Dolby Atmos Theatre System - Page 7

I was going to take issue with this under the assumption that you meant RC = EQ, but under the expanded definition of spatial correction I see your point.


True, but there's no encoded material today nor will there be any significant amount for some time to come.


This makes me realize I'm not at all clear on just what a sound object is; is it a sound or group of sounds which always emanate from the same location (relative to each other, not space)?

A sound object is simply a sound file with additional meta data. The meta data defines where the sound should emanate from within a three dimensional space.

The renderer decides how that data is used within a given speaker layout. It could use the nearest speaker or try to build phantom sources between two and more speakers or use more advanced techniques that try to create a wave field.

To elaborate for Noah....

The metadata isn't static.... it does define where the sound emanates within the listening environment, it can dynamically change (for an easy example the object could be a helicopter sound effect that flies all across the room...)

You can also use, for example, 5 objects that would be a 5 channel music spread that you you can put on the walls and in the overhead ceiling speakers and you can plea them there as a static object that doesn't move over time.

What's important in Marcus' point to understand is that this metadata information can then be used by the renderer to "map" the original intension of the mixers when playing back in a system with less (or more) speakers than it was originally mixed on..

As Roger noted, if the system has better resolution than what the content was created on, you will get a better resolution (i.e. more pinpointed and/or refined pans, greater accuracy, etc..) upon playback.

As you can see, it's an entirely different thing than speaker remapping as employed by Trinnov...

thanks for the explanations

As only an observer mostly trying to infer the longer term impact on Home Theater, I was interested to read this 5/8/2012 screendigest article "Cinema sound becomes a competitive environment again" (link). It seems to suggest there is (about to be) more of an "audio oriented" struggle for the hearts, minds, ears, and wallets of the high street movie-going public than I had heretofore believed . . . and that we might soon expect to be making our movie and|or theater choices by considering the availability of Dolby Atmos, Immsound, Iosono, Auro 11.1, and Illusonic 3D sound as an additional characteristic.

[I have to wonder just how capable is the average theater goer to make a critical discrimination between these five 'enhanced sound' technologies...?! ]

Maybe Smell-o-Vision will make a comeback in commercial cinemas?

I experience Smell-O-Vison every time I got to the cinema, and it is not an attraction.*



*Major exceptions are Arclight cinemas.

Yeah,I don't think I want to know what an ogre smells like,best left up to the imagination.


By the way,on the subject of Trinnov,isn't it going to be part of the Doremi DCI equipment package?

Perhaps Doremi has decided on a different "audio partner": This 12/5/2011 Barco Press Release "Barco and Doremi partner to develop industry's first DCI-compliant next-generation 3D sound system" (link) states:

Quote:

"Kortrijk, Belgium, 5 December 2011 - Barco, a key player in digital cinema technology, has teamed up with media block technology leader Doremi to bring the first DCI-compliant 3D sound system to the cinema market. Auro-3D®, powered by Barco and Auro Technologies, is an audio system that creates true 3D sound. Doremi will integrate the Auro-3D® codec in their Integrated Media Block (IMB) to create the first DCI-compliant multi-channel audio format for cinema exhibitors. [. . .]"

Does anyone know what sample rates Atmos works with? I can't find this information online.

The recent announcment of the Dolby TrueHD upconversion of 48 kHz material to 96 kHz prompted me to think of this. Will movies still be mastered largely in 48 kHz, or will Atmos encourage higher sample rates?

DCP supports 48k or 96k..

I don't think Atmos has any bearing on what sample rate we choose to use.

It's harder to implement on the production side of thing for many reasons, but more pertinent is that it cut's all of your audio resources in half.. half the channel count, half the DSP..

In addition, on the venue side, you run into the same issue... doubled processing power needed for EQ and delays..

On the subject of Dolby's new 96k up sampling tech for TureHD..

Color me skeptical..

So you're saying going over 96k would be difficult?

From what I can tell, DCP has the bandwidth to support 16 channels at 96k. From the system spec:

It seems to me that you could fit 8 channels of 24-bit 192k audio in the same bandwidth, but it wouldn't be backwards compatible with existing DCP spec.

Dobly has stated that Atmos will be delivered in a "Backwards-compatible" DCP, but it will have 128 channels, well above the 16 allowed in the standard. I'm guessing this means they employ the standard 8 channels in the DCP, and the Atmos is an extension of the format?

This is the link to Trinnov's site that mentions them and Doremi and Trinnov's EQ tech being utilized.I don't know how old the info is.

http://www.trinnov.com/products/digi...se/?lang=en_us

Sorry about that Roger.I couldn't click the link you referred,so I didn't know it was the same as the one I posted.lol!

Looks like AMC, the theatre chain working with Dolby to help test Atmos, will have new owners.

Wow

So much for trying to curb piracy!

Maybe it will behoove them to reevaluate their stance on that.

Attended a Dolby presentation yesterday and it looks like channels will stay with us for much longer than I had hoped for.
One interesting tidbit: There's a feature "snap to nearest speaker" which probably prevents the unwanted phantom imaging issue that came up earlier in this thread.

Please explain.

I still don't understand what is a new revelation about how these systems work, that's all... and just curious.

Why is it "surprising" that channels are still with us?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding Markus' disappointment, but this isn't a new way to reproduce sound, ala Iosono...

Even with that system, they found it very difficult to move away from having "channels", especially behind the screen, due to the fact that film, as we know it today, will always be a 2D image projected onto a flat wall, and the audience will always be focused, and facing, forward...

I emailed Dolby asking about the sample rates Atmos supports. This is the response I got:

Zactly.
Dolby is very much listening to what content creators have to say and in the end this will not be a revolution but an evolution.

What do define as a revolution?

Objects only mixes could be a real revolution but that's probably not feasible for various reasons. For example, Brave is mixed in 7.1 and then gets the Atmos treatment.

Let's see how everything develops (especially now that AMC got sold). After the presentation I had the feeling the whole system is still under development.

On a side note, I believe the built-in room correction is a big step forward. Currently the whole X-curve correction is based more on beliefs and not on proper science. I've seen frequency response curves from different theaters and they showed such huge variations (even after 1/3 octave based correction) that it really didn't matter much what the underlying curve was. With Atmos any target curve can be closely matched. This makes it much easier to reveal the underlying parameters for timbre and loudness.

They could also apply something similar to Dolby Volume because it's common (bad) practice for theater owners to arbitrarily change playback volume based on consumer reports ("The movie was too loud" vs. "I couldn't understand the dialog").