Dolby Launches the Next-Generation Cinema Experience

Dolby Cinema signature entrance. (Photo: Dolby)

SAN FRANCISCO--()--Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (NYSE: DLB) today announced Dolby Cinema™, a branded premium cinema offering for exhibitors and moviegoers that combines spectacular image and sound technologies with inspired design to make every visit a completely captivating cinematic event.

“Dolby has applied decades of research and development to deliver a sight and sound experience to Dolby Cinema that will transport audiences into the story like never before,” said Kevin Yeaman, President and CEO, Dolby Laboratories. “Dolby Cinema will be the most engaging way for moviegoers to watch the newest releases.”

Dolby Cinema begins with the filmmaker’s vision—using the full storytelling capabilities Dolby offers in image and sound production to transform the way movies are made. Before a movie is played in a Dolby Cinema, audiences will step into an experience designed to deliver the full impact of the filmmaker’s work. Combined with state-of-the-art image, sound, and acoustic capabilities, the movie comes alive to deliver cinema in its purest form.

Dolby Cinema will feature the Dolby Vision™ projection system, which uses state-of-the-art optics and image processing to deliver high dynamic range with enhanced color technology that has been praised by filmmakers for its amazing contrast, high brightness, and color range that more closely matches what the human eye can see. With Dolby Vision, the blacks are truly black, colors are vibrant, and the contrast ratio far exceeds that of any other image technology on the market today. The result is a richer, more detailed viewing experience that delivers strikingly vivid and realistic images that make viewers feel like they are in the movie’s world. The first Dolby Vision projectors and titles for theatrical exhibition are expected in 2015.

Early Dolby Cinema locations, installed in collaboration with exhibitor partners around the globe, will be equipped with the most advanced high-brightness laser projection technology available today with 4K, high-frame-rate 2D and Dolby® 3D capabilities. When Dolby Vision content becomes available, the Dolby Cinema laser projection systems will be replaced with Dolby Vision projection systems. Dolby Cinema will also feature the award-winning Dolby sound technology, Dolby Atmos®. Dolby Atmos moves audio around the theatre, even overhead, with amazing richness and depth. The lifelike sounds of music, people, and things flow all around the theatre in sync with the action to create a more immersive and moving experience.

The design of the cinema itself was created to set a mood and draw audiences deeper into the story. The Dolby Cinema design can be customized to the exhibitors’ needs with a select set of features including a signature entrance and a dynamic audiovisual pathway that provide a new canvas for studio creatives to begin telling their story before the show begins. Additional features may include a wall-to-wall-to-ceiling screen, atmospheric lighting, and faceted acoustic panels designed to enhance the sound quality and heighten the sense of immersion. In addition, all Dolby Cinema locations will undergo a sophisticated visual and acoustic room treatment perfectly tuned for a premium cinematic experience.

The first Dolby Cinema sites will be located at the newly constructed JT Cinemas complex in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and the UCI/Cinesa La Maquinista complex in Barcelona, Spain. Additional exhibitor partners will be announced as installation plans are completed.

About Dolby Cinema

Dolby Cinema delivers the total cinema experience. It combines powerful image and sound technologies with inspired cinema design to make every visit a completely captivating cinematic event.

Dolby Cinema will include Dolby Vision—a state-of-the-art authoring and playback imaging technology that enables the cinema to bring the story alive onscreen. Outfitted with Dolby Atmos, a Dolby Cinema transports audiences into the movie with breathtakingly real sound that fills the cinema and flows all around them.

When these technologies are combined with the sophisticated Dolby Cinema design, everything comes together to pull moviegoers more deeply into the story and transform their visit into an event. For more information, please visit the Dolby Cinema web page.

About Dolby Vision

Dolby Vision delivers a dramatically different visual experience—astonishing brightness, incomparable contrast, and captivating color—that brings entertainment to life.

Even though most movies are captured and recorded using technology that produces the colors and brightness of real life, much of that richness is lost by the time moviegoers get to watch. That’s because current cinema color-grading standards are based on the limitations of the current projection technologies and require that the content be altered to match their display performance—dramatically reducing the range of colors, brightness, and contrast.

Dolby Vision changes that, giving creative teams the freedom to use the full gamut of colors, peak highlights, greater brightness, and amazing contrast, with the confidence that those will be reproduced faithfully on cinema screens that feature Dolby Vision.

About Dolby Atmos

Introduced in April 2012, Dolby Atmos has been embraced by all the major Hollywood studios, 11 Academy Award® winning directors, and 23 Academy Award winning sound mixers, among others. More than 800 Dolby Atmos screens have been installed or committed to in more than 40 countries with more than 250 exhibitor partners. More than 200 movies from 17 different countries have been or are scheduled to be released with Dolby Atmos sound since the first movie debuted in June 2012.

Dolby Atmos has received technical achievement awards from both the Hollywood Post Alliance and the Cinema Audio Society. As the inventors of the only object-based audio format used in the cinema today, Dolby is working closely with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers in driving adoption of standards for object-based audio.

For the latest list of Dolby Atmos titles, visit dolby.com/atmosmovies. To learn more about Dolby Atmos, visit dolby.com/Atmos.

About Dolby Laboratories

Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB) creates audio, video, and voice technologies that transform entertainment and communications in mobile devices, at the cinema, at home, and at work. For nearly 50 years, sight and sound experiences have become more vibrant, clear, and powerful in Dolby®. For more information, please visit www.dolby.com.

Dolby, Dolby Atmos, and the double-D symbol are registered trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. Dolby Cinema and Dolby Vision are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. “Academy Award®” is a trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. S14/28433 DLB-G

Contacts

Dolby Laboratories
Joshua Gershman, +1-415-645-5611
joshua.gershman@dolby.com

Release Summary

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. today announced Dolby Cinema™, a branded premium cinema offering for exhibitors and moviegoers that combines spectacular image and sound technologies.

Contacts

Dolby Laboratories
Joshua Gershman, +1-415-645-5611
joshua.gershman@dolby.com