The Sound of the ’90s Cinema Boom
DTS emerged in the early 1990s as one of the three major players, alongside Dolby Digital and SDDS, in the revolution of digital cinema sound. The company made a spectacular debut with its technology featured on Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jurassic Park in 1993. The DTS system promised higher fidelity sound and became a hallmark of the big-budget, spectacle-driven films of the decade.
The Technical Difference: Sound on Disc
The key innovation of the original DTS theatrical system was its method of storing the audio data. Unlike Dolby Digital, which optically encoded its digital soundtrack directly onto the 35mm film print, DTS stored the 5.1 channel audio on a separate set of CD-ROMs. A timecode track printed on the filmstrip was read by the projector, which then kept the external CD-ROM player in perfect synchronization with the picture. The primary argument for this system was that it allowed for a higher bitrate (less compression) for the audio, as it was not limited by the small amount of physical space available on the film print itself. This often resulted in a sound that was perceived by audiences as louder and more dynamic.
Evolution to Modern Formats
As cinema transitioned from film to digital projection, the need for the CD-ROM system became obsolete. DTS evolved its technology to meet the new standards. In the home theater market, it became a major force with codecs like DTS-HD Master Audio, a lossless format found on most Blu-ray and 4K UHD discs. More recently, DTS developed DTS:X, an object-based immersive audio format that allows sound to be placed and moved anywhere in a three-dimensional space, competing directly with Dolby Atmos.