USING "THE" TECHNOLOGY

Dolby's 'Digital Plus' - Hits The Mark

Conversion to digital projection presents new business opportunities for cinemas. A few days ago I blogged on the movie program available to cinemas from the National Geographic Society.  Programming is also available from the NY Metropolitan Opera Company and there are and will be many others offering content to cinemas.

Amazon's Kindle Fire HD w/Digital Plus

Cinema exhibitors, however small, should take advantage of this alternative content (to movies) for expanding their customer base.  Adopting, and more importantly, using the new digital technology affords great opportunity for many businesses that were traditionally mainly  in the movie business.  Case in point: Dolby Laboratories.

Not content to rely solely on the audio or cinema industries to determine its future, Dolby has embraced digital technology and expanded it reach - developing new markets in which to expand and grow.

As audio quality took a back seat to HD displays on mobile devices - Dolby realized opportunity and jumped on it.  Last Thursday, Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire HD tablet with Dolby's new Digital Plus audio.  "Dolby's Digital Plus is every impressive, says, Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, "it will make audio the next battlefront in tablets as all of the current tablets have inferior sound." 

Dolby accomplished this feat by developing new software that is custom tuned for each mobile device being introduced with Digital Plus - making the downloading of the software as an application a non-starter.  Amazon, by incorporating Digital Plus into the Fire HD has "thrown down the gauntlet, this is a new level of differentiation and users will love it", says Bajarin.

Amazon exec, Dave Limp called Dolby Digital Plus "a perfect complement to the sound system we designed into the Kindle Fire.  Customers have told us they want great sound for movies, music, and games."
Dolby equates quality audio for mobile devices as following in the footsteps of its technology advances going from stereo, to theatre sound, to home audio systems.  To extend that to mobile devices was the next step. Digital Plus incorporates volume leveling, a surround virtualizer, and a dialog enhancer.

Dolby Laboratories (DLB) is publicly traded. At a current share price of $34.50 and given the potential to have its Digital Plus audio software included into every mobile device to be produced, it may be a terrific buy.

Best
Jim Lavorato
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