Archives for October 1996

San Francisco, CA. During August and September, Dolby Laboratories took orders for over 1,300 Dolby Digital film sound processors for immediate delivery. Over the last year more than 3,500 Dolby Digital units have been installed, bringing the total number of screens equipped for Dolby Digital to over 6,700.

“These record sales of our digital systems reflect the movement by the whole industry toward the adoption of Dolby Digital as the standard digital format,” said Dolby President Bill Jasper. “They also reflect the appeal of our new Model CP500 digital processor, whose features and cost-effectiveness have made it one of our most successful new products ever.”

During the fiscal year, Dolby also sold more than 5,800 analog film sound processors, bringing the number of Dolby equipped theatres around the world to more than 33,000.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Consumer electronics giant Philips Electronics entered a new era yesterday, as Cor Boonstra took over as Chairman and CEO, replacing Jan Timmer.

Boonstra has his work cut out for him, as he strives to build on the achievements of his predecessor. Timmer dragged Philips from the brink of financial disaster in the early 1990s, slashing the workforce by 60,000, to the current payroll of 250,000 worldwide, and turning the accountants’ red ink to black. Now Boonstra faces the challenge of continuing the Philips recovery as the firm enters the era of DVD and the Internet.

Alliances and cooperation will be vital to Philips in opening up new markets, and delivering new technologies such as DVD. Philips has suffered major losses in the 1980’s and early 1990’s by trying to strong-arm its own standards in the video recorder market, more recently with Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) and CD-Interactive (CD-I).

Boonstra worked for Unilever, and headed the U.S. Sara Lee Corp before joining Philips Electronics. He is the first Chairman of Philips to come in from outside, rather than moving up through the ranks. Insiders say that the 58-year old son of a grocery store owner is heavily committed to the bottom line, and creating profit for shareholders. He has a track record of energetic restructuring, which has led to speculation that he may walk in swinging a big cost-cutting axe.

New York, NY. At last night’s Emmy Awards ceremonies, The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized Sonic Solutions Inc. and the IEC/ISO standards organizations with awards for technical achievement.

The Academy gave the Emmy for Outstanding Technical Achievement to Sonic for its NoNOISE® process. The award cited the use of NoNOISE for the restoration of tens of thousands of recordings, movie and TV sound tracks. NoNOISE was the first digital sound restoration technology available commercially, introduced in 1986. Today it is used in every major recording market in the world.

The Engineering Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Technological Development went to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for their work in developing the MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and JPEG standards for coded and compressed representation of audio, video and still image data.

Sonic’s NoNOISE has made it possible for engineers of audio recordings and other media utilizing digital audio to greatly enhance the quality of recordings by removing unwanted noise while preserving underlying program material.

“Recognition of NoNOISE as a key digital production tool by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is very gratifying,” said Bob Doris, President of Sonic Solutions. “Audio technology is surging forward as bandwidth increases and new digital audio/video technologies explode on the scene. With NoNOISE, producers will be able to bring the best of the old into the new, digital production environment, enhancing the quality of analog source material in the process.”

Traditional analog audio restoration techniques can eliminate noise but usually leave the valuable program material muddy. NoNOISE applies proprietary digital signal processing algorithms that eliminate broadband background noise like tape hiss and record surface noise, as well as AC hum, HVAC buzz, camera whine and other such ambient noises.

It can also reduce distortion caused by overloads and dropouts, acoustical pops and clicks, transients caused by bad splices and channel breakup from wireless microphones, all without affecting the original source material.

Sonic’s NoNOISE is used by TV and radio stations, as well as film and music production studios around the world. Classic episodes of I Love Lucy, interviews edited for 60 Minutes, and tracks of many other popular TV shows, movies and music recordings utilize NoNOISE to enhance the quality of audio recordings.

NBC producers from Dateline used the technology to reconstruct unintelligible dialogue allegedly spoken by O.J. Simpson from a recording of a controversial 911 call made by Nicole Brown Simpson which was admitted as evidence in the Simpson trial.

MPEG compression is a scalable technology for delivering high quality audio and video programming to consumers by reducing the bandwidth necessary to carry the programming to homes and businesses across the globe.

Accepting the Emmy, President and CEO Sergio Mazza of ANSI (the U.S. body representing ISO/IEC) stated: “On behalf of the U.S. standards community, ANSI is pleased that ISO and IEC and their international standards have been recognized for the valuable role they play in the entertainment industry. We commend the participants of the ISO/IEC subcommittee for developing standards that provide the highest level of efficiency to the user.”

Miami, FL. The music industry organisation MIDEM, organizers of the huge annual industry contact event in Cannes, France, has announced a new event to cover the Latin American and Caribbean music market.

The first MIDEM Latin American and Caribbean Music Market will be held in Miami, Sept. 8 – 11, 1997. Like the Cannes event, MIDEM Miami will be a trade show and festival, with an expected attendance of 2,500, and performances by as many as 40 musical acts. MIDEM Cannes attracts thousands of music industry agents, publishers, musicians and executives looking to sign deals and negotiate rights worth millions of dollars.

“With its extraordinary bicultural atmosphere, Miami has become the very heart of the Latin entertainment industry,” said MIDEM CEO Xavier Roy at a news conference yesterday. “In Latin America and the Caribbean, music is more than a cultural phenomenon, it’s a way of life. The economic boom and ever younger population in Latin America has created a huge demand for this music.”