The September 1996 Detroit Section meeting was held jointly with the Detroit Section of the Audio Engineering Society. It was held at the studios of WKBD-TV in Southfield, Michigan, and was attended by 43 members and guests.
Jim Hilson of Dolby Laboratories started by giving an overview of the company and a history of Dolby processing, including noise-reduction and surround applications. He went on to explain the development of Dolby Surround for the home market and Dolby Pro Logic for theatrical use, and outline some of the new uses for surround, including car audio, video games and computer sound.
Of particular interest to the broadcasters among the audience was the discussion of surround techniques for television sound, including the importance of having a good surround monitoring setup at the audio control point and placement of speakers at the monitoring location. With the advent of DVD, which will bring high-quality sound directly to the home, and the proliferation of surround-encoded programming, both network and syndicated, broadcasters must be aware of the marketplace and take steps to assure that they are delivering the best audio that they can.
The program concluded with a question-and-answer session.