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Topic: Dolby's new sound system
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 03-03-2014 10:13 AM
I don't see a scenario where Dolby would not bring the Atmos technology and brand to home theater. The relative market size is much greater, and the potential revenue is too large to ignore. There are more enthusiasts with disposable income than there are theater owners willing to spend money on their sound systems.
A/V receiver manufacturers are going to be looking for something new to include in their next round of units, in order to make them worthy of crowing about each year. They've done 3D, they've done 4K, and now they need something, and "home Atmos" could be that ticket.
While not everyone can put in a 7.1 surround system, much less ceiling-mounted speakers, some can. If it doesn't add a lot to the cost of the unit, and they do a decent job of it, why not?
DTS has had the ability to have different surround profiles, based on whether the sound system was configured for side surrounds, rear surrounds, surrounds at particular angles, etc. I don't recall what that was called, but it has existed for quite a few years. If the receiver knows where the speakers are located, it can map the surround information in such a way to optimize playback for that particular room, even if the mix was created for a different configuration (e.g. side surrounds vs. rear surrounds). Unfortunately, no receivers have ever integrated that technology (to my knowledge).
That's where Atmos could come into play as well. The Atmos soundtrack is object-based, so the receiver would know where the mix wants the sound to play. Given the proper setup, the receiver would know what speakers are installed and where, and it can do the mapping, similar to what the theatrical Atmos processors do.
As long as they can solve the challenge of how to get the Atmos soundtrack onto a Blu-ray disc and deliver it to the receiver, it's not much more complicated than that. I would imagine that a BD-J app could access an Atmos soundtrack file and deliver it via a bitstream to a compatible receiver, but I don't know for sure.
Here we have another situation of theaters having a window of opportunity to impress their audiences in a way that they can't get at home, but that window isn't going to stay open forever. Nothing is exclusive these days, and I don't think Atmos will be any different.
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 03-03-2014 10:41 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
Maybe the theaters running those Atmos trailers are just advertising the fact that they have Atmos. It doesn't say in the trailer that "the following feature is presented in Atmos," does it?
Actually the Dolby Atmos leaf trailer doesn't really say much at all, it states "At the heard of a good movie is sound" or something along those lines at the beginning. Then you have your leaf in the wind and at the end it says Dolby Atmos. I have heard a few "WTF" comments by the audience at the end of the trailer.
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Obviously you and I know that they SHOULD only run that trailer on Atmos features but I can see a guy thinking, dammit I spent all that money, I'm gonna let people know it!
That might be possible, maybe Dolby is instructing theatres to play the trailer before every feature, I dunno perhaps they are desperate as they are now moving into Dolby Vision at home and almost every title on bluray is now DTS Master Audio encoded. The trailer problem could all be a avoided if Dolby would just lock out the trailer.
quote: Mike Blakesley
And, I'll bet even if people are watching a mono film from the 70s, if that Atmos trailer plays ahead of it and the movie sounds real good, people might be outside afterwards telling their friends "That Atmos system really sounds good!" Even if they only heard the center channel.
That seems to be the case, almost everything has played in Dolby Atmos at my local Atmos location (or has it?). I don't think the average person would be able to tell the difference between Dolby 7.1 and Dolby Atmos. If they release the next Woody Allen movie in Atmos, I guess the center channel thing would hold true, any theater could pretend to play the next Woody Allen movie in Atmos and just add the Dolby Atmos trailer before the feature.
quote: Scott Jentsch
I don't see a scenario where Dolby would not bring the Atmos technology and brand to home theater.
I think desperation for Dolby will kick in, they no longer have the foot print they once had in the home theater segment.
quote: Scott Jentsch
While not everyone can put in a 7.1 surround system, much less ceiling-mounted speakers, some can. If it doesn't add a lot to the cost of the unit, and they do a decent job of it, why not?
I think Dolby will find away for speaker manufacturers to bounce the sound off a wall or something.
quote: Steve Guttag
We even have sites with Christie projectors that switch lamps between 2D and 3D.
Are these big mega-chains or are they smaller mom and pop cinemas? I can't see Cineplex doing this.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-03-2014 02:34 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
I don't see a scenario where Dolby would not bring the Atmos technology and brand to home theater. The relative market size is much greater, and the potential revenue is too large to ignore.
The problem with that is the "home" version would be Atmos in name only. It wouldn't really be Dolby Atmos. In the end the brand would be cheapened. It would be like sticking a Lamborghini badge on a Chevy Impala. Spreading Atmos branding into headphones and home theater receivers would risk souring commercial movie theater customers from installing the real version of Dolby Atmos. Atmos needs to remain exclusive to movie theaters.
I don't see a practical way to have Atmos work in a home theater the way it does in a movie theater. Setting up Atmos in a home environment would require end users to do a bunch of complicated stuff measuring their listening space, buying and installing a lot more speakers and entering a lot of data into a Atmos equipped home theater receiver so it can actively render the object-based soundtrack. Very few people are going to bother with all that nonsense. As it stands, Dolby is still doing most or all of the commercial Atmos installations. Maybe Dolby is worried 3rd party technicians wouldn't get Atmos systems set up properly.
A real Dolby Atmos system for home theater would be pretty freaking expensive, if it really worked like Atmos. We're talking at least four or more surround speakers mounted in the ceiling, at least 2 or 3 speakers on each side wall and 4 or more speakers on the back wall. And then there's the issue of having either 3 or 5 stage channel speakers. The room geometry and specific location of all those speakers would have to be entered into the receiver equipped with Atmos rendering capability. Atmos doesn't work properly right out of the box. I suppose someone could incorporate gizmos of some sort to let an Atmos equipped home theater receiver "see" where all the speakers are positioned and maybe have digital connections to all of them for real time feedback. But that's going to add even more expense to an already very expensive system.
It's extremely likely any "home" version of Dolby Atmos would be little more than a standard channel-based sound format like LPCM 7.1, but just with a couple more surround speakers added to the ceiling and maybe separate surround sub-bass channels for better timbre matching. That kind of thing wouldn't need the Atmos name. Dolby might as well stick with the TrueHD brand in that regard. Just call it Dolby TrueHD 9.3 or 12-track Dolby TrueHD. It's a big mistake calling it Dolby Atmos.
quote: Scott Jentsch
As long as they can solve the challenge of how to get the Atmos soundtrack onto a Blu-ray disc and deliver it to the receiver, it's not much more complicated than that.
The current Blu-ray spec and home theater hardware infrastructure isn't designed to support anything more complex than 7.1 surround. The HDMI 2.0 specification is just about finished. It does add support for 16 channels of high bit rate LPCM. I'm not sure how an Atmos track would fit into that, but it would definitely be "packaged" data consuming a good chunk of optical disc real estate.
Bigger challenge: movie streaming. I'm still gung-ho on physical media like Blu-ray. Nevertheless video rental stores are reeling from the growth in movie streaming services. The vast majority of Americans can't get anything close to Blu-ray image quality from movie streaming services. Lossy Dolby Digital is the standard sound format. A tremendous amount of improvement in residential Internet connections would be required to make movie streaming capable of delivering things like 4K or object-based sound formats like Dolby Atmos.
Toughest challenge of all for "home" Atmos: getting people to install it correctly, if the home version is truly like Dolby Atmos. That's a very user-unfriendly installation process. It just wouldn't fly. In the end, some watered down bullshit would be passed off wearing the Dolby Atmos brand and then do more damage than good.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Maybe the theaters running those Atmos trailers are just advertising the fact that they have Atmos. It doesn't say in the trailer that "the following feature is presented in Atmos," does it?
I don't think any of Dolby's sound format trailers have specifically stated "this movie is presented in" the format of that trailer. All of the Dolby Digital trailers I've seen only featured the brand and nothing else. Same goes for the Dolby Surround 7.1 "Sphere" trailer.
Nevertheless, it's still understood if you see a specific sound format trailer placed on the front of a movie you're going to think that movie was mixed in and being presented in that specific sound format.
I understand a theater operator's need to get the most out of an expensive investment in Dolby Atmos. But playing the sound format snipe in front of a non-Atmos movie is just plain improper. It's no different than playing the Dolby Digital train trailer on the front of a movie with only analog Dolby SR sound. Such theaters need to advertise their investment in Atmos through use of posters, signs, plaques, etc. letting customers know they at least have that capability. Not every movie is going to have an Atmos mix.
Dolby Atmos has gone through quite a dry spell lately. Only 1 wide release in North America so far this year was mixed in Atmos, I: Frankenstein and that movie turned out to be a real dud (and didn't even play on a lot of Atmos equipped screens). Thankfully March is going to be more busy.
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I get what you are saying about having a different name and such, but I think Dolby is in a difficult position, in order for Atmos to succeed in the theaters I think consumers need to be able to experience Atmos on the mobile platform, or in the home etc.
That doesn't make any sense. The only way to experience Dolby Atmos for real is by hearing it in a commercial movie theater. Throwing the Atmos brand on a phone or Blu-ray disc only works as advertisement at best, but will damage the Atmos brand by cheapening it and confusing it.
As for Dolby being "desperate," how can you make that assumption without seeing their balance sheet?
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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012
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posted 03-03-2014 03:01 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
I think you're overemphasizing the mobile arena. Sure the kids are all "connected" but that doesn't mean they don't engage with the real world AT ALL. And, keep in mind that there are billions of people in the world over age 25. The key to making Atmos succeed is to get it into a lot of theaters, get people talking about it and get it promoted. Not watering it down and jamming it into every device that has a speaker.
You might think I might be overemphasizing the mobile segment but Dolby hasclearly recognized that mobile is essential. Dolby is on record and has said that in order for Dolby to grow in the future it is from the mobile area.
Dolby does not dominate the theatrical segment like it once did. The company cannot rely on Dolby Atmos exhibitor sales to keep them afloat.
quote: Mike Blakesley
If it means just making a lot of money and not caring what the brand means, then yeah, they should jam away. If they want the brand to have integrity, then it should be theatrical only and promoted as such
You are right, but I think Dolby will be going after the money.
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(Sheez, you'd think they'd have a marketing expert onboard who could tell them that lesson from Marketing 101.) B
They did, I think they hired some former Apple marketing expert.
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