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Dolby Laboratories

Dolby Laboratories, Inc.
Public
Traded as DLB
Industry Audio encoding/compression
Audio noise reduction
Founded May 18, 1965; 51 years ago (1965-05-18)
London, England, UK
Founder Ray Dolby
Headquarters Civic Center, San Francisco, California, United States
Number of locations
30+ (2014)
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Peter Gotcher
(Executive chairman)
Kevin Yeaman
(President and CEO)
Products Dolby ScreenTalk,
Dolby Media Producer,
Dolby Lake Processor
Revenue IncreaseUS$909.67 million (2013)
IncreaseUS$361.99 million (2013)
IncreaseUS$264.30 million (2013)
Total assets IncreaseUS$1.96 billion (2013)
Total equity IncreaseUS$1.74 billion (2013)
Number of employees
1,867 (2015)
Subsidiaries Audistry,
Via Licensing
Website www.dolby.com

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.

Dolby Labs was founded by American Ray Dolby (1933-2013) in the United Kingdom in 1965. He moved the company to the United States (San Francisco, California) in 1967. 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 worked more on companding systems and introduced Type B in 1968.

Dolby also sought to improve film sound. As the corporation's history explains:

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), 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.


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