History
Todd-AO began as a high resolution widescreen film format. It was co-developed in the early 1950s by Mike Todd, a Broadway producer, in partnership with the American Optical Company in Buffalo, New York. It was developed to provide a high definition single camera widescreen process to compete with Cinerama. Or as memorably characterized by its creator, "Cinerama outa one hole". Where Cinerama used a complicated setup of three separate strips of film simultaneously, Todd-AO required only a single camera and lens.
The company's focus began to shift after Mike Todd's sudden death in an airplane accident in 1958. The 70mm Todd-AO process was adopted by Panavision, Cinerama and others. As the production and exhibition markets became saturated with Todd-AO System hardware, the focus of the company gradually began to narrow down to the audio post-production side of the business, and Todd-AO became an independent sound mixing facility for commercial motion picture films and television after acquiring Glen Glenn Sound in 1986.
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