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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 07-09-2014 03:54 PM
It really does all get back to the responsibility being on the theater to demonstrate why they are better than their competition.
Not only does that include other movie theaters, but home theaters (media rooms and living rooms), all the way down to someone's phone connected with earbuds that they use to watch movies on the bus/train going home from work.
Expecting all the customers to magically know what goes into a great presentation is unrealistic. If I go to a restaurant that serves great food, I can still come away from the meal with a very positive impression, even if I don't know that the food was hand-picked from local organic farms that showered their crops with melted snow water from the Himalayas.
Of course, if the waiter were to tell me that, I might enjoy the meal on yet another level.
However, if the meal tasted like crap, it wouldn't matter where it came from or how it was prepared, I would still have a bad impression. Furthermore, if I knew where it came from, I'd probably hesitate to try another place that got their crops from the same source.
For all the bashing that IMAX deserves, they know how to convince their audiences that their admission dollars were well-spent. The speaker demonstration that some IMAX theaters do is a very easy way for people to understand and appreciate what the theater has done for their listening enjoyment. Whether or not the results are as spectacular as the marketing is up for debate, but I'll bet that people are more likely to come away with a positive impression after that little pre-show than without it.
This problem has been around for many years. THX had the same issue. Theaters who put little to no effort in marketing their investment to the public saw middling results and as a result, THX was not worth it to them. Fortunately, DTS and Dolby Digital on film was a big enough upgrade in quality that many people could notice on their own, but some theaters couldn't quite figure out how to show a DD presentation without dropouts at the reel splices (whether that was a Dolby issue or a theater issue, or both, I'm not sure any more).
If I were to stick $75k into my theater for anything, you can bet I would make sure that I had a plan for how I was going to milk every ounce of benefit I could get from it. Any theater that spends the money and time installing an Atmos system and then says nothing about it is setting itself up for disappointment.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 07-16-2014 09:13 AM
There's some validity to the idea that Dolby had to come out with something for home theater, so that they don't get DTS'd in the market where money can really be made. The number of Blu-ray discs with TrueHD is very small in relation to those with DTS Master Audio, and I can imagine that Dolby didn't want it to happen again.
That said, no enthusiast with more than an introductory knowledge of the hobby is going to think that this HTIB is going to be the same as what can be had in a theater. Sure, they may buy it anyway, but it will be with the full knowledge that it's a compromise. Those that buy this with no clue will be easily swayed by even minimal marketing attempts by a theater, because they're not willing to find out for themselves what makes a good presentation and rely solely on what a company tells them.
In either scenario, this is not doom and gloom for a theater, nor is it doom and gloom for Dolby.
Dolby is smart enough to know that there is money to be had from the home theater market (my guess is, they'll make more in licensing fees selling stuff like this than they will in installing just one Atmos installation in a theater).
Theaters can benefit from the extra brand recognition that Atmos in the home is providing. While it can make for an awkward situation when John Q. Public has Atmos capability in his home while a theater bringing in thousands of people a day does not, a theater that has made the investment can stand on top of the home theater situation and say "you may have Atmos in your house, but have you heard Atmos in ours?" and then show them how puny their setup really is. They'll be impressed, and you'll likely keep them as a customer.
Smoke and mirrors. Entertainment has always had tiers of abilities. Skilled magicians dealt with hacks that couldn't do more than pull a rabbit out of a hat. Annie Oakley probably had to put up with that guy with a pop gun and a pony that tried to get people's attention while they stood in line for her shows.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 07-16-2014 09:25 AM
Dolby is a publicly traded American corporation now, so it probably shouldn't come as any surprise the bean counters driving the company's strategy are looking for the fastest, short term gain.
From 1983 it took THX a little over a decade to reach its peak. Stock investors don't have any patience for that shit. For Dolby to have treated Atmos properly they would have had to let it slowly roll out in more and more commercial theaters, while continuing to refine and improve the technology. Then, perhaps at some point, it could be rolled out to the consumer electronics world. Instead, they're going in the reverse direction. Consumer toys first, making it more practical for cinemas to install last.
Lots of financial gurus look at the practice of "buy and hold" as something only suckers do. Companies have to try anything to pump up their balance sheets every quarter to keep the attention of ADHD style investors (and prevent getting fired for not delivering enough profit this quarter versus what was delivered the previous quarter).
quote: Carsten Kurz
I am sure Dolby is not too happy about it themselves. But with Auro 3D entering the home cinema market, they simply had to do something.
The problem is Auro has had next to nothing in terms of title support. That situation has only recently started to improve with the addition of Lucy,, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Into The Storm to the summer slate of Auro mixes. BTW those movies are also being released in Dolby Atmos.
From its beginning Auro has been intended for use in home theater and gaming. Yet the format was getting next to nothing in terms of support from Hollywood theatrical releases. For the past 2 years Dolby has had a huge lead over Auro. But that could swing the other way.
Dolby Atmos has been a pretty tough sale to commercial theater operators due to its really high price. I'm afraid it's going to be an even more difficult sell with the brand being whored out to the consumer electronics space while the theatrical version remains extremely costly. This giant gulf between the cinema version of consumer version is certain to make theater operators consider the alternatives -mainly the less expensive Auro format or just sticking with 5.1 or 7.1 surround.
I think Dolby is going to be under some serious pressure to release a far less expensive "CP950" Atmos processor as well as getting amplifier manufacturers like QSC to make multi-channel amps to make Atmos installations more practical and less expensive. If they can't do that a lot more theater may end up installing Auro. Then we'll see a lot more movies mixed with Auro 11.1 than Atmos.
quote: Scott Jentsch
The number of Blu-ray discs with TrueHD is very small in relation to those with DTS Master Audio, and I can imagine that Dolby didn't want it to happen again.
There's two reasons why DTS Master Audio took over as the de facto audio format for Blu-ray. 1.: home theater fans rabid over the DTS brand name. 2.: (I think this is the bigger one) DTS' Master Audio encoder is easier to use and integrates into the Blu-ray Authoring environment better.
All commercial level Blu-ray authoring happens on Windows-based PCs. None of the software runs on Mac OSX. Yet Dolby insisted on making its Dolby TrueHD encoding software a Mac-only thing and made it a LOT more expensive than DTS' encoding software. DTS' Master Audio encoding software is available for both Windows and Mac OSX. Dolby should have got off its high horse and released a Windows version of its encoder and priced it to compete with DTS. BTW, this price and platform hopping problem is still going to be an issue when it comes to embedding Atmos mixes into Dolby TrueHD tracks on Blu-ray. It will be something that will give DTS and Auro 11.1/13.1 an advantage in home theater over Atmos.
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