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THX plans new home theater initiative

THX wants your digital media to give your player instructions to tweak settings for playback.

The company, which was started to help standardize movie theaters so movies would sound the way their creators intended, is hoping that their new technology, code named Blackbird, will improve the viewer's home theater experience by automatically adjusting the picture and sound properties of home theater equipment based on instructions embedded in DVDs, CDs, video games, and even downloaded content.



"This is the most ambitious thing we've tried in a long time," said Robert Hewitt, the company's vice president of sales.

Currently THX's core business is certifying car and home audio systems, video games, high-end televisions and home projectors, and DVDs. A THX certification indicates that a given product will reproduce sound exactly the way it was meant to be heard.

To make a go of Blackbird, THX executives acknowledge they must first convince Hollywood studios and electronics makers to sign on to a new format, and that's never an easy task.

Source: CNet News

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 20 Jul 2007 8:24

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• 4 comments

• gallagher

  Quote:To make a go of Blackbird, THX executives acknowledge they must first convince Hollywood studios and electronics makers to sign on to a new format, and that's never an easy task."never an easy task"? Nah, easy as can be. How many different formats are the scumbags using right now?
  
  To standardize a format, now that is difficult. Then they might not be able to sell the same movie to the same person at least 5 different times in their life.

  20.7.2007 08:52 #1

• akaangus

  Great... I can see it now.
  
  THX vs. SonyAtracSoundsLikeItShould

  21.7.2007 21:39 #2

• ChromeMud

  Adjusting the picture would require a sensor on the TV to measure ambient light levels and adjusting the sound would also require a sound level meter to measure the acoustics generated by the room and the level to reduce distortion and echo.
  It takes an engineer or someone with knowledge to make the best of a setup and room,not some dumb compromising program on a disk to bring it upto the so-called THX spec.
  I used to have respect for THX but they are taking the piss now.

  23.7.2007 05:13 #3

• borhan9

  They want to bring out a new system when we already have the two new DVD formats out this may work if the work in conjunction with the two formats if not then it may fade away.

  23.7.2007 15:18 #4