San Francisco—May 23, 2005
Dolby Launches Dolby Digital Cinema in Theatres Worldwide with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB) announced today the
commercial launch of its Dolby® Digital Cinema system in select cinemas around
the world with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. As the final chapter
to the Star Wars saga, this film is the first theatrical release to leverage
Dolby’s digital cinema product offering. Theatres in Berlin, London, Los
Angeles, New York, Paris, and San Francisco, among others, have installed the
Dolby Digital Cinema system to present Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the
Sith. In addition, Lucasfilm Ltd. selected the Dolby Digital Cinema system for
the movie’s Los Angeles and New York premieres, key industry screenings, and the
London Leicester Square event.
Dolby’s latest innovation, Dolby Digital Cinema, is a system designed to enhance
the moviegoing experience. It is a comprehensive, reliable digital cinema
solution that provides theatres with the technology to store and decode digital
files, and then deliver pristine digital movies to the big screen.
Continuing its successful tradition of introducing technological innovations for
cinemas in conjunction with Star Wars film releases, Dolby brings to market its
digital cinema solution to provide the highest quality digital cinema experience
for Revenge of the Sith. In 1977, Dolby teamed with Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth
Century Fox to introduce multichannel Dolby Stereo sound with Star Wars Episode
IV: A New Hope, and in 1999, Dolby and Skywalker Sound, a division of Lucasfilm
Ltd., codeveloped Dolby Digital Surround EX™ for the release of Star Wars
Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
“We’re pleased to be working again with Lucasfilm Ltd. as our latest technical
offering is commercially launched in theatres to advance the cinematic
experience for movie fans worldwide,” said Tim Partridge, General Manager and
Senior Vice President, Professional Division, Dolby Laboratories. “Digital
cinema is the next big advancement in the motion picture industry, and it will
greatly impact the way films are created, distributed, and presented to
consumers.”
The Dolby Digital Cinema system has been engineered from the ground up for
real-world projection booths. It offers superb picture quality, simplified
operation, and outstanding reliability, plus the highest level of anti-piracy
security in the business. Meeting all the technical specifications of an open
architecture system as put forth by the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), Dolby
Digital Cinema is designed to enable exhibitors to make a smooth transition to
digital.
Dolby Digital Cinema: System Components
The three major components of the Dolby Digital Cinema presentation system are
designed to work seamlessly to provide reliability, flexibility, adaptability,
and system security. At the core of the Dolby Digital Cinema system is the Dolby
Show Player. It contains a precision image decoder designed specifically for
high-accuracy display on the cinema screen. Image quality is superb, and the
custom design supports higher data rates than other image decoders. The Dolby
Show Store software can store up to ten hours of digital content for playback
through the Dolby Show Player.
The Dolby Show Manager gives exhibitors advanced control over scheduling and
playback via a user-friendly screen-based interface. It is fully extensible from
single screen digital installations to complete complexes, and can even control
film-only as well as digital and hybrid screens.
