THX

THX Ltd. is an American company headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1983 by George Lucas. It develops the "THX" high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standards for movie theaters, screening rooms, home theaters, computer speakers, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and video games.

The current THX was created in 2002 when it spun off from Lucasfilm Ltd. THX was developed by Tomlinson Holman at George Lucas's company, Lucasfilm, in 1983 to ensure that the soundtrack for the third Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi, would be accurately reproduced in the best venues. THX was named after Holman, with the "X" standing for "crossover" or possibly "experiment" as well as in homage to Lucas's first film, THX 1138. The distinctive glissando up from a rumbling low pitch used in the THX trailers, created by Holman's coworker James A. Moorer, is known as the "Deep Note".

The THX system is not a recording technology and it does not specify a sound recording format: all sound formats, whether digital (Dolby Digital, DTS, SDDS) or analog (Dolby Stereo, Ultra Stereo), can be "shown in THX". THX is mainly a quality assurance system. THX-certified theaters provide a high-quality, predictable playback environment to ensure that any film soundtrack mixed in THX will sound as near as possible to the intentions of the mixing engineer. THX also provides certified theaters with a special crossover circuit whose use is part of the standard. Certification of an auditorium entails specific acoustic and other technical requirements; architectural requirements include a floating floor, baffled and acoustically treated walls, non-parallel walls (to reduce standing waves), a perforated screen (to allow center channel continuity), and NC30 rating for background noise ("ensures noise from air conditioning units and projection equipment does not mask the subtle effects in a movie's soundtrack.").

THX's services are often used in some Universal Pictures feature length films, typically for theatrical use.

Universal animated films digitally mastered by THX

 * Romeo and Juliet (1994) Broadway (1995 Laserdisc release)
 * Ama and the Mysterious Crystal (1997) Broadway (Widescreen VHS)/Cimarron (Laserdisc)/Grand (DVD) (1998 Widescreen Edition VHS & Laserdisc releases/2001 DVD release)
 * Galaxion (1999) Broadway (1999 VHS & DVD releases)
 * Paint World (1999) Tex (2004 Special Edition DVD release)
 * Mistress Masham's Repose (2001) Broadway (2001 VHS & DVD release)
 * Shrek (2001) Shrek (Some original international DVD releases; it was originally intended to show before the original 2001 theatrical release of Shrek but was delayed until 2003 due to the ongoing rivalry between DreamWorks and Disney at the time (the debut date given reflects the scuttlebug that it was supposed to premiere before Pixar's Monsters, Inc. before Disney threatened to blacklist THX over the trailer))
 * Magina (2003) Cavalcade (2003 VHS & DVD releases)
 * Computeropolis (2004) Tex 2 Moo Can (2004 VHS & DVD releases)
 * Zina and the Vivid Crew (2004) Tex 2 Moo Can (2005 VHS & DVD releases)
 * M.I.S.S.I.O.N. (2005) Tex (2005 VHS & DVD releases)

Trivia

 * The logo has been known to frighten younger viewers mainly with its audio trademark, the Deep Note.
 * The THX logo along with its Deep Note briefly appears in DreamWorks Animation's 2006 film Over the Hedge.
 * The THX logo was parodied in The Simpsons episode "Burn Heir".
 * On a similar note it was also parodied in the Tiny Toons Adventures TV movie "How I Spent My Vacation".

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