L.C. Concept

LC Concept was a 35 mm film projection sound format, developed in France and released in 1991. It used 5.25" 300 megabyte capacity re-writable magneto-optical disks to hold 4 or 5.1 channels of MUSICAM compressed audio. Two disks were used to hold approximately three hours of sound. The system was adopted in France, Belgium, and Switzerland. A large litigation against Universal, Spielberg and DTS frightened the investors. DTS had to buy the LC patents to resolve the issue.[1]

The system was developed by Pascal Chedeville and Elisabeth Löchen. A standard SMPTE timecode printed next to analogue soundtrack on the film print was read by a reader connected to the playback unit kept the playback in sync. The system was tested with a re-release of the Cyrano de Bergerac, and the first commercial release was Until the End of the World.[2] Overall, around 30 features were released in this format in France, among which:

Basic Instinct, Free Willy, Falling Down, Cliffhanger, Backbeat, Silent Tongue, Boiling Point, Heaven and Earth, Cyrano de Bergerac, L.627, The Lover, Until the End of the World, The Accompanist, IP5: L'île aux pachydermes, All the World's Mornings, Arizona Dream, La Belle Histoire, Bitter Moon.

The company folded in 1994 due to lack of funding.[2] Pascal Chedeville received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1995.[3]