Here at G Style we’re able to see a lot of different things as it pertains to technology. On Feb 12th we were invited to a presentation at the Dolby Labs in Manhattan. It was a showcase of the next gen of up and coming office technology as well as home and theater technology. These showcases can go one way or another, boring or exciting and typically when going to these shows you can expect a lot of techie jargon that a select few tend to really understand. There’s a lot of things that you may or may not care about but you can appreciate in it’s importance and then you have finally the mind blowing payoff.
Dolby Vision
We had the fortune of being able to see the next-gen technology process for theater production and home TV in terms of what we see on screen. The presenter was one of the engineers behind the concepts and technology of Dolby Vision. As I said before there was a lot of technical jargon being thrown around and it came across as a lot to swallow when we heard how much goes into movie production and how the naked eye perceives color and images. We sat in a dark room with two TV sets side by side. One standard production level HDTV as it was referred to on the right and a Dolby Vision HDTV playing the same video simultaneously on the left. Instantly we saw the difference in both videos.
The differences were startling. The standard HDTV looked flat, washed out and almost colorless meanwhile the Dolby Vision television was bright and vibrant and jumped out of the screen. The presenter was explaining the large reason behind this was based mainly on how production companies and in some cases directors choose to deal with colors after a movie or film is shot. My understanding of it was this, basically a movie is shot as the eye sees it in all it’s color and it isn’t until it reaches the production studio and goes through the final stages of formatting that the colors are actually “dumped” for a variety of different reasons. It could be how the directors want the film to look for artistic purposes, it could be a formatting issue due to the size of the original film or any circumstance that goes into filmmaking. The bottom line is that we the viewer suffer a little bit as a result. Dolby is offering a way or better yet improving the way we see our content and it was evident in the presentation.
Dolby Mobile
Dolby has some very big plans in the near future. The presentation we attended also showcased some great new 360 degree audio technology for mobile devices rightfully called Dolby Mobile. We had some hands on with the actual technology itself and I was taken back. I’ve never really considered how much audio really plays a factor in what we watch and to hear everything as the ear would potentially hear it without it being noisy was impressive. It was a very short presentation but very much an interactive experience.
Dolby Glasses-Less 3D
Dolby had some 3D technology to show off as well. What we saw at the 3D presentation wasn’t fully ready for implementation to the public so it’s a little vague at the moment. They gave us a glimpse into their glasses less 3D TV screens and technology but not enough to where I can speak on it in depth. I’m not so sure how that will play out since I’ve never really been too excited about 3D with or without glasses. I’ve always found 3D technology as risky and even a bit weird but that doesn’t mean I’m not open to the idea of a technology that would change that point of view. We’ll see how this goes.
Conclusion
New technology is good, and it’s always good to see what comes out of it. Even if you don’t have any use for it or find it useful, it’s always interesting to know that companies are innovating. We the consumer are the ones who benefit ultimately. What Dolby showed us was their offering towards the future and they’re enthusiastic about it. I couldn’t help but be enthusiastic about it myself. You’ll see how good the future looks, literally.
