Robert B. Ingebretsen was a pioneer in the development of digital sound.

As a teenager in the 1960s, Ingebretsen built robots and primitive computers that could talk.

As a University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

 graduate student in the early 1970s, Ingebretsen assisted Dr. Thomas G. Stockham

Thomas Stockham

Thomas Greenway Stockham was an American scientist who developed the first practical digital audio recording system, and pioneered techniques for digital audio recording and processing as well....

 in the development of Stockham's restoration technique for sound and images. This work led to RCA

RCA

RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

's Caruso-A Legendary Performer that applied Stockham's restoration techniques to acoustic recordings of opera great Enrico Caruso.

Ingebretsen worked with Pixar

Pixar

Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...

 co-founder Ed Catmull

Edwin Catmull

Dr. Edwin Earl Catmull, Ph.D. is a computer scientist and current president of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios. As a computer scientist, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics....

 in 1972 to produce one of the first digital films, a 20-second portrait of a human hand.

After graduation in 1975, Ingebretsen joined Stockham at Soundstream Inc.

Soundstream

-The Company:Soundstream Inc. was founded in 1975 in Salt Lake City, Utah by Dr. Thomas G. Stockham, Jr. It was the world’s first audiophile digital audio recording company, providing commercial services for recording and computer-based editing...

, a Utah company where Ingebretsen wrote the software for the first practical digital audio editing system. Soundstream briefly operated an editing studio at a Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

 studio lot in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. Ingebretsen commuted from Utah to Los Angeles, where he supervised the new digital recording for the 1982 re-release of Disney

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...

’s Fantasia

Fantasia (film)

Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

.

Soundstream dissolved in 1985 and Ingebretsen spent the next 15 years in near anonymity in Salt Lake City, founding a series of small high-tech companies. In 1999 Stockham and Ingebretsen received a Scientific and Engineering Award

Academy Award, Scientific or Technical

Since 1931, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has given the Scientific and Technical Award, an Academy Award for scientific or technical achievements, which are presented at "a dinner ceremony separate from the annual telecast."...

 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

 for their pioneering work in digital audio editing.

Ingebretsen also helped pioneer satellite communications technology. In recent years, he worked for a Centerville

Centerville, Utah

Centerville is a city in Davis County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Ogden-Clearfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 15,335 at the 2010 census...

-based startup that develops software for hand-held computers.

On 2 March 2003 Ingebretsen died of heart failure at the age of 55 at his Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City, Utah

Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...

home.