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Founded by Ray Dolby in 1965.1
Dolby Labs was founded by Ray Dolby (1933–2013) in London, England, in 1965. In the same year, he invented the Dolby Noise Reduction system, a form of audio signal processing for reducing the background hissing sound on cassette tape recordings. His first U.S. patent on the technology was filed in 1969, four years later. The method was first used by Decca Records in the UK. After this, other companies began purchasing Dolby's A301 technology, which was the professional noise reduction system used in recording, motion picture, broadcasting stations and communications networks. These companies include BBC, Pye, IBC, CBS Studios, RCA, and Granada.
He moved the company headquarters to the United States (San Francisco, California) in 1976. The first product Dolby Labs produced was the Dolby 301 unit which incorporated Type A Dolby Noise Reduction, a compander-based noise reduction system. These units were intended for use in professional recording studios.
Dolby was persuaded by Henry Kloss of KLH to manufacture a consumer version of his noise reduction. Dolby continued to work on companding systems and introduced Type B in 1968.
Dolby also sought to improve film sound. As the corporation's history explains:
Upon investigation, Dolby found that many of the limitations in optical sound stemmed directly from its significantly high background noise. To filter this noise, the high-frequency response of theatre playback systems was deliberately curtailed… To make matters worse, to increase dialogue intelligibility over such systems, sound mixers were recording soundtracks with so much high-frequency pre-emphasis that high distortion resulted.
The first film with Dolby sound was A Clockwork Orange (1971). The company was approached by Stanley Kubrick, who wanted to use Dolby's noise reduction system to facilitate the film's extensive mixing. The film went on to use Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, but a conventional optical soundtrack on release prints. Callan (1974) was the first film with a Dolby-encoded optical soundtrack. In 1975, Dolby released Dolby Stereo, which included a noise reduction system in addition to more audio channels (Dolby Stereo could actually contain additional center and surround channels matrixed from the left and right). The first film with a Dolby-encoded stereo optical soundtrack was Lisztomania (1975), although this only used an LCR (Left-Center-Right) encoding technique. The first true LCRS (Left-Center-Right-Surround) soundtrack was encoded on the movie A Star Is Born in 1976. In less than ten years, 6,000 cinemas worldwide were equipped to use Dolby Stereo sound. Dolby reworked the system slightly for home use and introduced Dolby Surround, which only extracted a surround channel, and the more impressive Dolby Pro Logic, which was the domestic equivalent of the theatrical Dolby Stereo. In 2005, Dolby's stereo 4-channel optical theater surround was inducted into the TECnology Hall of Fame, an honor given to "products and innovations that have had an enduring impact on the development of audio technology."
Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Stereo Digital (now called Dolby Digital) was first featured on the 1992 film Batman Returns. Introduced to the home theater market as Dolby AC-3 with the 1995 LaserDisc release of Clear and Present Danger, the format did not become widespread in the consumer market, partly because extra hardware was needed to make use of it, until it was adopted as part of the DVD specification. Dolby Digital is now found in the HDTV (ATSC) standard of the United States, DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers. Dolby developed a digital surround sound compression scheme for the TV series The Simpsons.
On February 17, 2005, the company became public, offering its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, under the symbol DLB. On March 15, 2005, Dolby celebrated its 40th anniversary at the ShoWest 2005 Festival in San Francisco.
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On January 8, 2007, Dolby announced the arrival of Dolby Volume at the International Consumer Electronics Show.
On June 18, 2010, Dolby introduced Dolby Surround 7.1, which added two rear surround channels to the 5.1 format. The first film to be released in this format was Pixar's Toy Story 3.
In April 2012, Dolby introduced Dolby Atmos, a new cinema technology adding overhead sound, first applied in Pixar's motion picture Brave. In the same year, Dolby bought the naming rights of Hollywood's Dolby Theatre, the venue of the annual Academy Awards ceremony. In July 2014, Dolby Laboratories announced plans to bring Atmos to home theater. The first television show to use the technology on disc was Game of Thrones.
On February 24, 2014, Dolby acquired Doremi Labs for $92.5 million in cash plus an additional $20 million in contingent consideration that may be earned over a four-year period.
In May 2015, Dolby reopened the Vine Theatre, Hollywood as a 70-seat showcase theater, known as Dolby @ Vine or Dolby Screening Room Hollywood Vine.
In May 2019, Dolby added Dolby Atmos to hundreds of newer songs in the music industry.
In May 2020, Dolby launched a developer platform, Dolby.io, aimed at providing developers self-service access to Dolby technologies through public APIs. It allows any person, organization, small and big, to integrate in their websites, apps, games, etc. features such as media enhancements and transcoding, spatial audio, high-quality video communication and low-latency streaming.
In May 2025, BBC Radio 4 broadcast Surrounded by Sound: Ray Dolby and the Art of Noise Reduction to mark Dolby Laboratories' 60th anniversary. This included interviews with his widow Dagmar and two of the first Dolby sound engineers, David Robinson and Ioan Allen (who still worked at the company), and Crimson Tide and Armageddon sound designer Midge Costin. A version of the programme was made in binaural sound.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dolby, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.9