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The official Dolby Atmos thread (home theater version) – Check out post 1 first

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#1 · (Edited)
Last update: 02.04.2023



Official Dolby Atmos at home website

Dolby on Atmos for the home
Dolby Atmos Speaker Setup
Ceiling-firing speakers ("Atmos-enabled speakers")
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-atmos/dolby-atmos-enabled-speaker-technology.pdf
Speaker installation guidelines
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/technolo...tmos-home-theater-installation-guidelines.pdf
If you're more the visual type of guy here's a good video explaining the basics of placing your Atmos speakers:

Insights from a recording and mixing engineer


Technical specification for studios wishing to employ a 7.1.4 home entertainment Dolby Atmos monitoring setup
Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment Studio
Certification Guide


Blog posts
Dolby Atmos: Coming soon to a living room near you - Lab Notes
Dolby Atmos for home theaters: FAQ - Lab Notes


Dolby Patent Application
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/WO2014036085A1.html


Dolby on Atmos for movie theaters
Wayback Machine

Specifications for movie theaters
Wayback Machine


How Atmos content is created
Wayback Machine


How Atmos is encoded into TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus
https://professional.dolby.com/site...on/dolby-atmos/dolby_atmos_renderer_guide.pdf


avsforum.com Members Atmos & Auro Configuration Spreadsheet (at Google Docs, maintained by user kokishin)


Atmos test tone downloads (E-AC-3 audio in .mp4 container)
https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/test-tones.html

Other Dolby trailer downloads
 
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#2,981 ·
I think you and I come across with different takes on a lot of things. But we still both seem to want the best audio experience possible and I think that's what matters the most.
 
#2,982 · (Edited)
How many theatrical mixes are 7.1, out of the total?
Keith

If you're asking how many theatrical movies were 7.1 for the cinema, I wouldn't have a clue. Filmmixer might have an idea :)

If you're asking how many BD releases are 7.1, there's several sites that listed all available 6.1/7.1 BD's. Here's one I can link to.

The original post is in 2010 but the author is keeping the list up-to-date with new & latest titles.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=159814

counting rows on an excel sheet, his total is 711.

the total # of blu-ray titles released is many tens of thousands from all studios. it's going to be tedious to add up the list by studio but I'll see if I can parse the textual listings to just get numbers ;) and will let you know the number if I succeed!

the same site has the totals by genre and by studio. if totals by genre don't overlap, the total will be well over 300,000.

for the sake of argument, let's say 7.1's are < 0.25 % of the total.

IOW, very dam few are taking advantage of existing capability.

and total number of Atmos titles is about 120, right?

not scientific by any means ;) but looking at numbers, it took all Blu-ray studios 8 yrs to release 711 titles with 7.1 out of all the movies released, or about 89/yr.

with 120 titles with a subset of a subset for Atmos, it could take 1.3 yrs for them to get thru the list IF they decided to aggressively release them at the same pace of ~90/yr. or it could take a decade (!) if they follow the same pattern as 7.1 ;)
 
#2,983 ·
I think you and I come across with different takes on a lot of things. But we still both seem to want the best audio experience possible and I think that's what matters the most.
I think we're all on that same page, Kris.

That's why I'm implementing Atmos even if I don't completely trust studios to deliver the content on a timely basis. I'd rather have the opportunity to enjoy several titles a year than none at all.

Once the speakers are bought & installed, the rest is EZ.
 
#2,985 ·
I just saw a post from Sdurani that says they haven't even launched it yet?? Does that make you proud of the AVR/speaker announcements from Onkyo, Marantz and others or of Dolby's?? I guess I'm confused now.
You're confusing the launch of a Dolby product with a press release issued from Dolby. The latter isn't necessary for the former.

Dolby is coordinating a continued product launch, with the first step lifting manufacturers' NDA in order to whet the appetite of consumers. At that point, consumer Atmos had officially launched and there was plenty of buzz going (remember the week of June 23rd here at AVS?), all without Dolby themselves having to issue a press release.

They've kept their powder dry until the next step this month. And there will be more in the subsequent step at CEDIA. Along the way there are demos, like the one Keith attended and the upcoming Pioneer open house here in Los Angeles, to keep fresh info flowing. People attending the demos will talk about it, rather than Dolby having to issue a press release.

That sort of coordination between manufacturers and studios doesn't require Dolby to issue a press release. But that doesn't mean Atmos hasn't launched or that Dolby isn't coordinating things behind the scenes. By comparison, look at how Dolby is getting information out in stages vs the last 6 months of info for the XMC-1 product launch.

It doesn't require a background in marketing, like Keith has, to recognize a well coordinated launch that includes multiple electronics manufacturers and speaker designers and movie studios.
 
#2,987 ·
You're confusing the launch of a Dolby product with a press release issued from Dolby. The latter isn't necessary for the former.

Dolby is coordinating a continued product launch, with the first step lifting manufacturers' NDA in order to whet the appetite of consumers. At that point, consumer Atmos had officially launched and there was plenty of buzz going (remember the week of June 23rd here at AVS?), all without Dolby themselves having to issue a press release.

They've kept their powder dry until the next step this month. And there will be more in the subsequent step at CEDIA. Along the way there are demos, like the one Keith attended and the upcoming Pioneer open house here in Los Angeles, to keep fresh info flowing. People attending the demos will talk about it, rather than Dolby having to issue a press release.

That sort of coordination between manufacturers and studios doesn't require Dolby to issue a press release. But that doesn't mean Atmos hasn't launched or that Dolby isn't coordinating things behind the scenes. By comparison, look at how Dolby is getting information out in stages vs the last 6 months of info for the XMC-1 product launch.

It doesn't require a background in marketing, like Keith has, to recognize a well coordinated launch that includes multiple electronics manufacturers and speaker designers and movie studios.
I would never compare this to the bumbling that Emo did with the XMC. But in terms of stages I think I would have handled it different. To me it would have made more sense for Dolby to do the initial announcement for Atmos in home talking about what it is, why it's different and the science behind it. Next would be the hardware and software. Instead you have manufacturers announcing a format for another company and pages upon pages of questions from the would be consumers on what, where, when and how. Would Blu-ray have done better if the hardware manufacturers just announced players for a format that the BDA didn't announce or inform the public about? I'm not a marketing guy clearly and while I think most of the audio people on HT forums may know what Atmos is the general public isn't as aware. Of course none of this opinion matters now, what's done is done. But saying that this has been a phenomenal launch given the mum word from Dolby except on their blog and using hardware maufacturers to trumpet the arrival of the next big thing seems a bit much. But since most mainstream consumers don't read forums for press releases from manufacturers I guess they'll probably hear it from Dolby first anyways, or the local big box store, or never. I still get a glaze in the eyes from most of the engineers at work when I mention True HD or Master Audio.
 
#2,988 ·
AIUI once the mix has been done for the theatrical release, the work has also been done for the BD release. It scales.
Theatrical Atmos mixes are (also still) based on channels so the same rules apply as before - home theaters and living rooms are acoustically different from movie theaters. A remix for home is probably a good idea.
Here you go Markus.
 
#2,989 · (Edited)
Theatrical Atmos mixes are (also still) based on channels so the same rules apply as before - home theaters and living rooms are acoustically different from movie theaters...
Heck, Home Theaters in living rooms are considerably different (even from each other} than dedicated Home Theater rooms where folks go to a lot of trouble to try and get it acoustically similar to Movie Theaters.

Oh I still absolutely believe the market for Atmos is small in the grand scheme. And nothing that Dolby has announced has me believing anything else. For mass consumers it is hard enough to do 5.1 (can't tell you how many people I see with HTIBs have their surrounds sitting right next to the front left and right) so now they are supposed to buy all new AVRs and speakers too, Yeah it is going to be a worldwide hit dude. That doesn't mean that I don't want it though, or the enthusiast. But wanting and getting are two different things...
This post here sums up my view as well...Home Theater has been a hobby of mine for almost 14 years and I am still surprised how many people are NOT into it in the circles I travel...That said, I remember seeing a poll in another section which asked how many speakers we had and was real surprised the majority of responders on AVS had only 5 speakers(and in 2nd place was 7) but only a few had 9 or more using height and/or wides: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/92-co...969-what-your-main-speaker-configuration.html

Granted, Atmos looks more awesome than the other matrixing formats, but my guess is that purchasing more speakers and placement issues are obstacles to keep consumers from going to Atmos based systems en-masse, or even on this forum. Fwiw, this appears to be a dedicated Home Theater product/format and I would be curious what percentage of us actually have one who post on here regularly--I have a 9.1 setup using 2 subs and it's in my small library.
 
#2,991 ·
According to both Audiophile.No (link) and the 2L.No (link) RELEASE PLAN 2014-2016 (select "release plan 2013-2014"), the 2L label will release MAGNIFICAT, a pureaudio (link) BD from TrondheimSolistene, containing both 9.1 Auro-3D and Dolby Atmos encodes of the same recorded material. (The 2L label has previously released some BDs with both DTS-HDMA and 9.1 Auro-3D content.)

Perhaps someone will do a "technology comparison" and report here...?!
:cool:
_
When I first read your post and checked the links it reminded me of this: David Chesky | SACD 6.0 Surround
 
#2,993 ·
That's correct, I've taken a role at Secrets as their new Senior Video Editor. I liked the gang at S&V but it was time to move on. Going back to Secrets was a no brainer as I can be as technical as I want for reviews and I don't have to worry about word counts or adding new objective testing. It is just a better fit for the kind of reviews I like to do and want to see. Stacey Spears is coming back aboard in a joint role with me and I think together we can bring a lot to the Secrets team and reviews going forward. Should be a lot of fun.
Hi Kris,

This is good news because I like Secrets and the people there.

By the way, I notice that under your name (username) on the left, where it says;
Location: The Pacific
Northwet


Where is that?
 
#2,994 ·
I am pretty sure that Dolby knows exactly what it is doing and how Atmos for Home Theater is going to roll out. I think it would be really nice to just wait and see what happens instead of speculating on what we don't know. I am sure things will be announced at CEDIA Expo or possibly a little bit sooner. No matter what, I am getting my HT Room ready for it!:)
 
#2,995 · (Edited)
I don't think they have much choice. They won’t want to delay the release of the current crop of Blurays, but they can't very well release them in Atmos right now
They could have released 'Gravity' on Blu-ray already with an additional audio soundtrack; Dolby TrueHD 7.1.2 (or .4) Atmos surround.

If they did, everyone (many of us) would have jump on the first product having a Dolby Atmos decoder.
...Talk about doing business the proper way!

Great Dolby Atmos software first, then the hardware soon to follow...
 
#2,997 ·
Heck, Home Theaters in living rooms are considerably different (even from each other} than dedicated Home Theater rooms where folks go to a lot of trouble to try and get it acoustically similar to Movie Theaters.



This post here sums up my view as well...Home Theater has been a hobby of mine for almost 14 years and I am still surprised how many people are NOT into it in the circles I travel...That said, I remember seeing a poll in another section which asked how many speakers we had and was real surprised the majority of responders on AVS had only 5 speakers(and in 2nd place was 7) but only a few had 9 or more using height and/or wides: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/92-co...969-what-your-main-speaker-configuration.html

Granted, Atmos looks more awesome than the other matrixing formats, but my guess is that purchasing more speakers and placement issues are obstacles to keep consumers from going to Atmos based systems en-masse, or even on this forum. Fwiw, this appears to be a dedicated Home Theater product/format and I would be curious what percentage of us actually have one who post on here regularly--I have a 9.1 setup using 2 subs and it's in my small library.
I have a 9.1 using two subs but a lot of people I know don't have any thing near what I have some have 5.1 but believe it or not a lot have sound bars :eek:
I know they wouldn't care less to upgrade to atmos unless they come out with a sound bar that could do atmos they don't want a room full of speakers and their ceiling full of speakers....
So I'm thinking we are in the minority.....
Just like 3D I'm about the only one in my circle of friends that has them even though I have over fifty 3D blu-ray disks I hardly watch them.
So my conclusion is I think atmos will be in the minority....
 
#2,998 · (Edited)
They could have released 'Gravity' on Blu-ray already with an additional audio soundtrack; Dolby TrueHD 7.1.2 (or .4) Atmos surround.

If they did, everyone (many of us) would have jump on the first product having a Dolby Atmos decoder.
...Talk about doing business the proper way!

Great Dolby Atmos software first, then the hardware soon to follow...
Remember, don't think in those terms. It's more like Dolby Atmos 34 output surround.

If the Trinnov speaker layout schematic is accurate for their Altitude32 processor, it's possibly breaking down as:

Front: 5 screen speakers (Left/Left Center/Center/Right Center/Right)
Left wall: 5 speaker array
Right wall: 5 speaker array
Rear wall: 5 speaker array
Overheads: 10 speaker array (in left and right pairs)

Two subwoofer outputs
Another two bass management derived outputs

A miniature version of the cinema Atmos layout??
 
#2,999 ·
But in terms of stages I think I would have handled it different. To me it would have made more sense...
That's fair. Just because I think they're doing a good job doesn't mean there aren't equally effective or more effective ways to have done it.
But saying that this has been a phenomenal launch given the mum word from Dolby except on their blog and using hardware maufacturers to trumpet the arrival of the next big thing seems a bit much.
I think that's one of the better aspects of this launch: lots of buzz amongst enthusiasts, lots of questions waiting to be answered, lots of speculation building up, all without Dolby having issued an official announcement. Like having manufacturers warm up the audience before doing a press conference.
 
#3,000 ·
Hey, has anyone seen this article?

http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/dolby-atmos-secret-bluray/


This would be awesome if true. And the beauty from what I understand is, it won't have to be in a preset 5.1.4, 7.1.2, etc. The processor knows the room and speakers, and delivers the best it can with what it has, real time encoding for YOUR setup. So I wonder what kind of microphone array the Atmos receivers will have for room calibration?
 
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