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Author
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Topic: Dolby's new sound system
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Connor Wilson
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 190
From: Sterling, VA, USA
Registered: Jan 2011
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posted 06-09-2012 08:09 AM
Dolby just recently announced the first theatres to include Dolby Atmos.
quote:
United States & Canada
AMC Barrywoods 24 (Kansas City, MO)
AMC Burbank 16 (Burbank, CA)
AMC Century City 15 (Century City, CA)
AMC Downtown Disney 24 (Lake Buena Vista, FL)
AMC Garden State 16 (Paramus, NJ)
AMC Van Ness 14 (San Francisco, CA)
Arclight Sherman Oaks (Sherman Oaks, CA)
Brenden Theatres at the Palms (Las Vegas, NV)
Century at Pacific Commons and XD (Fremont, CA)
Cinemark West Plano and XD (West Plano, TX)
SilverCity-Yonge Eglinton Cinemas (Cineplex) (Toronto, ON)
Cinetopia Vancouver Mall 23 (Vancouver, WA)
Kerasotes Showplace ICON at Roosevelt Collection (Chicago, IL)
The Dolby Theatre (Hollywood, CA)
Europe
Cinesa Diagonal Mar (Barcelona, Spain)
Empire Leicester Square (London, United Kingdom)
Asia
China Film Stella Theater Chain Hefei 1912 (He Fei, China)
Shanghai Film Art Center (Shanghai, China)
UME Shuangjing (Beijing, China)
Wanda Cinemas Wuhan Lingjiao Lake (Wuhan, China)
http://investor.dolby.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=681590
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Mike Olpin
Chop Chop!
Posts: 1852
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Jan 2002
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posted 06-26-2012 04:18 PM
My review of Dolby Atmos
This was my third viewing of Brave, so I was pretty familiar with the standard mix of the film. I went solely with the intention to listen to Atmos, Dolby's new cinema audio format that allows up to 128 channels of audio across 64 locations. This is at it's peak. The thing about Atmos is that it is scalable, unlike previous Dolby formats. Atmos works with as few as 6 channels, or as many as 128, depending on how many amps, speakers, and wire-runs a theatre owner wishes to instal. Think of it this way, the listener sits in the middle of a sphere. The sound mixer is able to assign sound elements to any position in that sphere around the listener. The cinema processor takes that composite mix data and assigns each speaker a position relative to that sphere, and then creates a live mix for that specific speaker configuration in that specific auditorium in real time. It's pretty cool stuff.
The theatre I was in had 20 speakers in the ceiling, running in two rows from the front to the back. the left and right wall had 14 surround speakers each, running all the way up to about 5 feet from the screen, much closer to the front stage than is typical. The rear wall had 6 speakers. While I could not see behind the screen, the panning and imaging of the dialog (more on this later) seemed to indicate at least 5 full range stage channels. So that is at least 60 speakers, including the sub-bass. That does not necessarily translate into 60 channels, as the theatre may not have gone to the added expense of running 60 separate home runs back to 60 separate amps. I figured that after the movie started, I would be able to determine the number of actual channels if I listened carefully enough.
As I took my seat, the first look was playing. It sounded big, boomy, and harsh, which I had come to expect from XD and other "premium experience" theatres. They were built to sound big, not to sound correct. This had me worried, but I figured that I shouldn't start judging based upon the preshow. The First Look ended, and the trailers proper started. Again, the audio was big and it was harsh. I began to lament that my first Atmos show was going to have to be seen in a horribly EQ'd room. Voices were shrill and lacking in resonant natural lows. It was obvious that Atmos was not in use, as I was able to clearly localize the standard 5 channels and nothing outside of them.
Finally the lights dimmed. And what happened next was nothing short of breathtaking. You know that feeling, in a scope auditorium, when the screen expands from left to right to accommodate the larger picture? This was like the audio equivalent.
Over a completely black screen, plain white text appears. I cannot remember exactly what it said, but it was something along the lines of "What you see is only part of the movie. Sound makes it real.."
As the text fades away, jungle sounds fade in. The sound is incredibly smooth and immersive. I cannot localize a thing. The sound is just... everywhere. And it's rich and full. Gone is the harsh EQ from the trailers. A fly buzzes by above my head and to the left, but then flies, almost right over my shoulder, along the right and to the screen. Colors on the screen fade in, out of focus leaves in the fall become visible. One of the leaves snaps off with a nice crunch, and floats. The camera follows the leaf and, the entire ambiance of the sound space MOVES WITH THE CAMERA. In all of surround I've never heard such a cool sense of imaging across the entire room, each individual sound effect in the scene moving perfectly along the room with the camera as the leaf soars and tumbles through the air, finally landing on the ground. "Dolby Atmos" gently fades in, as the ambiance and sound fade out. "Hear the whole picture" fades in in near silence. It is the quietest and yet most impressive sound system trailer I've ever seen. Most sound trailers are about being loud and showing off the subs. Atmos isn't about being loud and in your face. It's a big statement, and a good direction to move in.
One of the things I miss about (and if you want you can take me to task and tell me I'm wrong) about traditional Dolby Stereo and ProLogic of the 80s and early 90s, was that it created a nice sense of spaciousness in the room. It's one of the few things I thought good matrix decoding was good at.
As the movie started, that was what I noticed most. The spaciousness was back. Individual channels melted away into an expensive sound stage. Just as in the trailer, I found it difficult to pinpoint exactly where a speaker channel was. But I could pinpoint the tens of individual sounds that made up the scene precisely.
As the films opening number "Touch The Sky" kicked in, I noticed how Atmos handled pop-music. In traditional 5.1, pop music is typically routed hard left and hard right, vocals hard center, and if the sound mixer was particularly talented, they might bleed a small amount of the instrumentation into the surrounds and center. In Atmos, the song, including vocals, was not at all directly locatable. "Front and Wide" is the best way I can think of to describe it.
Directional panning, not just with the camera as described in the Atmos trailer, is really great. Dialog followed all over the screen, no longer tied to the center. In one scene Fergus walks off the screen to the right. His voice follows from center, to right center, to hard right, and then to about the first 3 frontmost right surround speakers, perfectly timbre matched as it pans into them!
Now, here's the thing. about 10 minutes in, I forgot i was watching in Atmos. I forgot to continue to pay attention to the mix. I was in the movie. I had to pull myself back out several times and remind myself that I was there to critically listen. That is to say, Atmos NEVER drew attention back to itself. There was never any point in the movie where i thought, "Oh! Listen to those ceiling channels! That's really something!"
And I think that is really the point of Atmos.
Some will say having so many channels is overkill. But what I experienced, is the more channels you have, the more the sound system disappears. The less individual sections call out to remind you they exist. Instead, what you are left with is you and what is happening on the screen. The sound is just there.
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Marc D Fishman
Film Handler
Posts: 26
From: Burbank CA. USA
Registered: Jun 2012
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posted 06-30-2012 04:38 PM
quote: Manny Knowles
Is Atmos "aware" at all times, including playback, or only during a diagnostic mode?
If it depends on someone initiating tests, then it's only going to be as aware as the user allows it to be.
I actually can't answer that definitely because I didn't ask.
However, I can surmise that there is active feedback due to the networked nature of distributing sound from the processor to the speakers in the auditorium.
At this point, and since there is no real booth hardware to speak of, we will have to wait and see what happens, and what may or may not change, once the final hardware is ready to be rolled out for permanent installations.
All in all, I'm am really excited at the creative possibilities, and hope this kind of active feedback helps keep systems running as designed.
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