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This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Author
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Topic: ATMOS comes home...
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 03-31-2016 03:12 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
If you're going to create a sound design layout with tracking dialog on screen, like what Steve wants, you wouldn't waste time farting around with down-mixing dialog elements into beds and then repeating them as objects. The actor's dialog track would be an object that would render its position across the movie screen's stage speaker setup, whether it has 3 columns or 5 columns of speakers. You could have multiple dialog objects rendering on the stage in different positions on screen. The Left, Right and Center channel speakers are not limited to playing only channel-based beds. They can play objects too. The CP-850 can render those stage objects where ever they need to be positioned.
I also DO want dialog to track the actors on screen. Very much please. Why can we have helicopters circling above our heads, have shrapnel of every explosion whirl around you, but all actors are still talking out of the center of the screen to you...
And nobody is proposing to downmix dialog elements into beds for any new content, what sense would that even make? This situation manifests purely for the already pre-existing 5-stage channel content out there, of which there is pretty few but it's there...
quote: Bobby Henderson
Of course this is all academic since virtually every modern movie keeps dialog confined to the center channel. Add to this the fact very few commercial movie theaters have 5 columns of stage speakers. Home theater is doing virtually nothing to support any 5 stage channel scheme either.
Practically all of the bigger Atmos installs do have 5 front stage channels. Yes, there are theaters cheaping out on it, but the fact is, there are now probably more theaters equipped with at least 5 stage channels than ever before.
Why are movies keeping dialog primarily confined to the center channel? Maybe it's laziness or lack off guts in the current iteration of sound mixers or some other stupid, unwritten rules. In any case, this absurdity has to stop and Atmos and DTS:X offer the perfect opportunity to make ordinary dialog sound more realistic.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-31-2016 03:39 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
And nobody is proposing to downmix dialog elements into beds for any new content, what sense would that even make?
It wouldn't make any sense at all. But I made my point about that since you called Atmos' 5-up-front implementation a cumbersome hack. It isn't really. From a sound design standpoint Atmos poses no challenges or difficulties at all in tracking or panning dialog-based objects at different points across the screen.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Practically all of the bigger Atmos installs do have 5 front stage channels. Yes, there are theaters cheaping out on it, but the fact is, there are now probably more theaters equipped with at least 5 stage channels than ever before.
I would prefer big theaters equipped with Atmos to have 5 stage speaker systems, but I don't think there's any guarantee such a thing is going in with these installations.
I find it troubling that many sound system equipment suppliers, such as QSC, don't show any five up front speaker layouts in their product illustrations for immersive sound system packages. It's all geared to 3 stage channel setups. In the case of QSC's Q-Sys system they show a double layered stage setup that looks more like an Auro 11.1 design. Of course QSC isn't just in the business of selling stuff that works with Atmos. They want to equip Auro rooms. And their Q-Sys system can apparently render DTS' MDA format on its own. But does that forego the need of buying a dedicated cinema processor like the ones Atmos and Auro use?
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Why are movies keeping dialog primarily confined to the center channel? Maybe it's laziness or lack off guts in the current iteration of sound mixers or some other stupid, unwritten rules. In any case, this absurdity has to stop and Atmos and DTS:X offer the perfect opportunity to make ordinary dialog sound more realistic.
Movie dialog is imprisoned to the center channel for numerous reasons. The big one is respected industry convention. Confining dialog to the center channel is almost a biblical rule never to be violated. You're really asking for it if you have a dialog element go off to the left or right end of the screen and veer off into the surrounds.
The next problem is deadlines. Sound designers have to work fast. They're not given enough time to really do their best work with a movie's theatrical sound mix. Dumping the dialog into the center channel at an appropriate level saves a bunch of time. Maybe just throw the assets from the ADR stage into the mix as is! I think lack of time is a big reason why more home video titles got DD•EX and DTS-ES audio tracks. Now we're starting to see movies released on Blu-ray with Atmos tracks when the theatrical release was plain LPCM. Freaking Game of Thrones' latest Blu-ray has Atmos. The same thing is going on with DTS-X too.
People can debate about the sins of near-field, home theater oriented mixes. But it still looks like sound designers have considerably more time and luxury in editing sound mixes for a home video release.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-04-2016 04:57 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
It wouldn't make any sense at all. But I made my point about that since you called Atmos' 5-up-front implementation a cumbersome hack. It isn't really. From a sound design standpoint Atmos poses no challenges or difficulties at all in tracking or panning dialog-based objects at different points across the screen.
No, I didn't call the implementation a hack, I called the way you need to bring a legacy 5 stage channel mix to the Atmos format a hack. In my opinion a totally unnecessary hack and a missed opportunity for the format itself.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I would prefer big theaters equipped with Atmos to have 5 stage speaker systems, but I don't think there's any guarantee such a thing is going in with these installations.
Atmos in itself is no seal of quality. The first Atmos installs were heavily supervised by Dolby, but that's passed now. They publish a set of guidelines and that's it.
We're going round in circles on this, but the exhibition industry really could use a "third party" seal of quality, the thing that THX once stood for, before you could have that on your mobile phone too.
quote: Bobby Henderson
And their Q-Sys system can apparently render DTS' MDA format on its own. But does that forego the need of buying a dedicated cinema processor like the ones Atmos and Auro use?
The Q-Sys Core systems currently still need external decoders to render MDA, whether it's Atmos or DTS:X. I'm not sure the current Q-Sys Core systems could handle full-spec MDA audio, but in the future it might just be an extra software module.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Movie dialog is imprisoned to the center channel for numerous reasons. The big one is respected industry convention. Confining dialog to the center channel is almost a biblical rule never to be violated. You're really asking for it if you have a dialog element go off to the left or right end of the screen and veer off into the surrounds.
Remember Gravity? That soundtrack was generally praised and even won an Oscar. It dared to challenge this biblical rule and people liked it.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The next problem is deadlines. Sound designers have to work fast. They're not given enough time to really do their best work with a movie's theatrical sound mix.
If that's really the excuse, then we should go back to silent movies, to give those overworked sound mixers a well-deserved break.
Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but given the budgets of many of those films, they should be the epitome of quality from start to finish and in every aspect possible.
Every self-respecting cinema those days has the capability to playback a sound track in at least the standard 5.1 configuration, it's about time we start using it to the full extend possible.
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