Adgully Exclusive | We work with right constituents: Dolby's Ashim Mathur

India is a market of strategic importance to Dolby. Given the tremendous opportunity for digital entertainment companies in this market, Dolby is firmly committed to enabling the success of customers and their partners in India.

Dolby has a long history in India beginning with founder Ray Dolby's appointment as a United Nations advisor to India in 1963. Today, Dolby technologies are standard in a wide range of entertainment platforms. Our technologies are used in virtually all standard definition Digital Versatile Disc, or DVD, players and personal computer DVD playback software, increasingly in digital televisions, set top boxes, portable media devices and in a wide array of consumer electronic products such as gaming systems and audio/video receivers. Movie theatres and broadcasters around the world use Dolby's products.

While chatting with Adgully, Ashim Mathur, Head of Marketing, Dolby at FICCI Frames 2012 shared some highlights about Dolby:

The marketing strategy for Dolby in India has been really straight and simple that whatever Dolby does now or in future would be on two pillars that are: education and experience. We need to educate the retailers as well our consumers as it is really tricky to explain the functions of Dolby as "Surround Sound". At theatres, "Surround Sound" is taken for granted, but at home people get really conscious.

As consumers increasingly enjoying their entertainment in a magnitude of ways, Dolby's technologies and services have also evolved to meet the increasing demand. Speaking about the content creation part of Dolby, Mathur said, "We don't create content but we help the content creators to create the way they have visualized. We provide them with tools and techniques to create the desired content.

From blockbuster movies to live streaming of concerts in cinema, from TV broadcast to on-demand online programming, Dolby's portfolio of products and distribution has evolved to a last extent. Amazingly though they are present with so many devices and technologies, Dolby do not manufacture anything. Commenting on the distribution network, he said, "We do not have a distribution channel. Instead we work with our distributors to assist them put our products on the retail stores etc."

Well, undoubtedly Dolby has changed the experience of viewing cinema at home and most people associate Dolby with stunning surround sound. What many do appreciate is the fact that Dolby has played an commendable role in changing and improving the cinema entertainment experience over the last four decades. Mathur says, "Dolby has changed the entire view about cinema entertainment. With Dolby Digital Cinema, the detail on-screen is pin sharp, with vibrant quality and incredible surround sound. With Dolby Surround 7.1, the action seems so real that audience feel they are a part of it. Some content creators have already adopted our format. To name a few, movies like Rockstar, Agent Vinod, Dum maro dum, Kahani etc were launched with this format and it is expected that slowly and slowly more and more content creators are accepting this format."

"We have always evolved and innovated the way movies can be viewed and brought amazing experience," he added. In the entertainment segment especially movies segment is vast. Dolby works perfectly for movies besides other segments. Mathur believes besides cinema, a segment of the entertainment market is that is huge, from content creation to playback side and it is really difficult to put-in numbers. He says, "We work across the board but with the right constituents."

Now with the changing demands, what with the demand for mobile entertainment having gone up and also the desire for high quality audio and video from laptops and mobile devices, Dolby, a recognized leader in audio technology, has been able to fulfill that demand and desire well. Mathur says, "We are committed to meet all the artistic needs. So whether you watch a movie in the theatre, you should be able to take that experience home or on any other devices like laptops and phones as well. We have been able to trap the need as well." Dolby has tried and has been able to deliver best audio experience in mobiles as well with their 5.1 channel audio and mass market music phones. Even forget about phones, one can connect the phone with HDMI and experience the same audio and surround sound on a TV set.

Mathur shared with us that Dolby is really excited to work with the format for phones and Laptops and believes that this is the best time to play with technologies as we are taking the shape and turn towards digitization and surround sound coming on. So it's like Dolby is "on the go". The days are gone when cinema and entertainment were just restricted to theatre.

Dolby has entered towards the world of Laptops and mobile devices and so speaking about the growth and expansion plans, Mathur said, "The future of mobile and laptops look really robust and vast, while broadcast and cinema domain is still evolving and taking and adopting new technologies. We would always be there to cater to the increasing and innovative demand."

Dolby works across the global entertainment industry in three principal ways:

First, Dolby offers products and services for content creators, such as studios and broadcasters, to encode content in Dolby's formats. Second, Dolby licenses its technology to consumer electronics manufacturers and software vendors so that consumers can enjoy the content that has been encoded in our proprietary formats. In so doing, Dolby develops and delivers innovations directly to consumer electronics manufacturers.

Third, Dolby works directly with standards bodies in an effort to have its formats adopted in their specifications to ensure a common standard across devices and to improve the overall consumer experience.

Dolby's technologies have marked their presence around the world and have created a standard for quality entertainment experience.