Steven Spielberg helped create and launch the DTS sound format for Jurassic Park.
DTS originally stood for Digital Theater Systems, a company developing a digital multichannel cinema format. Spielberg backed the system and selected it for Jurassic Park because he wanted audiences to experience the film’s sound design with greater impact and clarity.
Unlike an optical soundtrack encoded directly onto the film print, the original DTS system stored digital audio on separate CD-ROM discs synchronized to the film by timecode. This approach preserved a conventional analog backup while allowing theaters equipped with DTS hardware to play the digital mix.
Jurassic Park became the first major film released with DTS in 1993, giving the young company its breakthrough. The format is sometimes confused with Dolby Digital, SDDS or THX, all important names in cinema and home audio, but they were competing or complementary technologies rather than the company Spielberg backed for this film. The dinosaur vocalizations themselves were created by sound designer Gary Rydstrom from recorded animal sounds, making the format only one part of the movie’s audio innovation.