What is THX?
top For home theater systems, THX is a trademark that identifies home theater components that have been tested and comply with performance parameters of Lucas Film THX and/or feature their proprietary playback processes. These processes are applied to the signal after multichannel decoding, and are intended to produce a listening experience more like that of dubbing theaters where movie soundtracks are mixed.
THX® is a trademark that identifies a cinema’s compliance with THX’s parameters for cinema sound systems and acoustics. Unlike Dolby’s focus on soundtrack formats, THX develops standards for the playback environment, regardless of film format. To obtain THX certification, a cinema must comply with the standards and also use equipment from THX-approved manufacturers. All Dolby cinema processors are THX-approved, and by far the majority of THX theaters are Dolby installations. THX-certified auditoriums optimize the benefits of Dolby encoded soundtracks. This is why a Dolby logo (identifying the film’s soundtrack format) and the THX logo (identifying the cinema’s THX certification) often appear on the same marquee or advertisement. The Dolby and THX combination can also be implemented in your home theater system. Home THX components optimize the reproduction of DVD soundtracks encoded with Dolby surround sound technologies.
THX® is a trademark that identifies a cinema’s compliance with THX’s parameters for cinema sound systems and acoustics. Unlike Dolby’s focus on soundtrack formats, THX develops standards for the playback environment, regardless of film format. This is why a Dolby logo (identifying the film’s soundtrack format) and the THX logo (identifying the cinema’s THX certification) often appear on the same marquee or advertisement.
Hi, I’m Laura Ackley, the THX System Designer. I’m responsible for the design of all professional and commercial THX Sound Systems, so I thought I’d try to clear up some of the confusion regarding THX. THX is a set of implemented design and quality control standards for theatre sound presentation. First, the actual physical theatre must meet certain acoustic criteria: It must have low background noise, (no loud air conditioners or projectors), good isolation (so the lucky patron doesn’t get to hear the gunfight in the theatre next door), and specific reverberant characteristics based on the volume of each individual theatre. Also, the theatre can’t have any nasty slap echoes or reflections. When an individual theatre meets these standards, it means that the dialogue will be more intelligible, the high frequencies will reproduce clearly, the bass will not build up excessively within the room, etc.
THX is not an encoding standard like Dolby Digital or DTS. It is a seal of approval which represents certification by the company LucasFilm LTD, both for theaters and for equipment. The term THX means “Tomlinson Holman’s eXperiment”, Tomlinson Holman was the technical director whom George Lucas hired to create a seal of approval during the filming of Star Wars Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi. THX THX’s audio equipment certification criteria are, generally speaking: • Sound quality, i.e. the bandwidth and frequency ranges supported; • Structural quality (flooring, chairs, etc.), size, position, and orientation of speakers depending on the volume of the theatre. Only Lucasfilm can grant THX certification to quality sound equipment which meets its criteria for approval. For this reason, THX is a mark of quality, but due to the price of certification, few audio devices receive this certification, and they are priced higher as a result.
