Interview: Dolby Theatre undergoes transformations to hold Oscars

The Dolby Theatre, where the 88th Oscars Awards Ceremony was held Sunday night, underwent some transformations before the big show in order to present a fabulous feast for both eyes and ears, according to Dolby authorities.

Known as the home of the Oscars, Dolby is not only the name of the theater where the awards ceremony is broadcasted, but also stands for Dolby Laboratories, a major participant in the production of the show, starting its assistance in sound broadcast of the Academy Awards in 2002.

"The Dolby Theatre for the Oscars is probably the most significant transformation that we do in a year," Curt Behlmer, senior vice president of Dolby Laboratories, told Xinhua.

"The venue itself is a showcase of our technology. I think we've raised the bar in terms of the quality of the presentation, both in terms of sound and image," Behlmer said.

A crew of 20 spent three days moving out tons of speakers, rigging and other equipment for rebuilding to accommodate Hollywood's big show.

With special lighting, set pieces and decorations, the theater presents "a complete package" as a venue for the Oscars, he said.

Built in 2001 and formerly named the Kodak Theatre, it was renamed as the Dolby Theatre in 2013. In 2002, the Oscars were first broadcasted in high definition form with Dolby Audio 5.1.

"We were here to help both the network as well as the Academy transit to what was a pretty new format in both picture and in sound," said Steven Venezia, senior director of Dolby Laboratories. "At that point in time, that was a pretty big step to take," he said.

The 3,400-seat theater is equipped with the most advanced sound, light and image technologies from Dolby, and has the best sound system ever, including 215 top-rate speakers and 285 channels of power amplification.

This is the 14th year that Dolby engineers have helped ensure quality sound for broadcast of the Academy Awards show, making the estimated 1.2 billion television viewers feel as if they were actually attending the show in person.

Dolby and its engineers have won 12 Academy Awards for their technical achievement. Throughout years of cooperation with the Academy Awards, Dolby has maintained close ties with films which have either won or were nominated for Oscars.

For the past 38 years, all Oscar-nominated films in the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories were released with Dolby technologies. Endi