Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Introducing Digital Sound in Cinemas and the Dawn of the Digital Cinema Revolution

As we all know, motion picture film has been replaced by digital technology. This transition was long predicted and took place over several years. Some may be surprised to learn that the transition actually began 40 years ago when Boston native John F Allen teamed up with PLITT THEATERS as well as the Walt Disney Studios and presented Walt Disney's classic film FANTASIA with a new digital soundtrack
in a commercial theater for the first time ever. Our speaker is JOHN F. ALLEN who will tell us how this was done some ten years before it was expected to happen and the immediate effect it had on Cinema exhibition.

PRESENTER: (Biography Link) A History of the HPS-4000® Sound System (hps4000.com) John F. Allen is a native of Newton, Massachusetts. He is a 1973 graduate of Northeastern University, where he attended both the engineering and business colleges. In 1976, Mr. Allen designed and built a new sound system for the Hatch Memorial Shell, located on Boston’s Esplanade. The installation was one of the largest stereo systems ever built in New England. On the Fourth of July,1976, he was responsible for the sound at the Boston Pops concert in honor of America’s bicentennial. The live audience of over 400,000 was listed in the “Guiness Book of Records” as the largest in concert music history. Mr. Allen also provided sound feeds that were broadcast around the world via satellite and was awarded a special commendation by the President of the United States. John Allen has been most active in the motion picture industry. He founded HIGH PERFORMANCE STEREO™ in 1980, developing the HPS-4000 motion picture sound system, the first major improvement in theatre playback systems in decades. Two of Mr. Allen’s digital sound installations in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. made cinema history when they were selected to present Walt Disney’s classic masterpiece FANTASIA in full Digital Stereo. He is the author of numerous articles and invited papers on the subjects of antenna systems as well as both concert and motion picture sound. In 1981 Mr. Allen began what became the industry’s longest running series of articles on the subject of sound in BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE. He is a frequent lecturer at motion picture industry technical seminars as well as local colleges. A member of the Boston Audio Society, a lifetime member of the Audio Engineering Society and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Mr. Allen is a former Chairman of the Boston Section of the AES.