Dolby Surround

Dolby Surround was the earliest consumer version of Dolby's multichannel analog film sound decoding format Dolby Stereo. It was introduced to the public in 1982 during the time home video recording formats (such as Betamax and VHS) were introducing Stereo and HiFi capability. The term Dolby Surround is used so as not to confuse theater surround (Dolby SR, which has four channels of audio) with home stereo, which has only two. Dolby Surround is the earliest domestic version of theatrical Dolby Stereo. The term also applies to the encoding of material in this sound format.

Technical details

When a Dolby Stereo/Dolby Surround soundtrack is produced, four channels of audio information (left, center, right, and surround) are matrix-encoded into only two channels. The surround information is carried on stereo sources such as VHS-HiFi, TV, DVDs, 35mm theatrical print optical soundtracks, or television broadcasts from which it can be decoded by a processor to recreate the original Dolby Stereo/Dolby Surround (left, center, right, and surround) mix. Without the decoder, the information still plays in standard stereo or mono.

Dolby Surround 7.1

Dolby Surround 7.1 is a sound system by Dolby Laboratories which delivers theatrical 7.1 surround sound to movie-goers. It adds two new channels to current Dolby Digital 5.1. The first film to feature Dolby Surround 7.1 was 2010's Toy Story 3 by Disney and Pixar. There are 6,000 locations capable of presenting Dolby Surround 7.1 films worldwide as of February 2015.

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