In the early days of movies, movie theaters were owned and operated by movie studios.  Since studios were interested in having their films exhibited at their best, they installed the latest in film and projection equipment, and maintained a team of theater technicians who traveled to each of their theaters several times a year to maintain their systems.  In the 1950s, film studios were forced to divest their theaters to other owners not connected with film studios.  The quality of projection and sound was much less of a concern to these new theater owners, and maintenance was viewed as less necessary.  This effectively “froze” theater sound to the state it was in in the early 1950s, and it stayed that way until the introduction of Dolby Stereo in the early 1970.  However, Dolby Stereo was not widely installed, and most theaters of the late 1970s and early 1980s still showed films in glorious “Academy Mono” sound of the 1950s.

THX started at Lucasfilm Ltd. (yes, the Star Wars people), as an effort to improve sound and picture presentation in movie theaters.  George Lucas was frustrated by the way typical theaters presented his films, in particular the sound tracks.  Lucas has stated that he feels 65% of the film experience is the soundtrack, and built soundtracks with incredible detail and nuance, most of which was lost in the poor quality theaters of the time.   Lucasfilm hired audio engineer Tomlinson Holman to address the problem, and the outgrowth of his research was the THX Theater Sound System.  Seeing a film in a THX theater in the mid 1980s was a revelation—every detail and nuance layered into the sound track was revealed in all its glory, for the first time outside of the dubbing stage.  In the mid 1980s, as home videotapes became hifi and stereo, Lucas was again frustrated by the poor quality home video sound systems, which at the time were the 4” speakers built into TVs.  Again, Tom Holman addressed the problem, and in the early 1990s, Home THX was introduced.  For the first time, THX Theater Sound could be heard in the home.

 Simply, THX is a set of performance standards required for accurate reproduction of the original creative work.  They have been written for commercial theaters, home theaters and home theater components.  THX standards have been extended to include DVDs, video games, projection screens, computer sound systems, and most recently auto sound systems.  Home Theaters can be built and certified to meet THX performance standards that include sound, picture, noise and acoustics.  Though each item requires different standards, the goal of THX is to try to insure that what the consumer experiences is as close in quality to what the creators experience when the product was made as possible.  So a THX DVD contains material of excellent technical quality.  A THX speaker system in a THX home theater driven by a THX receiver has the capability of presenting material in a way that closely matches what the creators intended. 

 In the evolutionary chain of entertainment technology, the next step is TMH.  Please see our “What is TMH?” page for details.

 Platinum Home Theaters provides THX Certified equipment, and has two THX Certified Home Theater Technicians on staff to assist you with theater design, equipment specification, and installation.  Both have received extensive technical training from THX, and have passed certification exams.