Tom Holman, TMH President

Tom's distinguished career in audio, video and film spans over thirty-three years. His influence has been felt by both the creators and consumers of motion pictures in production facilities, commercial movie theaters, and in homes worldwide. Tom has the rare ability to push the state of the art and, in doing so, challenge entire industries to achieve new quality standards. He creates new markets and redefines existing markets by establishing new quality standards and designing products which perform to them.

Mr. Holman is Professor of Film Sound at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television and a Principal Investigator in the Integrated Media Systems Center at the university. IMSC is the Engineering Research Center for multi-media of the National Science Foundation. He is founding editor of Surround Professional magazine, and author of the books Sound for Film and Television and 5.1 Surround Sound Up and Running, both published by Focal Press. He is an honorary member of the Cinema Audio Society and the Motion Picture Sound Editors. He is a fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, the British Kinematograph Sound and Television Society, and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. He is a member of the Acoustical Society of America and the IEEE. He has lifetime or career achievement awards from the CAS and the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association. Tom holds 7 U.S. and corresponding foreign patents totalling 23, and they have been licensed to over 45 companies.

Tom was chief electrical engineer at Advent Corporation, founded Apt Corporation, maker of the Apt/Holman preamplifier, and was at Lucasfilm Ltd for 15 years, winding up as the company's Corporate Technical Director and where he developed the THX Sound System and its companions the Theater Alignment Program, Home THX, and the THX Digital Mastering program.

Breaking the 5.1 Barrier...