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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: How long will Dolby Atmos last?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-22-2015 11:00 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
A pure object based format can support "legacy channel mapped sound" via the methods I described earlier. It's also part of the mixing tools responsibility to create "intuitive" interface to do this.
To me this sounds like pie in the sky stuff versus reality, particularly the realities in how channels vs. objects work, how audio editing software works and the very limited amount of time sound designers have to produce audio layouts and final mixes for movies. Fundamentally you're not making any compelling case why a sound format that only supports objects has an advantage over a sound format/sound processor that supports both objects and traditional channel-based sound layouts.
I see an object only approach as creatively limiting and counter-productive as well. Atmos' beds model will accommodate scenarios such as the music scoring team delivering a final 5.1 stem to the sound mixing team rather than a huge ProTools layout with dozens of independent objects. The ADR team may deliver a down-mixed stem as well. You're talking round and round how an object-only system would support that 5.1 layout just fine, but doing so in what sounds like a stupidly complicated manner.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Yeah, to get traction. Because before Atmos, there was already Iosono (recently acquired by Barco) with working installs (first working install in a theater in 2009) and Imm sound (which Dolby later acquired) with working installs and actual movie titles in the pipeline.
Iosono is not MDA. And Iosono was effectively dead in the water, going nowhere because its costs were extreme even compared to a fully maxed out Dolby Atmos system. MDA sure doesn't need to try to ride on Iosono's coat tails either, not if the companies using it are going to try to sell next gen sound done minimal and cheap.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Let's not overstate what those sound objects actually are. They are just uncompressed audio samples with some metadata on a timeline attached to them. They are not some high level representation of the sound waves that should be rendered. So this analogy only works on a certain level. They're more like bitmapped sprites, which you can freely move around in a 3D space and apply mutations on. And I could stretch it so long and call a bed or stem an object too, because it actually is.
I don't think you're understanding the analogy. Or you're just ignoring its point. Also I think you don't understand the constraints that get baked into an audio track when it has been merged from dozens of "floating" independent objects into a final combination consisting of one channel, two channels or 5.1 or 7.1. Once that merging has been done there is no un-doing it. No amount of double-speak about intuitive software interfaces or elegant design or whatever is going to change any of that.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
No, because it's not the purpose of Open MDA to do this, it's not the purpose of AC3 to suggest quality standards. If there is anyone that can demand a quality standard here, it's DTS for DTS:X and Barco for their implementation of it. If they want some uniformity in quality, maybe they could come up with a new brand and put their collective marketing efforts behind it.
Actually Dolby's white papers on AC3 encoding and Dolby Digital theatrical installations have suggested quality standards. You're pitching MDA as it is has some kind of superiority to Dolby Atmos when it doesn't appear to do anything technically superior to Atmos. The only advantage (if you can call it that) MDA seems to have is allowing people to pass off next-gen audio in cheaper, lesser, non-standard configurations.
quote: Lyle Romer
Since Open MDA is supposed to be an open standard, what is stopping Dolby from putting out a software upgrade to the CP-850 that allows it to render and Open MDA stream and call it Atmos?
There probably isn't anything stopping that; although I think it would be silly for Dolby to call it Atmos. That would be worse in principal than them trying to apply Dolby-branding to "generic" Linear PCM 7.1 surround.
I think DTS' hope is that Open MDA will infiltrate the front end sound editing environment, becoming a standard feature in apps like ProTools, Abelton Live, Audition, etc. Sound designers would create an object and/or channel based mix using MDA tools and then be able to output in Dolby Atmos, AuroMAX, Auro 11.1, DTS:X, etc. rather than have to re-build a next-gen mix using separate, proprietary front-ends. Right now if you release a movie with Atmos and Auro you have to redo the mix in both their editing front ends. Now with MDA and a possibly plethora of re-branded MDA-based sound formats a sound production team would be looking at a totally impractical situation.
quote: Lyle Romer
Isn't this less of a format war and more of a processor sales war?
I think that's the fundamental thing there. That, and sound system packages. I noticed Dolby has released a "base" version of the CP-850. It has standard 5.1 and 7.1 operation and can downmix certain Atmos mixes into those conventional formats. I assume the processor can be upgraded.
quote: Lyle Romer
Hell, if Dolby got 1 or 2 major studios to do Atmos only and not Open MDA, they would win because Atmos could play both while DTS:X and Auromax (which sounds like a drug name) could only play Open MDA.
That has already been going on for some time. Auro's title support is still not very good. Dolby has a very big lead with Atmos title numbers. Regardless of the poor title support Cinemark has installed Auro 11.1 in most of its XD theaters. Maybe it's just enough for customers to see all the extra speakers on the walls, even if they're not getting used.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-22-2015 02:33 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
To me this sounds like pie in the sky stuff versus reality, particularly the realities in how channels vs. objects work, how audio editing software works and the very limited amount of time sound designers have to produce audio layouts and final mixes for movies. Fundamentally you're not making any compelling case why a sound format that only supports objects has an advantage over a sound format/sound processor that supports both objects and traditional channel-based sound layouts.
Bobby, even the studios want a single delivery format and not mess around with a gazillion different channel locked layouts.
The compelling case? Your mix works on any sound system we can dream up now and in the future. If you want to re-release it in 20 or so years, no need for a remix, ever. Studio exec: Great, sign me up!
quote: Bobby Henderson
I see an object only approach as creatively limiting and counter-productive as well. Atmos' beds model will accommodate scenarios such as the music scoring team delivering a final 5.1 stem to the sound mixing team rather than a huge ProTools layout with dozens of independent objects. The ADR team may deliver a down-mixed stem as well. You're talking round and round how an object-only system would support that 5.1 layout just fine, but doing so in what sounds like a stupidly complicated manner.
They can still deliver a discrete channel mix... And in the future, maybe we can have a workable "MDA exchange format", just like you can give me a vector version of that logo of your customer, I still don't need to mess around with the individual shapes, but at least it neatly scales with my other vector based stuff...
quote: Bobby Henderson
Iosono is not MDA. And Iosono was effectively dead in the water, going nowhere because its costs were extreme even compared to a fully maxed out Dolby Atmos system. MDA sure doesn't need to try to ride on Iosono's coat tails either, not if the companies using it are going to try to sell next gen sound done minimal and cheap.
Well, Imm Sound wasn't "Open MDA" either, the whole format didn't exist until recently. But who gives a fuck if it was called MDA or Flying Panda Super Audio? The fact is that both companies were active in the "multi dimensional audio" market and had actual products on the market, years before Dolby did. I've actually listened to both and the Imm Sound system was installed in a German cinema boasting their new "PLF" concept. The difference between Imm Sound and Iosono is that Iosono is by far the technically more advanced system, using Wave Front Synthesis instead of more traditional panning techniques. WFS actually comes close to achieve what the Voldemort 4000* system actually claims... All Seats Hear St3reo™
* Cannot be named without this forum blowing up your computer and Brad hunting you down.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I don't think you're understanding the analogy. Or you're just ignoring its point. Also I think you don't understand the constraints that get baked into an audio track when it has been merged from dozens of "floating" independent objects into a final combination consisting of one channel, two channels or 5.1 or 7.1. Once that merging has been done there is no un-doing it. No amount of double-speak about intuitive software interfaces or elegant design or whatever is going to change any of that.
Yawn and double-yawn. Bobby, please. How stupid do you think I am? For your information, I've actually written stuff like Ogg Vorbis decoding on embedded devices, based on their references and documentations, because it didn't exist at the time and I needed it. I'm not claiming to understand all their specs end to end, maybe I'm to stupid for that anyway or I just didn't care. Anyway, I just sheepishly implemented most of it based on their reference designs. But pretty fucking please... I know the difference between a "flattened down" delivery format and and a "source format" or whatever you want to call it. And yes, I even do know the difference between a lossy compressed format (like Ogg Vorbis) and a loss less format... And, oh my holy flying spaghetti monster... YES, I know the difference between an Adobe Illustrator file, with all it's "objects" or "shapes", splines and whatnot stuff wrapped in a neat, proprietary AI "container" and the PNG (or maybe even JPEG) end result that ended up on the clients website... Come on, this is just below kindergarten level.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Actually Dolby's white papers on AC3 encoding and Dolby Digital theatrical installations have suggested quality standards. You're pitching MDA as it is has some kind of superiority to Dolby Atmos when it doesn't appear to do anything technically superior to Atmos. The only advantage (if you can call it that) MDA seems to have is allowing people to pass off next-gen audio in cheaper, lesser, non-standard configurations.
Bobby, AC-3 is just a 5.1 channel audio format based on the same compression technology as the MP3 format. Even your refrigerator does AC-3 nowadays. Nobody gives a shit about how you think it should be played back even if you put your speakers in your bathtub with a lid on it. If you think it's fine, it's fine and it's still AC-3, sounding "awesome".
The point is, and we can continue nitpicking about this until the oceans run dry and camels develop wings, but a delivery format is not a guarantee for great delivery to your ears. If you want that, you want something that encompasses some kind of certification. You want THX, but if I say that you want New and shiny THX, you tell me/us, New and shiny THX is pointless, because nobody cares about the technical details anyway.
quote: Bobby Henderson
There probably isn't anything stopping that; although I think it would be silly for Dolby to call it Atmos. That would be worse in principal than them trying to apply Dolby-branding to "generic" Linear PCM 7.1 surround.
Aren't they actually doing that last thing already with neat trailers like this one?
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I wonder if there is going to a point where producers just pay the licensing fee for Atmos and put in the same 7.1 sound track (used for regular theaters) and just call it a day. Any opinions on this?
And why would they want to do this? Are people not going to see e.g. the next Avengers movie because it doesn't have an Atmos soundtrack? (Before somebody starts complaining, it seemingly does.)
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-23-2015 12:20 AM
quote:
Bobby, even the studios want a single delivery format and not mess around with a gazillion different channel locked layouts.
The compelling case? Your mix works on any sound system we can dream up now and in the future. If you want to re-release it in 20 or so years, no need for a remix, ever. Studio exec: Great, sign me up!
It sounds nice in theory, but it's not in quite in touch with reality. The only thing "future proof" at all is the original master recordings if they're properly archived.
You can develop some nice 3D sound editing/mixing front end that outputs in DTS' MDA format. But DTS doesn't own any rights to encode the same mix in Dolby Atmos, Auro 11.1, AuroMAX, etc. The post production people will still at least have to spend money on plug-ins or 3rd party applications outputting audio in those formats. MDA isn't going to render to them all.
Dolby has several hundred Atmos systems installed now. There's at least a couple hundred or so Auro 11.1 systems in service, including around 100 in the US at all those Cinemark/Century XD theaters. Are all those theaters supposed to get rid of all that equipment for MDA based stuff? If so, I would expect theater operators to respond by sticking with conventional channel-based sound systems and tell the studios and equipment sales people to go screw themselves and their next-gen audio formats.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Yawn and double-yawn. Bobby, please. How stupid do you think I am? For your information, I've actually written stuff like Ogg Vorbis decoding on embedded devices, based on their references and documentations, because it didn't exist at the time and I needed it. I'm not claiming to understand all their specs end to end, maybe I'm to stupid for that anyway or I just didn't care. Anyway, I just sheepishly implemented most of it based on their reference designs. But pretty fucking please... I know the difference between a "flattened down" delivery format and and a "source format" or whatever you want to call it. And yes, I even do know the difference between a lossy compressed format (like Ogg Vorbis) and a loss less format... And, oh my holy flying spaghetti monster... YES, I know the difference between an Adobe Illustrator file, with all it's "objects" or "shapes", splines and whatnot stuff wrapped in a neat, proprietary AI "container" and the PNG (or maybe even JPEG) end result that ended up on the clients website... Come on, this is just below kindergarten level.
Do you understand post production work flow in movie or video production? Not every department creating all the different parts of what will be the final mix work in the same manner or use the same tools. Not everyone is going to be delivering a purely object-based sound design. Time constraints are an issue. You keep banging this objects only drum, insisting channel based audio can't be part of the equation. It doesn't sound like you understand just how limiting and impractical that sounds.
Not that any of that matters. None of these next-gen audio formats will be delivered as a purely objects-only thing.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Bobby, AC-3 is just a 5.1 channel audio format based on the same compression technology as the MP3 format. Even your refrigerator does AC-3 nowadays. Nobody gives a shit about how you think it should be played back even if you put your speakers in your bathtub with a lid on it. If you think it's fine, it's fine and it's still AC-3, sounding "awesome".
There are certain expectations to deliver when you pay a premium to see a movie with what is supposed to be some whiz-bang new technology. If it turns out to be something no better than ordinary HDTV (like what IMAX has been selling lately), it's kind of a rip-off.
Theaters weren't charging a premium for things like THX certified screens or movies with audio played in Dolby Digital. Still, the expectation was there to get "5.1" when seeing a movie in Dolby Digital. Once in a while something like a Woody Allen movie would show up effectively in mono. But then again you kind of expect that with a Woody Allen movie. And, again, you're not paying a premium above ticket price to watch it.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Aren't they actually doing that last thing already with neat trailers like this one?
Um, yeah, that was kind of my point (Dolby doesn't need to repeat their Dolby Surround 7.1 goof with an even bigger goof). Glad to see you missed the point.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-23-2015 01:28 AM
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
You don't have masking? I thought I read that you do flat on a scope screen. Anyone complain?
Yes we have masking, but it does not move. Our screen is 30x15, so our scope picture is slightly cropped on the sides. (Of course we can letterbox the picture in the rare event of a movie that really, truly needs those far extremities....but by and large I would rather have it 100% masked.)
Yes, our flat picture is pillarboxed. No, I have never had a complaint or even a single comment about that since I started working at the theater in 1976. That doesn't mean the picture wouldn't look better if it was properly masked. I just have plenty of other things on the to-do list that are more important than that.
You keep saying that "unmasked screens" are a draw for the new generation. I don't understand that, explain it if you would. Do clueless youths think exposed lacing on a movie screen is sexy or something?
Speaking of the to-do list, longtime readers here might remember that my theater hasn't had a stage curtain since about 1984, but I've been wanting to restore it ever since we took the old one down. Well...with any luck, this is the year. I'm shopping for quotes as we speak.
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 04-23-2015 02:50 PM
Issue solved:
http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/pr.aspx?newsID=3995
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Las Vegas, Nevada—Apr 22, 2015
Harman’s Lexicon Introduces QLI-32 Quantum Logic® Immersion Processor for Spectacular Cinema Surround Sound
HARMAN’s Lexicon today introduced its QLI-32 Quantum Logic Immersion cinema processor, designed to deliver up to 32 channels of surround sound in professional cinema applications. The new QLI-32 interfaces with a theater’s media source and existing cinema processor to provide a multi-dimensional listening experience with left, center, right, surround, rear and height channels, all via HARMAN’s proprietary Quantum Logic Immersion surround-processing technology. In doing so, the QLI-32 provides theaters with a cost-efficient and easily deployed upgrade path to significantly-improved immersive cinematic sound.
“Our new QLI-32 offers an effective way for theater owners to upgrade to immersive surround sound with a product that is fully compatible with existing cinema processors and is competitively priced,” said Dan Saenz, Business Segment Manager, Installed and Cinema Sound, HARMAN Professional. “It can be easily integrated into an existing theater or specified as part of a new installation.”
The Lexicon QLI-32 utilizes HARMAN’s exclusive Quantum Logic technology to provide up to 32 channels of immersive surround-sound audio over BLU-link from any mono stereo, 5.1- or 7.1-channel program material. The Lexicon QLI-32 uses exclusive signal processing techniques to actively analyze the acoustical information in the audio mix and re-create a full three-dimensional sonic environment with width, depth and height by identifying and positioning objects in the sound field – all without adding elements to the original mix. Because the QLI-32 works with existing audio systems, installation costs are reduced and any stereo or multi-channel content can be made immersive.
The QLI-32 features an 8-channel analog 25-pin connector, two 8-channel AES RJ-45 inputs, a BLU-link (2 x RJ-45) input and a BLU-link (2 x RJ-45) output. It also provides an Ethernet port and RJ-45 control connections. The QLI-32 provides Auto EQ per SMPTE 202 and offers 1/3-octave graphic EQ for each of its 32 output channels as well as parametric low-frequency EQ. The QLI-32 can be easily configured via its web-based interface and its simple front-panel control layout provides ready indication of operational status. Measuring 1U rack space high, the QLI-32 installs easily into an equipment rack.
Quantum Logic Immersion uses specialized algorithms to extract signal and reverberant streams from the original recording. Individual voices and instruments, as well as reverberant spatial information, are identified and then re-authored into a precise multichannel soundfield. QLI combines the individual signal streams using patented filter bank technology and psychoacoustic modeling to create an immersive multichannel listening experience with exceptional clarity, detail and image specificity.
The Lexicon QLI-32 Quantum Logic Immersion processor is currently available.
----
Hooray!
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-23-2015 05:42 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
It sounds nice in theory, but it's not in quite in touch with reality. The only thing "future proof" at all is the original master recordings if they're properly archived.
Even that isn't true. If the original masters were made to target discrete channel mixes...
quote: Bobby Henderson
You can develop some nice 3D sound editing/mixing front end that outputs in DTS' MDA format. But DTS doesn't own any rights to encode the same mix in Dolby Atmos, Auro 11.1, AuroMAX, etc. The post production people will still at least have to spend money on plug-ins or 3rd party applications outputting audio in those formats. MDA isn't going to render to them all.
If e.g. ProTools would support object based audio end-to-end, why wouldn't it possible to export the mix to MDA, Atmos and discrete channel mixes? Maybe Atmos would be the blocking factor, because they don't want it to be easy.
If Dolby really wants to go this route, they'll be the ones holding the stick in no time.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Dolby has several hundred Atmos systems installed now. There's at least a couple hundred or so Auro 11.1 systems in service, including around 100 in the US at all those Cinemark/Century XD theaters. Are all those theaters supposed to get rid of all that equipment for MDA based stuff? If so, I would expect theater operators to respond by sticking with conventional channel-based sound systems and tell the studios and equipment sales people to go screw themselves and their next-gen audio formats.
I'm pretty sure the CP-850 can be learned to do Open MDA via firmware upgrades... And the nice thing of purely object based mixes is: You can export/pre-render them to any discrete channel mix you want... So Barco's Auro can still be supported for eons to come, as long as someone wants to make the extra export. And maybe Barco could even upgrade their Auro installs to support Open MDA, although their customers will not get all the benefits without some serious channel-splitting.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Do you understand post production work flow in movie or video production? Not every department creating all the different parts of what will be the final mix work in the same manner or use the same tools. Not everyone is going to be delivering a purely object-based sound design. Time constraints are an issue. You keep banging this objects only drum, insisting channel based audio can't be part of the equation. It doesn't sound like you understand just how limiting and impractical that sounds.
As a matter of fact... I do. I don't claim to know it from a Hollywood point of view, then again, they're using the same tools as everybody else...
Maybe you should listen better what drum I'm actually banging. I'm saying you that the DELIVERY FORMAT doesn't need to contain channel mapped streams or objects and as a matter of fact it shouldn't. I'm not going to explain the whole shebang again.
Maybe you're not really understanding what point I'm trying to make here or maybe I'm not explaining it right, then again, this discussion gets a little tiresome.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Not that any of that matters. None of these next-gen audio formats will be delivered as a purely objects-only thing.
Well, it does. Because as far as I interpreted the specs, there won't be any channel mapping in Open MDA to keep it "speaker agnostic". You could potentially create something like "virtual speakers" though. The Imm sound format also didn't support "beds" but had a concept literally called "virtual speakers", to avoid any hard-coded channels in their delivery format.
quote: Bobby Henderson
There are certain expectations to deliver when you pay a premium to see a movie with what is supposed to be some whiz-bang new technology. If it turns out to be something no better than ordinary HDTV (like what IMAX has been selling lately), it's kind of a rip-off.
My HDTV experience blows Digital IMAX out of the water... that's not difficult: I don't see individual pixels all over my retina. Then again, nothing but certification is going to fix this for you.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Um, yeah, that was kind of my point (Dolby doesn't need to repeat their Dolby Surround 7.1 goof with an even bigger goof). Glad to see you missed the point.
Ok. But my point was, if they did it in the past, most likely they will do it in the future. Terry is making a lot of fun of it, but Amazon is already selling mobile phones with Atmos stickers, so this whole Atmos brand is already down the drain if it comes down to guaranteed quality. That's also why Dolby introduced another, rather confusing brand: Dolby Cinema...
quote: Carsten Kurz
Unfortunately, there is little that can stop cinema owners to install devices like this - except the cost of installing additional amps and speakers to make use of it. And once you're there, a 'real' ATMOS, Auro or MDA capable CP would be the better choice anyway.
About a year or 8 ago, I dreamed up a similar concept, more like a hobby... Trying to pull "objects" (I called them "streamlets") out of a multichannel mix and try to associate some coordinates to it. The idea was also to spread it better over a larger speaker array. In the end it crashed and burned, the theories behind it grew a little over my head and the first prototypes I built in Python performed so badly, I just gave up on it. I later told myself it would have sounded like shit anyway. Nobody wants "interpolated" and "upconverted" stuff. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Later I discovered this company called Imm Sound, who actually pretended to do the same: Pull "objects" out of a 7.1 mix in real-time, put a location in a 3D sound field (I was only targeting a 2D sound field, I wouldn't even know how you could even somewhat reliably pull a "Z or height plane" out of a 5.1 or 7.1 mix) and map it semi-intelligently to a bunch of speakers using some panning algorithm. Of course, they also had their own native format.
Obviously I wanted to hear this magical up-mixing system. And to be honest, the up-converted 5.1 and 7.1 mixes didn't sound very convincing to me. It's obviously hard to impossible for a few algorithms to reliably determine what original intentions the sound mixer had with the placement of a certain sound.
So, it looks to me like Harman is jumping on the same train... I just hope it sounds better than what Imm Sound had to offer a few years back...
Still, if they already put in the DSPs to do 32 channels of discrete outputs, there should be nothing stopping them to support Open MDA.
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