By the time surround sound was brought about in the 80s, Dolby was already a pretty well recognized brand and the Double D symbol associated with noise reduction on audio cassettes. And it's doubtful whether Dolby would have been around to bring Surround sound to market if it weren't for their success with tape NR.
Adults with disposable income introduced to Dolby Surround in the 80s for their home theater were still commonly using audio cassettes (no other recordable medium in the US really took off until CD-Rs - MiniDiscs had a small following, DAT even smaller and DCC failed completely (and probably just as well)) - so it's not even a later generation. However, it wasn't uncommon for a household to have multiple HiFi systems and maybe a Walkman or two - while Dolby Surround and home theater was comparatively less common.
Between cassette and surround sound there wasn’t much brand awareness for people who weren’t around for the era of tapes being popular.
As an 80s baby, I had no clue about Dolby tape technology, they are (to me) surround sound as that was becoming a consumer product around when Twister came out.
Twister the movie? That came out in 1996. You're off by about a decade and a half. Perhaps this is more that 1996 is around the time you were old enough to know/care about these things?
Dolby Surround was always a consumer product (in movie theaters the multichannel/surround system was called Dolby Stereo and was released in 1976) and was released in 1982 as a fully analog 3 to 2 channel down-mixing encoding technique. It was commonly used on VHS and Laserdisc releases throughout the 1980s and 90s. The upgraded Dolby Pro Logic system was released a few years later -- and home receivers with this capability like the Pioneer VSX line were pretty popular sellers in late 80s/90s. By the time Twister came out, Dolby Digital 5.1 aka AC-3 (which is still in common use today) was already in consumer laserdisc releases. Rapid uptake of Dolby Digital coincided with adoption of the DVD a few years later, since Laserdiscs were always a more niche/enthusiast/yuppie product (at least outside Japan).
If you were born in the 80s, yes, Dolby and it's Double D logo was already a well established and recognizable brand on movie credit rolls and movie posters well before you were born.
Yes, 96. As you say DVD caused rapid consumer adoption, so a new generation was learning about Dolby not as a tape tech brand but surround sound. In the 90s people weren’t hyping Dolby tape tech, it was already the standard. This new consumers during that time knew Dolby for surround sound because tapes were old trash tech!
> they are (to me) surround sound as that was becoming a consumer product around when Twister came out.
No, DVD caused rapid consumer adoption specifically of Dolby Digital - which isn’t surprising since DVD was the first widely used digital movie medium in the West, but Dolby surround sound dates to 1976 in theaters and the 1982 as a consumer home video offering so nearly 20 years prior to DVDs. Most major movies throughout the 80s (thousands before Twister) were mixed in surround sound which was the mix available on the home video (ie both VHS and Laserdisc).
>DVD caused rapid consumer adoption specifically of Dolby Digital
I'd agree that clean sound in 5.1 was a selling point, but I'd state the picture quality had more of an immediately noticeable impact than the sound. You didn't need to purchase a new amp and speakers to notice the impact of the image quality. You could plug it into your existing TV and see an immediate difference.
Plenty of other things helped too like the elmination of "Be Kind, Please Rewind".
BTW, you've forgotten to mention THX. The audience is listening!
Dolby B Noise reduction was followed by Dolby C some years later. This was visible in the market first, and very prominent to later users of cassettes in HiFi systems.
I still have a deck that implements Dolby B and C, as well as dbx NR.
I remember paying a lot of money for a tape deck with Dolby C (B was pretty ubiquitous) and being disappointed, like it flattened the music too much. Dolby C reminded me of the Apple ///, it was over-engineered and simply not better than the enormously popular product preceding it.
