the agreement essentially was kind of a gentleman's agreement. 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.040 It was that Thomas Dolby could perform and and record 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.760 under the name Thomas Dolby as long as he didn't 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.880 put out like the Dolby stereo because I could be 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.960 confused with the actual Dolby Labs brand. So let's talk 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:38.800 about Tom, not Thomas Dolby. I mean, that's a totally 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:41.280 different podcast that we could do, because Thomas Dolby has 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.520 been very active in digital distribution. But Ray Dolby, so 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.960 he was born back in nineteen three in Portland, Oregon. 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.079 His father was a salesman. Yep. Ray Dolby as a 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.600 kid got interested in electronics. He apparently, according to one 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.359 report I read, at age nine, Line, rigged up an 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:05.720 electronic signaling system that would allow you to alert someone, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:09.040 similar to using something with Morse code. I imagine this 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.959 is something similar, like like a simple switch and uh, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.760 something that either made noise or lit up. There weren't 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.760 details about exactly what it was. Yeah, I think that 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:20.880 this was from an interview that he had done with 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.080 a member of the m I E. The I Tripolie 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.640 back in the eighties at some point. So I didn't 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.320 have extreme details, but I found that very charming. He 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.480 was also fascinated as a child by the mechanics of music. 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.840 As a kid, he apparently played clarinet and remembered being 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:40.240 just engrossed by the vibrations of the reads and in 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.240 fact that fascination with music would go throughout his entire life. 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.040 His sons would talk about how he was not just 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.000 an engineer, nor did he ever wish to be seen 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:52.440 that way. He was an adventurer at heart and a 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:58.160 musician at heart, someone who truly appreciated the sound of 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.480 talented artists making music. And that was part of what 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.200 he was so interested in when he got into electronics 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.960 was being able to have a device that could record 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.840 and play back such stuff without any other artifacts getting 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.000 in the way. So in high school he uh joined 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:23.720 the projectionist clubs. So clearly a big man on campus. Uh, 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.640 obviously these are the the kids who are really interested 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:33.760 in cinema. They're interested in in all aspects of electronics technology. Yeah, 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.520 you know, all of that kind of stuff. And through that, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:42.120 in nine he met one um Alex Panto excellent. Yeah, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:46.200 he was the founder of a company called Ampex Corps yep. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.880 And uh, and so here's here's the deal. Here's the scenario. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.280 Alex Pontia comes to town and he's going to have 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.360 a meeting and in order, part of this meeting involves 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.200 showing a film and he needs to have someone to 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:01.640 run the projector so he reaches out to the local 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:04.400 school and says, hey, can you send me a kid 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.840 who can run the projector? And Dolby volunteers. He says, 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.120 this sounds like something I would really like to do. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.120 So he comes over and runs the projector, and he 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.719 and Poniatof hit it off. I mean they you know, 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.960 it's clear that Dolby is truly interested in technology, and 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.680 Ampex was really getting into building recording devices, both for 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:30.200 industry like geophysical recorders and also for you know, entertainment 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:35.680 industry as well. Eventually, so he Dolby shows this incredible 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.320 interest in the subject matter, and Poniatof is obviously impressed 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.560 and tells Dolbie, hey, you know, kid, listen. I know 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:43.880 you're in school and all, but I tell you what, 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.840 on weekends and on vacations, if you like, you can 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.440 come and work for me. And Dolby says sure, yeah. 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.920 Delbie was only sixteen years old at the time and 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:55.800 wound up working a little bit more than I think 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.960 that they originally expected. Dolby said that he was far 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:00.719 enough I had with his credit it's in high school, 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.359 that he wasn't really worried about getting into colleges. He 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.640 figured he had it in the bag. So he wound 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:07.760 up at a certain point spending like three hours a 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.000 day at school and five hours a day at AMPEX. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.160 It turns out that eventually Delby's not so it was 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.360 so concerned about staying in college either, at least initially. So. Yeah, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:21.040 his he was obviously really eager to get hands on 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.560 experience with this. It was, you know, he didn't want 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.000 to just learn theory. He wanted to actually be working, 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.880 and he found it really exciting. By nine fifty one, 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.760 he was attending San Jose State College in California and 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.360 had picked the major of electrical engineering. Uh, and he 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.680 was still working with Ampex at that time. And within 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:43.400 the first year of his schooling, actually just after he 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.520 was just about to start a sophomore year, Ampex began 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.880 to develop something that would revolutionize the entertainment industry and 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:57.320 the home entertainment market. Eventually, the video recorders, So videotape 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.440 recorders were not a thing yet. Right, this is a 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.640 brand new technology, and he had the opportunity to work 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.680 on an early implementation of that. Videotape had the potential 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.280 to be a truly disruptive type of technology, which of course, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.560 as we all know, that's what happened. I mean, you 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:15.680 saw it happen again and again. But he had the 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:17.680 chance to get in on the ground floor, and he 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.640 was so excited by that that he made the decision 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:25.880 to drop out of college and work full time at AMPEX. 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.680 But that also meant right, this was during during the 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.560 Korean War was about to really ramp up, and he 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.640 was He's spoken about being very aware at the time 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:38.160 that this decision would make him eligible to be drafted 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:40.120 and being a little bit concerned about that, which would 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.119 turn out to be a fair concern. Yeah. He um, 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.280 you know, by not being a college student, that made 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.600 him eligible for the draft, and in fact, he was 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.760 drafted and he went into the army on April first, 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.360 nineteen fifty three. He was drafted into the army. And 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.880 during this was during the Korean War. Delby later said that, uh, 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:58.960 that was worth it because he got to work on 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.600 the heal recorder. Meanwhile, even you know, Dolby was removed 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.440 from the picture. He had to go and serve in 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.200 the army. Uh, AMPEX ended up shelving the video recorder project, 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.280 not because Dolby was removed from it. I mean Dolby 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.400 himself said, it's not because I wasn't there. That's not 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.400 why they did it. They did it because the company 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.560 itself was in financial trouble. There was a recession going 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:23.760 on at the time, and the company was hit pretty 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.800 hard by it, and so to to save money and 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.720 and to cut back on things that were, you know, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.280 obviously big projects that could pay off, but it would 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.760 be a long term gain, they decided to pull back 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.120 on those. So this was one of the projects they shelved. 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.600 So he goes off and he joins the army. While 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.400 he's in the army, he teaches classes on electronics because 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.520 why not. Yeah, he still hasn't completed college himself. But 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.520 on January one, nine, he was discharged from the army 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.640 and rejoined Ampex, which had started UH decided to go 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.840 back and and launched the video records project again, so 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.400 he was working on that. He also went back to 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.439 college this time. He did not go to San Jose State. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.440 He went to a little college called Stanford UM and 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:16.880 he completed his degree at Stanford. So by nineteen fifty six, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.000 the video recorder goes into production. So this is a 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.360 big deal and Dolby, I think his name is even 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.559 on one of the patents, at least one of the patents. Yeah, 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:28.600 this is Ampex's specific video record. Yes, and it's the 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.120 first to go into production. So Dolby goes to then 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.400 he applies and is accepted to go to Cambridge University 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.760 to work towards a PhD in physics. Um. He would 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.520 finally receive that in nineteen sixty one. Yeah, and uh, 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:45.360 and of course you know, obviously PhD in physics, he's 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.000 looking at acoustics, right, that was his main focus. No, 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.040 that's not his main focus. His main focus actually was 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.400 an X rays, long wavelength X rays. He was, yeah, 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.160 he was. He was convinced that this was what he 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.080 really was going to do for the rest of his life. 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.440 He was going to work and experiments and build things 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.400 that worked with X rays. Apparently at the time very 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.800 popular guy in Cambridge, partially because he had access to 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.560 professional recording equipment, and there were a lot of musical 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:15.480 groups in the area that wanted to be able to 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.800 record stuff, but they didn't have access to professional recording 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.280 equipment and you would get these really poor recordings. So 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.959 he started getting invited to all sorts of events and 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.160 he would have people over at his place to play music. 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.120 Not keep in mind this is you know, this is 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.320 great stuff for Dolbie who loves music. You know, this 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:39.680 is again him continuing this, uh, this keen interest in music. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.240 So I'm sure he found it to be a wonderful 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.120 time of his life. Oh sure. He was also making 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.280 a big impact on the community in general. He around 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.360 the same time was consulting for the UK's atomic energy authorities, 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.320 so getting some good stuff on his resume. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.840 I know this for someone who was interested in making 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.960 the first video recorder, he's already branching out quite a 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.440 bit by this time. Also in nineteen sixty two, he 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:09.240 meets Dagmar ballmert Uh in Cambridge and she would become 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.160 the love of his life. I mean, every report I 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.000 ever read about the two of them talking very sweet, 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.480 talked about how parties they were always right there, you know, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.680 backing each other up, and they they complemented one another 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.600 in various ways. So she was actually from Germany. She 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.760 was in Cambridge for a summer program when they met. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.679 And the rest is, they say, is history. We'll we'll 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:36.760 talk more about them a little bit later on to um. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.800 But then in nineteen sixty three, really cool. Yeah, don'll 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.880 be read about this opportunity in a newspaper for the 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.800 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization a k a. 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.760 UNESCO as most people would know about it. Um to 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.839 to go to India and help consult to to build 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.440 up a little bit more of a kind of infrastructure, Yeah, 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:03.080 scientific laboratory in structures, specifically in the Punjab region which 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.080 is known as a very culturally rich area. And he 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.679 spent two years there. And while he was doing that, 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.600 he continued to be really interested in creating equipment that 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.640 would be allowed to allow you to make high fidelity 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.840 audio recordings. Well, he had brought one of those professional 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.160 level Ampex I think it was the Ampex six hundred 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.400 tape recorders along with him, and UH would would invite 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.480 musicians to complay at his house so that he could 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:33.240 experiment with recordings and UH and he started to really 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:37.720 be bothered by something that is inherent in magnetic tape 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.640 recordings analog recordings, which is that you get this hiss sound, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.040 particularly if you're playing the tape at lower speeds. And 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.120 we'll talk more about that as well, because in nineteen 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:53.760 sixty five, once he had concluded his two year stint 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.800 with Unesco, he decided to go back to London. There 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.280 was a dressmaker factory. I assume it was a factory 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:05.559 for dresses, not for dressmakers. I think they actually built dressmakers. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:09.040 I think the robotics wasn't quite it's advanced at the time, 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.160 I don't think so. Yeah, he rented essentially what was 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.280 a corner in an old factory and created Dolby Laboratories. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.040 He was using twenty dollars in startup money, which was 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.959 what he had saved plus borrowed from other folks, and 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.560 it had a grand total of four employees when it 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.560 first started. And their first product that they were working 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.920 on was something called Signal to Noise stretchers. Now that's 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.480 the technical name for what Dolby created. However that they 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.320 are to this day called Dolby's. Yeah, in the industry 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.520 they're called Dolby's And it didn't take very long for 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.199 that to happen. So the whole point of signal to 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.520 noise stretcher, it kind of comes in the name signal 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.920 to noise. So if you think of something that's been 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.520 recorded to magnetic tape, the signal is whatever it was 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.600 you were trying to record, right, Noise is noise, it's 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.439 stuff you don't want, it's artifacts, it's it's static. Yeah, 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.760 it distracts from what you were trying to capture. So 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.839 if your goal is to create a recreation of the 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.200 moment that a sound was created, then you want to 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.920 reduce that noise as much as possible. And so this 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:20.040 was a method really of recording and playing back stuff 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.320 so that you would reduce that noise so that it 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.360 was inaudible, it was unnoticeable. And we'll talk about how 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.680 he did that in the second half of this of 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.240 this episode. But anyway, this was, you know, really meant 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.040 to be kind of a side project. It was meant 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.760 to be the thing that allowed him to make, you know, 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.000 to fund the other things he was going to do, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.920 specifically X ray experimentation. But as it turns out, don't 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.520 be hit on something that a lot of people found 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.640 really fascinating and valuable and it took over his life. 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:59.160 Well even even at the time, very high quality media 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.440 like a like an LP, like a record. Um, we're 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.480 recorded from a master tape, a master magnetic tape. So 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.840 this impacted a huge segment of a few different industries. 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.400 Oh sure, if your master tape has a hiss on it, 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.920 then that hiss gets transmitted to every other copy that 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.560 you make. Right, So if you're able to create a 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.800 system where you remove that hiss so that you have 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:26.080 the highest quality master tape, then whenever you are making 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.360 a new copy, then you are there across your copying 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.480 the hiss as well. Yeah. So if you if you 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:34.440 can get rid of the hiss, that's awesome. And that's 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.320 why it ended up being such a big deal. Um, 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.320 And so early on it was really focusing mostly on 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:46.280 on studio level quality, right we're talking professional recording studios, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.080 not something that you would find in your average the 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.960 playback device that a consumer would have right right right there. 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:58.080 Their first customer was Decca Records. Yeah, yeah, and ended 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:02.520 up being a pretty import customer. So Decca Records they 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:04.440 come up and they say they want to use the 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:08.440 Dolby System on a series of recordings made by Vladimir 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:13.240 Ashkenazi of Mozart Piano Concertos, which you know already it's 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.320 speaking to Dolby's heart, and so Dolby says that, uh, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.680 you know, he realized that the noise reduction, which he 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.800 thought was gonna be that little side project was going 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.480 to become, uh, the main thing he worked on for 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.520 the at least the foreseeable future. So nineteen sixty six, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:35.960 Dolby Mary's Dagmar So uh, they end up eventually having 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.720 two children, Tom and David. Tom is a novelist and 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.160 a journalist and editor, and David sits on the board 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.880 of directors for Dolby Labs. So they're both very successful. Um. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.360 In nineteen sixty eight, Dolby is convinced by a man 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.480 named Henry Class, who at that time was president of 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.560 the k l H Research and Development Corporation, to create 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.560 a consumer version of his signal to noise stretcher technology. 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.360 All right, because up until this point it had all 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:06.800 been these these really high end, pretty expensive versions for 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:11.520 for that professional studio that for doing like doing those 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.840 master tapes, right, it was it was meant as a 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.960 as an industry thing. So it was you know, originally 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.520 Dolby was thinking that his stuff that he was working on, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.080 it would trickle down to consumers, but in a way 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.000 that the consumer would never notice, or in a way 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:29.920 that the consumer would never have any direct participation in. Yeah, exactly, 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.440 because because you know, the consumer would be able to 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.840 enjoy the benefits by playing something and not hearing that 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:38.760 sounds better than that other thing, right, but they wouldn't 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:43.480 be able to create their own stuff. Right well, Claus 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.600 ends up saying to to Dolby that, hey, you should 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.520 really make a consumer version of this. Dolby says, well, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.639 there's not really a market for it. I can't see 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.080 consumers jumping at this. So then what Clus does is 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.640 something kind of sneaky to convince Dolby otherwise. He goes 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:00.240 back and he tells some of his engineers, hey, eyes, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.560 let's kind of reverse engineer this. Take Dolby's Type A 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:08.280 what would eventually be called the Type A Dolby's um 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.720 and reverse engineer so that we can make a consumer 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.720 level of our own. They do that. He then takes 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:16.120 that to Dolby and says, look at what I did. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:19.040 I took your stuff and I made a cheaper version 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.440 for consumers. Someone else is gonna do that and they're 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:24.199 gonna beat you to the market, so you should do 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:28.040 it first. And Dolby says, huh, how about that. You're right, 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.560 I should do that, And so Dolby that goes to 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.320 create a consumer version of his signal to noise stretchers 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.960 called Type B. So Type A is for the professional studios, 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.760 it's it's more sophisticated, it covers a greater range of sounds, 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:44.840 and we'll go over that in the second half. To 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:50.280 Type B is less expensive, more limited. But then for 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:55.160 your average consumer it was perfectly right, unless unless you're 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:56.879 an expert in the field and have an extremely good 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.200 year and etcetera, etcetera. Was basically fine, and then they're 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:03.959 on Dolby Labs would end up releasing updates. They had 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.280 a Type C come out that was a more sophisticated version, 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.760 and then eventually they had a spectral recording which was 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.240 an even more sophisticated version of the same basic approach. 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.399 Class would wind up continuing to to interact with Delby 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.199 in this industry. Yeah, he ends up creating a company 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.919 called Advent Corporation, which would produce the first consumer cassette 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.439 deck that had the Dolby technology in it. Now that 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:29.840 wasn't the first one that was a consumer product. The 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:32.760 first consumer probuct was real to real deck. So this 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.560 is before cassettes really had had started to become a thing. 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.119 But real to real recorders. If you were, you know, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.399 an amateur musician or even a professional musician, but you 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.040 want to record your own stuff, then this is the 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:47.560 kind of technology you were using at the time. So 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:52.040 nineteen seventy one that's when Dolby Labs begins to experiment 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:55.760 by going outside of just the audio recording industry. There's 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.320 still very much it's still audio centric, but they're looking 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.760 at an other industry that they can impact, and that 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.320 that was movies. And this would be this would be 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.360 a huge, huge player in in a Delby's personal success 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.960 and and be just the film industry. Yeah, so they're 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.679 looking at making movies sound match the quality of the 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.920 images because uh and Lauren, I saw that you you 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.840 pulled this into the notes as a perfect example. The 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.800 problem was that movies at that time we're relying on 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.520 the same basic sound systems that have been developed decades earlier. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.520 Oh yeah, there had been so many innovations in um 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.680 in film quality itself over the past, of the recent past, 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.399 of of the nineteen sixties and fifties, but really like 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.560 gone with the wind was the industry standard of audio production. 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.360 And that had happened thirty five or forty years previously, right, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.480 So Dolby ends up looking into creating a system that 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.800 would make much more clear, crisp sound for movies. Uh. 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.760 And so the first home that gets released that has 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.639 the Dolby treatment to it is a little film called 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.560 Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange and Oh, my Drew gees if 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.119 you don't vitty, well what I say, things changing s 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.480 scory these days and people quick to forget. Just remember 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.320 that without this, our movies wouldn't sound nearly as good. 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.800 And here here's the reason why Dolby was so influential, 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.720 really early early on, because not only did it work, 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:32.360 but it wasn't expensive for theaters to incorporate into their systems. 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.520 Like this is this is not surround sound we're talking 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:37.000 about here. This is just the sound quality. Yeah, this 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.880 is just the clarity, removing that hiss, because the same 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.719 hiss was apparent in uh in film as it was 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.480 in yeah, in magnetic tapes. So this was a way 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:49.679 of being able to create this, this crisp sound that 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.760 theaters didn't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.240 to fit. Yeah, they didn't have to do that. So 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.719 it ended up becoming an industry standard because it worked 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.280 and it was cheap. And when it works and it's 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:04.800 cheap and becomes a standard, that means you have a 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:10.560 constant supply of customers. So Dolby had struck gold with this. 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:12.919 This was going to end up being one of the 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.480 biggest businesses for Dolby moving forward, because you had an 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:22.400 entire industry dependent upon that that particular methodology to make 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:24.920 movies sound good. And it became one of those things 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.800 where if you saw that the movie incorporated Dolby Sound, 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:31.600 you knew you were in for a special treat. We'll 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:34.720 be back to talk more about Dolby and just a moment, 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:45.040 but first let's take a quick break, all right, getting 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:49.840 back to ray Dolby. So he was already seeing success 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:54.160 in audio, uh well, audio hardware, both on the on 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.199 the the professional side and on the consumer side. He 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.440 was starting to see success in the motion picture industry. Um, 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:02.840 and then it starts to work on some other stuff 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:07.240 for movies. In nineteen uh a lot of things happened. 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.359 First of all, he relocated the headquarters of Dolby Labs. 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:12.639 It had been in London, as we had said earlier, 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.679