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Dolby Laboratories, Inc. ('''Dolby Labs''') () is a company specializing in Audio Compression and Reproduction . HISTORY Dolby Labs was founded by Ray Dolby in England in 1965 . He moved the company to the United States in 1976 . The first product he made was ''Type A Dolby Noise Reduction '', a simple Compander . One of the features that set Dolby's compander apart was that it treated only the quiet sounds that would be masked by tape noise. Dolby marketed the product to record companies. Dolby was persuaded by Henry Kloss of KLH to manufacture a consumer version of his noise reduction. Dolby worked more on companding systems and introduced B-type in 1968 . Dolby did not manufacture consumer products outright; it License d the technologies to Consumer Electronics manufacturers. 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), which used Dolby noise reduction on all pre-mixes and masters, but a conventional optical sound track 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). In less than ten years, 6000 cinemas worldwide were equipped to use Dolby sound. Dolby reworked the system slightly for home use and introduced ''Dolby Surround'' and ''Dolby Pro Logic''. Dolby developed a digital Surround Sound Compression scheme for the cinema. Dolby Stereo Digital (now simply 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 didn't become widespread in the consumer market, partly because of extra hardware that was necessary 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 USA , DVD players, and many satellite-TV and cable-TV receivers. On February 17, 2005, the company became public, offering stock for sale on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DLB. On March 15, 2005, Dolby celebrated 40 Years of enhancing entertainment at the ShoWest 2005 Festival in San Francisco. TECHNOLOGIES
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