Dolby rolls out new consumer, theater technology (photos)

At Dolby Laboratories' recent 2011 Surrounded event in San Francisco, the audio developer unveiled and demonstrated its sound and 3D innovations for both consumer items and theater presentations.

This diagram shows how the new Dolby 3D Filter Wheel installed inside new projectors filters rotating portions of the light spectrum to trick the eye into seeing 3D, with the appropriate glasses. Dolby says its new projection system increases light capacity and makes the 3D onscreen images brighter.

This diagram from Dolby's Surrounded conference shows the additions to the audio developer's theater setup, including the implementation of additional channels. Movies already utilizing 7.1 include "Cars 2" and "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

At Dolby's Surrounded conference, the audio developer demonstrated a new video technology, the Dolby Professional Reference Monitor, which is used for color grading and HD mastering of entertainment content. They showed clips from the recent Blu-ray release of Apocalypse Now, which was re-mastered using the monitor.

At Surrounded, Dolby demonstrated its new 3D glasses design with lighter, multilayer 3M filter lenses, better reduction of outside light, and integrated passive RFID tag technology.

Dolby unveiled new, smaller 3D glasses designed specifically for children at the company's Surrounded conference. The lighter glasses fit children more comfortably and include all the features of the adult sizes.

As demonstrated at Surrounded, Dolby’s Home Theater software lets you mix your own audio experience for your PC entertainment.