This is topic How long will Dolby Atmos last? in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Thomas Jonsson (Member # 1902) on 04-12-2015, 09:38 AM:
What do you think - will Dolby Atmos go the same way as SDDS? If the studios didn´t bother to add even 2 extra channels in the long run, how long will they bother to add a whole bunch of channels?
If you look at the list of Dolby Atmos movies on Dolby´s website, there are 64 in 2013, 54 in 2014 and 26 released/upcoming for 2015. More might be added, but it looks like the number of movies are decreasing. Any opinion on this?
Thomas
Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 04-12-2015, 10:32 AM:
Dolby will come out with something new every few years, like speakers under the seats for the below ground sound. They don't advertise/market what they sell for theatres. The public won't even know about the sound as about only one auditorium has It in each large theatre with no information or advertising on the door entrance. Some new sound company may come along in the future and know how to advertise to get the public interested in going to a movie that has a special wrap a round sound track.
Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 04-12-2015, 10:39 AM:
I don't think Dolby Atmos will last very long. Aside from a few fan boys who simply cannot see reality, Dolby Atmos is failing in the cinema. Now you have pointed out that there are only 26 movies being released this year in Atmos, it looks like Furious 7, Ant-man, Mad Max Fury Road, Jurassic World are all being left out, that cannot be good for Dolby Atmos ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Compared to Dolby Sound formats of the past, the modern cinema landscape has way too many competing brands and options to really allow Dolby to have a chance. With all these competing brands, it becomes very hard to effectively get the Atmos message out to customers. I think 9 out of 10 people have no idea what Atmos is or how it works. Also, a very good 5.1 sound system is already good enough IMHO.
If I were a cinema owner, I would probably upgrade my projection sooner than I would upgrade my sound system (that is assuming I already have 5.1). Consumers will see the benefit of upgrading projections systems more than they will hear the difference between Atmos and 5.1.
I also think all of these Atmos enabled tablets, cell phones and lap tops is not helping Atmos either. Perhaps the writing is on the wall, and the lack of film releases in Atmos is proving it.
Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 04-12-2015, 11:36 AM:
I still believe that the customers don't need to know how the system work to enjoy it.
But I do agree that cinemas lack some kind of presentation today. Atmos or not, a cinema should have the wow factor. In the past that was done with the proper lighting sequence, curtains, Dolby/DTS/SDDS/THX logos shown at proper level at the beginning of the feature to tell the customer "here we go".
I've always hated the dull presentations were everything was shown at the same level, lights were turned off at the beginning of the feature and I had trouble to find out whether what I was watching on screen was another trailer or the beginning of the movie.
Unfortunately most of the big chains are now managing cinemas as they were McDonalds shops and auditoriums are big black boxes where to watch a big TV.
I am told that mixers appreciate what Atmos can do, that may do the difference. Big chains are also in need of something to differentiate home from cinema.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-12-2015, 11:40 AM:
If Atmos doesn't last it's due to one biggest base reason: Cost.
Can you imagine what would have happened with digital sound if it had cost $40,000 or more per screen? At least 80% of the screens would have still been running analog sound when the digital projection conversion started. (On the other hand, that might have been better...just think of the "wow" factor with having a hugely improved picture AND sound at the same time!)
The studios know that there's a new 'blockbuster' every couple of weeks, so their expensive Atmos soundtrack will only get that first couple weeks' exposure in the big Atmos auditorium before it's shunted off to the cheap small 5.1 auditorium. And people aren't clamoring for immersive sound anyway; instead they're paying premium prices for oversized unmasked "Liemax" screens running 5.1 sound, so the studios figuring "what's the point?" It's not surprising.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-12-2015, 12:20 PM:
quote: Thomas Jonsson
What do you think - will Dolby Atmos go the same way as SDDS? If the studios didn´t bother to add even 2 extra channels in the long run, how long will they bother to add a whole bunch of channels?
The reason why SDDS failed wasn't the extra two channels, but simply because it added nothing relevant for most venues and most movies and it wasn't vastly cheaper than DTS or SRD.
Also, creating a Dolby Atmos mix isn't about adding just a bunch of extra channels. Those next generation sound formats try to do away with the notion of "sound channels". Dolby Atmos is clearly focussed on the way practically all movies will be mixed in the future, once tools like ProTools have been fully adapted to this. In this situation, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro3D will be just another checkbox on your export dialog. In a perfect world, we don't even have a specific Atmos, DTS:X or other format, but just one single, open MDA format, a lot like the current 5 or 7 channel LPCM sound track on each and every DCP release.
quote: Terry Monohan
Some new sound company may come along in the future and know how to advertise to get the public interested in going to a movie that has a special wrap a round sound track.
All of those next generation object based sound formats are already "wrap around" sound tracks. The only real upgrade path from there on is increasing spatial resolution and "holographic sound" with techniques like Wave Front Synthesis. The beauty of a well designed object sound format is, that you won't even need a new format to accomplish this.
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
Compared to Dolby Sound formats of the past, the modern cinema landscape has way too many competing brands and options to really allow Dolby to have a chance.
In the "Digital on Film" age we had SRD, DTS and SDDS... Now we have three special formats competing against each other: Atmos, Auro3D and DTS:X. I don't see any difference. Besides that we had at least one other attempt at digital sound and an endless number of analog sound formats and configurations to choose from.
quote: Mike Blakesley
If Atmos doesn't last it's due to one biggest base reason: Cost.
That's probably the only reason why Atmos could fail in the market. I guess Dobly will still hold on to their premium pricing for a while, because they still see the professional version of Atmos as a premium sound system. But it's clear their competition isn't sleeping and they will eventually force the price for Atmos down. It will never be dirt cheap when done right, off course, but at least it will become much more affordable.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-12-2015, 01:22 PM:
Sooner or later, ATMOS systems will need to become MDA compatible. At that point, cheaper MDA systems will be available and take considerable market from Dolby. Dolby then will need to release a cheaper system solution. I guess they will still promote a 'high-end' system with all their proprietary technology like spectral conforming, etc., with the cheaper systems lacking a few of these features.
I don't think object-based audio will vanish from the cinema market. At some point, sound engineers will always create object based mixes, and have the 5.1/7.1 mixes converted from them.
- Carsten
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-12-2015, 01:38 PM:
It's cost, and specifically cost that exhibitors have got to find up front and without a clear and obvious return.
5.1 is as much detail in "wraparound" sound as most theater customers can discern. More than that and only the geeks will appreciate it. Same deal with SDDS - the higher bitrate sounds better (whenever I get a quad-track print I'll always play the SDDS unless I have concerns about edge damage), but it was extra cost and lower reliability. The market for something like Atmos is never going to extend beyond a small number of prestige, high end, downtown venues catering to customers with spending power of $20-30 a ticket. If that's where Dolby are aiming it then great, but if they did the math on the assumption that these systems would be going into every suburban multiplex screen, I'd guess that they miscalculated.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-12-2015, 02:12 PM:
The real question is, how much will the difference a patron notices in the theatre influence their ticket-buying decision? I have come to the conclusion that the public will shell out money for even the worst presentation if it's a movie they want to see and it's convenient. We have two theatres (originally single screens) that were tortured into the worst plexes and consistently have the worst presentation I have ever witnessed, yet they do astounding business weekend after weekend. EVERYTHING about the presentation in both these dogs is severely compromised -- not just what is on the screens (from those screens being set too high to accomodate the exit doors on the same wall to them being under lit to hotspots to damaged surfaces) and sound (from dead channels to harsh eqs to rattling voice coils), to everything else like filthy floors, broken seats, to smelly, dark, dank, rooms, yet drive by either of them on a Friday or Saturday night and there is a flurry of activity with patrons lining up to get in; they can't hand they money over fast enough. Go to Yelp and look for the Pavilion Cinema or the Kent Theatre in Brooklyn, and read the slew of negative reviews. But this doesn't seem to hurt their disgusting business.
My point is, presentation quality seems to be trumped by convenience most of the time for too many people. Expensive formats like Atmos, while they may be the norm for flagship theatres, the rathole "cinema" that has spent fractions of what that flagship theater spent for an Atmos install, still gets packed for the big releases, still charges the same ticket price as the flagship with Altos and if it's actually got even a 5.1 system in there, the patron is lucky.
People STILL seem to put up with and patronize the painfully large number of below par, below spec, below what any of us would consider marginally acceptable presentation; they have no problem patronizing the garbage houses. And btw, at lease one of these two places mentioned has very good demographics -- upscale, affluent, gentrified neighborhoods; the clientele are not unsophisticated. One would think they should know better and would seek out the better cinemas, say with Atmos. That doesn't seem to happen, and it's not like there are no other quality cinemas in the area -- there are.
Over and over again the majority of the public will choose convenience over quality and it is a real question if Atmos will make any significant impact on pulling asses into seats. So what would motivate an exhibitor to spend all that money for so little return on his investment, other than prestige...the ability so say that at least on a few screens he's got state-of-the-art. Businessmen, especially exhibitors, don't usually like to spend a lot of money just for bragging rights.
Problem is, Atmos has limited marketing value vs. it's cost vs. it's ability to draw in significant number of patrons, while the crapola houses show no sign of going out of business due to lack of Atmos, let alone due to their puny TV sized screen, or subspec lumen levels or lack of an effective cleaning crew or their overpriced stale concessions, etc.
That said, since it may be the way sound designers want to mix their soundtracks so it will become ubiquitous coming out of the studio, but like other high-end soundtrack mixes (7.1, 8) when it gets down to the indivitual theatres, it may never reach very high saturation.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-12-2015, 03:52 PM:
While factoring the cost of Atmos (or other high-end sound format)...one has to not only factor in the cost of the hardware but the availability of the prints that take advantage of it. So you spend $80K on Atmos...but if you don't have content to play on it or the content that is available are duds (this is the movie industry, there are more duds than great money makers). There are no guarantees that if you put Atmos in that you will have content to play on it.
For instance, I have some high-end "Art Houses" . Can you imagine the sales meeting I'd have if I proposed converting their theatres to Atmos (or MDA or Auro)? I don't think there are any "Art" Atmos mixes necessarily coming out. Life of Pi would be your closest crossover to that. They did run Gravity...which isn't an Art movie. So what is the ROI for that sort of venue. Would you bank on the format? What Atmos (and now MDA) have going for it is the home market (and again a small percentage...but a small percentage of a VERY big number) such that a studio may do an immersive mix since it will not only have Cinema value but home release value.
And then there is the proper promotion. So you invest in a high-end sound processor...just how does the consumer even know they are to be excited about going to a theatre that features it? I'm not even talking about understanding what it does (you aren't going to achieve that and it isn't important...all they need to accomplish is getting enough consumers excited about a format to seek it out or pay a premium to experience a movie in it).
We've all seen some pretty poor promotional blunders in our industry have have allowed formats to languish. Then there are success stories. Real-D...for instance has done a good job of plastering their name in just about every form of advertisement to the point they are associated with 3D like Dolby was for stereo movies back in the day. You'd never know there was Dolby 3D, XpanD or Master Image. Sure, you can put a snipe up in your theatre...but that is to tell the person that ALREADY bought the ticket...there is nothing to get the consumer associating a format with a particular process or theatre.
Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 04-12-2015, 10:41 PM:
The oft quoted cost of a CP850 is indeed high. What would you pay for a sound processor that could render object based sound? Even if it is relatively low cost, there is still tremendous installation costs on speakers, etc. As previously mentioned, USL can render object based sound out to 16 channels, the current limit on media blocks. When you move to an external processor, it has to duplicate the security and forensic marking features of the media block making it considerably more expensive than your typical 8 channel processor. So, what would you pay?
Thanks!
Harold
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-12-2015, 11:13 PM:
in terms of 'art' fare movies: two others pop into mind beside 'Life of Pi': 'I,Orgins' and 'Last Days in the Desert' which both were the recipients of the Dolby Family Sound Fellowship - and mixed in Atmos.
as to 'Furious 7' and no word on 'Jurassic World' (yet) - what's Universal's deal - they seem to be backing out on the format.
surprised we haven't got word on 'Tomorrowland'
'Home' was a disappointing Atmos mix if you ask me.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-13-2015, 03:12 AM:
Like I mentioned before, Dolby seemingly isn't interested in the low end market just yet. They want to "milk the cow" by asking premium prices for their proprietary Atmos technology. Right now, they're also the only one with products in the MDA field and some credible install base and movie titles. They will be shooting themselves in the foot by slashing the prices and they must know nobody is going to shell out those prices for anything but their most premium theaters and I think they're fine with it, until now.
Like Carsten already mentioned, they won't be able to run away from competing, open MDA formats forever. Maybe they will try at first and they can effectively limit the adaptation of other sound formats by just not implementing necessary features in their server lineup for example. But they cannot play that game forever, because eventually they will find themselves bypassed by their competition.
Also, sound engineers will indeed continue to create mixes in spatial audio formats, why won't they? A master mix that retains spatial information, rather than discrete channels can be re-exported and rendered to practically any discrete audio system one can dream up. It will also simplify their workflow, because there is actually no real need anymore to create a new mix for every odd format that might be conceived somewhere.
It may take a little bit of rethinking for the real old-school folks, but from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure most audio folks are pretty excited about those kind of mixing approaches. And if they aren't, the studios certainly will be, because an object based audio master will avoid expensive remixing costs for future re-releases.
If your sound processor supports this open MDA format, it can render it on your sound system, no matter how many discrete channels you've connected to it. If it's a classical 5.1 or 7.1 discrete channel layout, it will also be mapped to this layout. If it is a 200-channel mega-premium deluxe layout, it will be mapped to this layout too.
It's not like this "real time audio mapping" is anything fancy as of 2015. The raw processing power to do this for quite a bunch of channels is something a modern smartphone could do.
So, in a way this would create a single inventory audio mix that scales across any conceivable layout, anything from mono to a sheer infinite number of speakers.
If cinemas are actually going to implement extra discrete channels for this is another question entirely. But sound formats never really were a reliable indicator for presentation standards. One could have a huge Dolby Digital logo on the marquee, but what good is this if the B-chain is a bunch of crap or the acoustics in the room just plainly suck?
For this, there used to be THX. Certification is a useful thing if it means something. The problem with THX is that the brand was never fully understood, but at least it gave a hint about the quality of a certified theater to those who actually did know what it stood for.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-13-2015, 06:12 AM:
I should be noted that the CP850 price has indeed come down quite a bit since its original release and compared to the likes of the CP200 (in its day), it isn't overly expensive. However, compared to all other DCinema processors, it scary expensive. It also lacks a multi-channel analog input (a sore subject that makes many people roll their eyes with frustration when trying to integrating it into a multifaceted system).
Note too...new technology is always going to be pricier as it is "cutting edge" and has a substantial investment behind it...You are going to want to get your money back as soon as possible. How many engineers, promotional events, advertising, negotiations do you think someone like Dolby has to go through to get that first unit sold and how fast do you get your money back? Dolby has investors that will want to see a profit each quarter. As a format becomes more mainstream, it gets progressively cheaper to make/sustain it.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-13-2015, 10:01 PM:
quote: Thomas Jonsson
If you look at the list of Dolby Atmos movies on Dolby´s website, there are 64 in 2013, 54 in 2014 and 26 released/upcoming for 2015. More might be added, but it looks like the number of movies are decreasing. Any opinion on this?
Look back at movie releases that featured 70mm in the print inventory. The number of movie releases with 70mm blow-up prints went up and down like crazy between the late 1970's and early 1990's. The numbers weren't consistent. Star Wars made a big splash with its 70mm prints in 1977, but it took a few years for Hollywood to go from releasing a handful to perhaps a dozen movies with 70mm per year to releasing more than 20 movies with 70mm in 1985. Yet no one was calling 70mm a failure back then.
There's not nearly as many Dolby Atmos equipped theaters in the United States at this point as there was 70mm equipped theater screens back at the peak of 70mm at the end of the 1980's. But there's already a lot more movies mixed in Atmos per year than there ever was with 70mm.
quote: Mike Blakesley
Can you imagine what would have happened with digital sound if it had cost $40,000 or more per screen?
Back in the 1990-92 time frame a theater installing 5.1 digital surround brand new would have had to spend at least that much. The Cinema Digital Sound reader and processor cost $20,000 in 1990. The first Dolby DA-10 system also had a $20,000 price tag. If the theater was existing and had a 70mm projection system and 4.2 or 5.1 wired system they didn't have much extra to buy. But if the theater was a new build they had to add in the 5.1 capable cinema processor, crossover, speakers, etc.
Another key thing back then: "THX" was the only acronym being tossed about and it didn't add a $3 to $6 price premium on the movie ticket price back then (and THX wasn't exactly cheap to incorporate into a theater either). Today we have the alphabet soup of all the different digital big screen theaters and they all cost extra to enter. If they're going to peel more dollars out of the customers' wallets they need to be delivering more than single projector video and ordinary 5.1 surround sound.
quote: Mike Blakesley
The studios know that there's a new 'blockbuster' every couple of weeks, so their expensive Atmos soundtrack will only get that first couple weeks' exposure in the big Atmos auditorium before it's shunted off to the cheap small 5.1 auditorium. And people aren't clamoring for immersive sound anyway; instead they're paying premium prices for oversized unmasked "Liemax" screens running 5.1 sound, so the studios figuring "what's the point?" It's not surprising.
There are few things more profitable than uninformed customers who don't know any better. There's at least some people here in Lawton who are really happy Carmike is putting an IMAX-branded auditorium in its new Patriot 13 theater currently under construction. They're probably unaware they're going to be paying close to $15 per ticket just to see a 2D show (this is based on prices of Carmike's Fayetteville, NC Patriot 14 showing Furious 7). And they're probably also unaware there's a good chance the IMAX company will install some less expensive, possibly hand-me-down, outmoded 2K projectors and 5.0 sound. I'm not expecting IMAX to install its new breed of dual 4K laser based projectors and 12 channel surround sound in this theater. I'll be very surprised if they do so. Then again, I did expect them to build a cheaper Big D house in this theater, so who knows?
The unwitting public angle cuts both ways however.
A public that doesn't understand or know the details about what makes "IMAX" great can also grow fickle and uncaring about it without any warning. They may just decide watching movies for free via popcorn time is better than paying $16 per ticket and another $12 for popcorn and an oil drum sized cup of soda pop. Then the theater operator will have to roll out the specifics on why the viewer should watch the movie at the "IMAX" theater rather than at home. If the details really don't matter to the customer then the movie theater operator is totally screwed.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Also, creating a Dolby Atmos mix isn't about adding just a bunch of extra channels. Those next generation sound formats try to do away with the notion of "sound channels". Dolby Atmos is clearly focussed on the way practically all movies will be mixed in the future, once tools like ProTools have been fully adapted to this. In this situation, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro3D will be just another checkbox on your export dialog. In a perfect world, we don't even have a specific Atmos, DTS:X or other format, but just one single, open MDA format, a lot like the current 5 or 7 channel LPCM sound track on each and every DCP release.
It's no big deal to pan audio objects to different speakers and virtual positions in a room whether it's an ordinary 5.1 layout or something more elaborate in a 3D cube metaphor.
The interesting possibility with DTS' Open MDA format is audio editing applications like ProTools and Audition might be able to incorporate MDA editing capability without users having to pay extra for a plug-in. As it stands, things like lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding have turned into standard features in some audio editing applications.
quote: Steve Guttag
I should be noted that the CP850 price has indeed come down quite a bit since its original release and compared to the likes of the CP200 (in its day), it isn't overly expensive. However, compared to all other DCinema processors, it scary expensive.
I don't know the current list price of the CP850, but my understanding is the price is closer to $30,000 than it is $20,000.
It's scary expensive to install a properly configured Dolby Atmos capable sound system. But then again there are theater operators like Bill Warren who install over $1 million of imported marble in a new movie theater. The ticket price premium of all those big screen digital theaters generates a lot of extra money that pay for a full tilt Atmos sound system relatively quickly.
One thing is certain: Atmos, Auro and DTS:X probably will never be practical for any modest, standard priced auditoriums even if their respective sound format processors were given away for free.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-14-2015, 01:07 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Back in the 1990-92 time frame a theater installing 5.1 digital surround brand new would have had to spend at least that much. The Cinema Digital Sound reader and processor cost $20,000 in 1990. The first Dolby DA-10 system also had a $20,000 price tag.
Well, all 35,000 screens in the country weren't brand new when digital sound really took off. Most of them were retrofits for digital sound, like we were. DTS cost us something like $6500 installed. Fortunately we had a forward-thinking sound guy when we put our original surround system in -- we got pretty good (for the time) speakers, adequate subs, and we wired the left and right surrounds separately, so our digital installation was easy.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-14-2015, 03:40 AM:
The way things are most likely progressing is when you buy your next audio processor, you could upgrade to "MDA light" by just splitting and amplifying your surrounds separately and maybe add a few more speakers to fill in any obvious gaps. In a later stage you could add additional speakers, like those ceiling speakers or extra "height" channels. (I'm personally convinced height channels especially behind the screen are more useful than ceiling speakers.)
quote: Bobby Henderson
One thing is certain: Atmos, Auro and DTS:X probably will never be practical for any modest, standard priced auditoriums even if their respective sound format processors were given away for free.
You really don't need that many channels in a small to medium sized auditorium to create a very good result. Audio panning works quite well, as long as the gaps between the speakers are below a certain threshold. Dolby Atmos got its name and fame with the 64-channel mega installs we all read about in the press releases, but that's only somewhat useful in the biggest auditoriums.
Most 7.1 setups have a gap between the left and right surround and the screen, that gap should be filled. I'd also like some more channels behind the screen, because that's where the action actually takes place.
I also do think that the biggest breakthrough in the adaptation of those MDA formats will not even be how movies are being played, but how they're mixed in the first place.
If you go for a pure MDA approach while mixing, you will do away with the notion of static channel mapped sounds. So the soundtrack will become far more "dynamic" (or whatever word fits best). Even if the result will be exported to a discrete 5.1 or 7.1 mix only, it will most likely sound more immersive (one for the buzzword bingo) than a traditional mix.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-14-2015, 06:32 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
I don't know the current list price of the CP850, but my understanding is the price is closer to $30,000 than it is $20,000.
Current list price for the CP850 is $26,665.00US with a street price that is going to be under $18KUS. A CP200 was $14,000 with a street price around $11,000 PLUS an MPU (since they weren't included). You are going to be in the lower-mid teens for a CP200 system functional. And that was in '80s dollars. If you had a CP200, you were likely running 70mm...which also had an incremental increase in cost over your 35mm projection set up and your sound system was probably going to be a bit more too as the dynamics and even channel count were going to be higher. So adjusting for inflation, the top-end system of each day...A 70mm system is on the order of Atmos and likely a more expensive option. The difference, in my opinion, was that the 70mm image was very easy for the unsophisticated to see and realize it was a better show regardless of how well the sound guy incorporated the potential to the mix.
Yes, with 70mm blow ups, one would say "what's the point" and there are examples of really BAD 70mm blow ups...but on average, the 70mm show put out a steadier sharper picture that the average joe could easily see. Plus, the sound quality of 70mm compared to its contemporary formats like oh optical mono were again night/day better though nothing required people to mix beyond mono in 70mm either.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-14-2015, 10:35 AM:
quote:
The way things are most likely progressing is when you buy your next audio processor, you could upgrade to "MDA light" by just splitting and amplifying your surrounds separately and maybe add a few more speakers to fill in any obvious gaps. In a later stage you could add additional speakers, like those ceiling speakers or extra "height" channels. (I'm personally convinced height channels especially behind the screen are more useful than ceiling speakers.)
You really don't need that many channels in a small to medium sized auditorium to create a very good result. Audio panning works quite well, as long as the gaps between the speakers are below a certain threshold. Dolby Atmos got its name and fame with the 64-channel mega installs we all read about in the press releases, but that's only somewhat useful in the biggest auditoriums.
Most 7.1 setups have a gap between the left and right surround and the screen, that gap should be filled. I'd also like some more channels behind the screen, because that's where the action actually takes place.
I also do think that the biggest breakthrough in the adaptation of those MDA formats will not even be how movies are being played, but how they're mixed in the first place.
If you go for a pure MDA approach while mixing, you will do away with the notion of static channel mapped sounds. So the soundtrack will become far more "dynamic" (or whatever word fits best). Even if the result will be exported to a discrete 5.1 or 7.1 mix only, it will most likely sound more immersive (one for the buzzword bingo) than a traditional mix.
I was convinced that the Dolby Atmos mix of the first Hobbit movie had done this with the height channels behind the screen, since it wonderfully conveyed that the Trolls were higher than the Dwarfs placing the voices just above.
From what I've seen in the diagrams that Dolby has posted for speaker placement, there are speakers outside the screen - this was used to great use for the floating voices in 'Gravity' and the latest Hobbit movie where the music seemed to extend just outside and around the screen.
interestingly DTS-Neo 6 placed speakers also just beyond the left-center-right speakers.
Dolby also recommends / advocates five stage channels of sound for cinemas with very wide screens - this makes sense, but so far not one studio has actually encoded a feature film with five front discrete sound (plus surrounds).
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-14-2015, 11:40 AM:
quote: Jonathan Goeldner
Dolby also recommends / advocates five stage channels of sound for cinemas with very wide screens - this makes sense, but so far not one studio has actually encoded a feature film with five front discrete sound (plus surrounds).
With Atmos, this doesn't need to be encoded. If a sound object should appear between the L&C or R&C, the speakers will be used.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-14-2015, 11:50 AM:
true Lyle - but a film shouldn't have to be released exclusively in Atmos to use those two extra channels - case in point, Datasat is working with Robert Harris to encode the restoration of 'My Fair Lady' in it's archival 70mm / 6-track mix - so under that theory Datasat should hard encode the five front channel spread - DTS does this on their 70mm releases. So far no one has archived pre-1977 6-track (or 8 channel SDDS [not all of them were that bad]) mixes as such on DCP
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-14-2015, 04:08 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Most 7.1 setups have a gap between the left and right surround and the screen, that gap should be filled.
That's supposed to be one of the standard features in a Dolby Atmos equipped auditorium. I've seen that gap filled with additional side surround speakers in the Atmos theaters I've visited. But I'm not sure if Dolby really enforces that requirement. It's just like the sub-bass cabinets in the surrounds. I know not every Atmos theater has those things.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'd also like some more channels behind the screen, because that's where the action actually takes place.
I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand it might be interesting for the different kinds of on-screen tracking effects that would be possible. On the other hand, with most movies being cropped to 'scope (and letter-boxed on so many common width screens) there would probably be little if any benefit at all to stacking speaker channels above each other behind the screen. Viewers are usually looking at a very wide rectangular image. With that being said, I would be more in favor of a classic five up front, Todd-AO style setup. Additionally, some of the best 3-way and 4-way speaker systems can be pretty tall. QSC's SC-444 4-way speaker system is over 9 feet tall. Multiply that times five behind a fairly big screen and you'll have pretty good wall of sound that will work great for dialog tracking effects, especially for 'scope movies.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you go for a pure MDA approach while mixing, you will do away with the notion of static channel mapped sounds. So the soundtrack will become far more "dynamic" (or whatever word fits best). Even if the result will be exported to a discrete 5.1 or 7.1 mix only, it will most likely sound more immersive (one for the buzzword bingo) than a traditional mix.
Just like current Atmos mixes, MDA mixes will be a combination of both pre-mixed and flattend "beds" (or stems) already in 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 format with some or a lot of individual audio objects isolated from those beds. It would take way too much time to make an audio mix that consists entirely of separate objects. Most movie mixes already have a lot of pre-fab audio clip art.
quote: Jonathan Goeldner
true Lyle - but a film shouldn't have to be released exclusively in Atmos to use those two extra channels - case in point, Datasat is working with Robert Harris to encode the restoration of 'My Fair Lady' in it's archival 70mm / 6-track mix - so under that theory Datasat should hard encode the five front channel spread - DTS does this on their 70mm releases. So far no one has archived pre-1977 6-track (or 8 channel SDDS [not all of them were that bad]) mixes as such on DCP
D-cinema standards actually allow for Left Center and Right Center stage channels in the 16 channel audio layout. You don't actually need something like Dolby Atmos for this. The problem is not enough people in key positions care enough to make anything happen to bring back 5 stage channel mixes. If some key people could just have a couple conversations and settle the channel assignments in the 16 channel layout you could have standard LPCM tracks delivering five stage channels, two side surround channels, two rear surround channels, two ceiling surround channels, a sub-bass channel and still have four channels left for other purposes, such as two sub-bass channels in the surrounds. But no. Those guys can't make a freaking decision. That is a big part of what opened the door for new audio formats like Dolby Atmos, Auro 11.1 and DTS:X.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-14-2015, 05:43 PM:
quote: Jonathan Goeldner
I was convinced that the Dolby Atmos mix of the first Hobbit movie had done this with the height channels behind the screen, since it wonderfully conveyed that the Trolls were higher than the Dwarfs placing the voices just above.
While it is technically supported, most Atmos installs don't have height channels behind the screen. So maybe this effect was achieved by the system panning those sound cues between the screen channels and the front ceiling channels.
quote: Bobby Henderson
That's supposed to be one of the standard features in a Dolby Atmos equipped auditorium. I've seen that gap filled with additional side surround speakers in the Atmos theaters I've visited. But I'm not sure if Dolby really enforces that requirement. It's just like the sub-bass cabinets in the surrounds. I know not every Atmos theater has those things.
The first set of Atmos installs were all done in close cooperation with Dolby, so they all followed some minimal guidelines. It's perfectly possible we could see Atmos upgrades in the future that do, for whatever reason, not fill those gaps.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Just like current Atmos mixes, MDA mixes will be a combination of both pre-mixed and flattend "beds" (or stems) already in 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 format with some or a lot of individual audio objects isolated from those beds. It would take way too much time to make an audio mix that consists entirely of separate objects. Most movie mixes already have a lot of pre-fab audio clip art.
According to the limited information available online, MDA and thus DTS:X should be 100% speaker agnostic and should therefore not rely on traditional "beds" mapped to specific speaker channels. I guess the "bed" concept was introduced in Atmos to facilitate the transition between a traditional channel based mix and a 100% object based mix.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand it might be interesting for the different kinds of on-screen tracking effects that would be possible. On the other hand, with most movies being cropped to 'scope (and letter-boxed on so many common width screens) there would probably be little if any benefit at all to stacking speaker channels above each other behind the screen. Viewers are usually looking at a very wide rectangular image. With that being said, I would be more in favor of a classic five up front, Todd-AO style setup. Additionally, some of the best 3-way and 4-way speaker systems can be pretty tall. QSC's SC-444 4-way speaker system is over 9 feet tall. Multiply that times five behind a fairly big screen and you'll have pretty good wall of sound that will work great for dialog tracking effects, especially for 'scope movies.
The nice thing about a fully speaker agnostic sound system is that it should work in either situation. If you have height speakers behind the screen it will use those for extra tracking accuracy and if you don't, you will lose a bit of accuracy. A very advanced system might even be able to adapt itself to the aspect ratio of the current feature.
quote: Bobby Henderson
D-cinema standards actually allow for Left Center and Right Center stage channels in the 16 channel audio layout. You don't actually need something like Dolby Atmos for this. The problem is not enough people in key positions care enough to make anything happen to bring back 5 stage channel mixes. If some key people could just have a couple conversations and settle the channel assignments in the 16 channel layout you could have standard LPCM tracks delivering five stage channels, two side surround channels, two rear surround channels, two ceiling surround channels, a sub-bass channel and still have four channels left for other purposes, such as two sub-bass channels in the surrounds. But no. Those guys can't make a freaking decision. That is a big part of what opened the door for new audio formats like Dolby Atmos, Auro 11.1 and DTS:X.
Some of those channels are being used for other stuff right now, like D-BOX motion code in Channel 9 and 10. Many of those key figures aren't interested in settling those discussions, because they have their own agenda, like their own, proprietary sound formats...
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-14-2015, 07:01 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
According to the limited information available online, MDA and thus DTS:X should be 100% speaker agnostic and should therefore not rely on traditional "beds" mapped to specific speaker channels. I guess the "bed" concept was introduced in Atmos to facilitate the transition between a traditional channel based mix and a 100% object based mix.
Dolby Atmos' use of both beds and objects isn't about facilitating a transition between conventional surround and object based surround. It's about giving sound designers more control over the surrounds. Using a combination of beds and objects a sound designer can layer together complex sound environments faster. If the entire mix has to be object based it's going to be more time consuming to create. Sound editors and mixers don't exactly get a hell of a lot of time in a post production schedule to create both a conventional 5.1/7.1 mix and a next-gen surround mix.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The nice thing about a fully speaker agnostic sound system is that it should work in either situation. If you have height speakers behind the screen it will use those for extra tracking accuracy and if you don't, you will lose a bit of accuracy. A very advanced system might even be able to adapt itself to the aspect ratio of the current feature.
That's only going to work when you have enough separately amplified speakers. Both the stage and surround speakers really need to be positioned carefully in order to render any 3D sound environment correctly. This "speaker agnostic" notion makes it sound like a theater operator can stick speakers in whatever random places he likes and install/amplify however many or how few he wants. My concern with DTS:X is some theater operators will gravitate to it in an attempt to deploy next-gen sound on the cheap.
My own opinion is if a theater operator wants a great sound system, but can't afford to do Atmos or DTS:X properly he should just go with 7.1 surround and upgrade the quality of his speakers and amplifiers as much as possible. That's going to yield better dividends than next-gen sound done cheap or wrong.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Some of those channels are being used for other stuff right now, like D-BOX motion code in Channel 9 and 10. Many of those key figures aren't interested in settling those discussions, because they have their own agenda, like their own, proprietary sound formats...
D-Box isn't a universally standard thing; it's just a very pricey gimmick, and one I don't think will last. Alternative content for sight-impaired and hearing-impaired viewers is about the only other thing justified to use 2 or more channels out of the 16-channel specification.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-14-2015, 07:21 PM:
Most of the public doesn't understand object based sound or why they should care. Most people don't understand phase shifting/cancellation and they won't even put fort a modicum of effort to learn.
Most of the movie going public basically sees Atmos like a Googlephonic stereo with a Moon Rock needle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjjsz14hL48
Dolby is basically pissing up a tree with Atmos.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-15-2015, 04:07 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Dolby Atmos' use of both beds and objects isn't about facilitating a transition between conventional surround and object based surround. It's about giving sound designers more control over the surrounds. Using a combination of beds and objects a sound designer can layer together complex sound environments faster. If the entire mix has to be object based it's going to be more time consuming to create. Sound editors and mixers don't exactly get a hell of a lot of time in a post production schedule to create both a conventional 5.1/7.1 mix and a next-gen surround mix.
Then the Dolby figure I talked with during IBC must have it wrong. It was, according tho him, created to facilitate the transition between traditional mixing and object based mixing. The idea is that you can use a traditional, discrete channel based mix and use sound objects just for certain effects. I guess Dolby needed titles for their new sound system and they certainly wouldn't get them if those releases required a whole new approach at mixing.
In modern, post discrete channel sound formats, there should be absolutely no need for channel-bound "beds". Actually, a speaker agnostic format should just omit them entirely. If you want to simulate a traditional 5, 7 or 9 channel setup, you can still create "sound objects" at the locations where your speakers would be and put your channels in there.
quote: Bobby Henderson
That's only going to work when you have enough separately amplified speakers. Both the stage and surround speakers really need to be positioned carefully in order to render any 3D sound environment correctly. This "speaker agnostic" notion makes it sound like a theater operator can stick speakers in whatever random places he likes and install/amplify however many or how few he wants. My concern with DTS:X is some theater operators will gravitate to it in an attempt to deploy next-gen sound on the cheap.
Essentially he/she can, yes. Just like he can with current 5.1 and 7.1 configurations, if you want to botch it up, nobody is going to stop you. The whole idea of those speaker agnostic formats is that it adapts itself to your configuration as well as possible. It doesn't protect the moviegoer from botched up installations. Protecting moviegoers from botched up presentations is what certifications are supposed to do.
quote: Bobby Henderson
My own opinion is if a theater operator wants a great sound system, but can't afford to do Atmos or DTS:X properly he should just go with 7.1 surround and upgrade the quality of his speakers and amplifiers as much as possible. That's going to yield better dividends than next-gen sound done cheap or wrong.
There is no excuse for doing audio wrong, no matter what format. I don't mind if it's done cheap, as long as it's done the right way, which isn't always mutually exclusive. But I'm pretty sure any new sound processor sold between now and 3 years will support "MDA" out of the box.
quote: Bobby Henderson
D-Box isn't a universally standard thing; it's just a very pricey gimmick, and one I don't think will last. Alternative content for sight-impaired and hearing-impaired viewers is about the only other thing justified to use 2 or more channels out of the 16-channel specification.
I have my own opinions about D-Box and they're not all rosy, but still, it's there in quite a few high profile releases, hogging one or two channels, only increasing the difficulty of adding more "standard sound channels" to standard DCP containers.
quote: Randy Stankey
Most of the public doesn't understand object based sound or why they should care. Most people don't understand phase shifting/cancellation and they won't even put fort a modicum of effort to learn.
If I ask my mother about stereo v.s. mono sound, she wouldn't have a clue. The one sounds better than the other? If I ask her about the difference between Standard and High Definition, she would say: The picture is better? Why it is better, she doesn't have a clue.
How many people even noticed the switch between 35mm and digital video? Heck, I've even witnessed sold out 3D shows presented in 2D and nobody besides me actually complained...
If we take the opinion of the average public as gold standard, we would still be on hand cranked movies and a drunken pianist would be your high end sound system. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-15-2015, 05:28 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you want to simulate a traditional 5, 7 or 9 channel setup, you can still create "sound objects" at the locations where your speakers would be and put your channels in there.
Aren't the objects sounds placed in a point in space? If so, how do you code that the sound should emanate from the entire rear 2/3 of the right wall without "beds"?
quote: Bobby Henderson
My concern with DTS:X is some theater operators will gravitate to it in an attempt to deploy next-gen sound on the cheap.
Kind of like how the 35mm DTS started out with a gazillion installs by exhibitors just throwing a DTS player into a Dolby Stereo system? IIRC, DTS could be setup with mono surrounds for people that didn't want to upgrade their CP-55 (and even CP-50). I think you could leave out the LFE channel also.
For MDA (and even Atmos) there needs to be a 3rd party that can certify that the cinema was set up in at least a minimally acceptable configuration so that people will have some way of knowing.
Unfortunately, I would guess 90% of the public would never know the difference between a perfectly set up Atmos system and a somewhat decent 5.1 system. I think this is why the Dolby Cinema initiative is a good idea. Dolby is branding the whole experience and the auditorium will be noticeable to the average Joe. Atmos is just part of it. If only they had done common height screens with masking (or at least masking on common width)...
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-15-2015, 06:10 AM:
quote: Lyle Romer
Aren't the objects sounds placed in a point in space? If so, how do you code that the sound should emanate from the entire rear 2/3 of the right wall without "beds"?
Sources can be spread to achieve this effect. Furthermore, you could even introduce the same source multiple times.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-15-2015, 10:19 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
In modern, post discrete channel sound formats, there should be absolutely no need for channel-bound "beds". Actually, a speaker agnostic format should just omit them entirely. If you want to simulate a traditional 5, 7 or 9 channel setup, you can still create "sound objects" at the locations where your speakers would be and put your channels in there.
Forcing sound editors and mixers to take a purist approach and create a movie soundtrack using only objects will create a hell of a lot more time consuming work. Sound mixes for both movies and TV use a lot of pre-existing audio elements ("canned sounds," "audio clip art"). But not all of those assets will work as isolated objects that can be panned around in 3D space. Some of those assets exist in pre-mixed stems in stereo, 5.1 or 7.1.
If you build a mix with objects only you're going to be spending a lot more time layering up all the elements needed to create a convincing sound environment in a specific scene. It will require more performance overhead from the computer. The sound editing applications will have to extend capabilities of grouping individual sound objects into different sub-groups and allow import/export of different grouped objects to make a project more manageable. More advanced scripting capabilities will have to be added to automate sound panning and volume adjustments for all those individual objects. It would be ridiculous to have to go through dozens of objects one by one manually tinkering with motion paths for volume, position and other controls on the time line.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Essentially he/she can, yes. Just like he can with current 5.1 and 7.1 configurations, if you want to botch it up, nobody is going to stop you.
Standard 5.1 and 7.1 configurations have speaker positions that have been standardized. Dolby Atmos doesn't really mess with that other than filling the gap between the screen and side wall surrounds with additional side wall speakers and adding two rows of speakers to the ceiling.
The idea of letting someone put the speakers in just any location reminds me of some of the botched home theater installations I've seen over the years -speakers placed in stupid positions because they fit the room decor better there or some other odd reason. It would be a disaster for any theater operator to start sticking speakers in just any position he saw fit. For one thing, most movies are still going to be released with 5.1 and some in 7.1. Any theater sound system absolutely must be backward compatible with those formats.
quote: Lyle Romer
Aren't the objects sounds placed in a point in space? If so, how do you code that the sound should emanate from the entire rear 2/3 of the right wall without "beds"?
I don't know what controls DTS' MDA software will provide for doing that, but AFAIK with Dolby's Atmos front end you're supposed to use a bed if you want a sound coming out of all the speakers in one of the six surround arrays.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Sources can be spread to achieve this effect. Furthermore, you could even introduce the same source multiple times.
Duplicating a lossless object multiple times to achieve the same effect as a conventional channel-based sound is grossly inefficient.
quote: Lyle Romer
For MDA (and even Atmos) there needs to be a 3rd party that can certify that the cinema was set up in at least a minimally acceptable configuration so that people will have some way of knowing.
As much as I would like that sort of thing I strongly doubt any movie theater circuit would go along with that. The approach taken these days is like that of IMAX: just stick a big logo on the building, don't provide any specific details about the process and still expect people to pay a bunch of money extra for the movie ticket.
With IMAX for example, they have no plans to convert all their IMAX-branded theaters to 4K laser, just the biggest theaters. So they're going to have a mix of mostly Dual 2K/5.0 surround installs and some Dual 4K laser/12.0 surround installations. But they'll all just be generically called "IMAX."
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-15-2015, 11:20 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Forcing sound editors and mixers to take a purist approach and create a movie soundtrack using only objects will create a hell of a lot more time consuming work. Sound mixes for both movies and TV use a lot of pre-existing audio elements ("canned sounds," "audio clip art"). But not all of those assets will work as isolated objects that can be panned around in 3D space. Some of those assets exist in pre-mixed stems in stereo, 5.1 or 7.1.
Well, that's why Atmos probably started off with the concept of beds, like I mentioned before, it is a transitional solution. But "beds" can be implemented as objects too, given the right tools, this can be a fully automated process. In my opinion it's best to have a pure format omitting most of the legacy and tools that do the conversion for you.
And nobody is going to create an MDA mix using a hex editor. Those tools will let you import any existing discrete channel mix and will automatically put those channels into objects. There will be presets to achieve the same thing too from scratch. Sound objects can be grouped into logical containers (even MDA supports object grouping at the delivery format) and there are countless of other ways tools can improve the efficiency of those kind of mixes.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Standard 5.1 and 7.1 configurations have speaker positions that have been standardized. Dolby Atmos doesn't really mess with that other than filling the gap between the screen and side wall surrounds with additional side wall speakers and adding two rows of speakers to the ceiling.
Someone implementing an MDA system will probably be reasonable and not mess with this default layout. If they're upgrading, they should already have a decent 5.1 or 7.1 configuration.
But again, nobody is stopping anybody from messing up a standard 5.1 or 7.1 install, so nobody will be around stopping people from messing up an MDA install. Once this stuff becomes more main-stream and more affordable, the chance of people implementing half-assed solutions will unfortunately increase.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Duplicating a lossless object multiple times to achieve the same effect as a conventional channel-based sound is grossly inefficient.
I don't know about the Atmos format, but the open MDA format should be capable of doing this with just some extra metadata tied to the "object". Also, considering the bandwidth to do something like 4K or even 4K in HFR and 3D, the overhead you would create here seems bearable and not really worth the effort for any kind of over-optimization.
quote: Bobby Henderson
With IMAX for example, they have no plans to convert all their IMAX-branded theaters to 4K laser, just the biggest theaters. So they're going to have a mix of mostly Dual 2K/5.0 surround installs and some Dual 4K laser/12.0 surround installations. But they'll all just be generically called "IMAX."
I'm by no means the biggest fan of Digital IMAX and I have my doubts they will upgrade every location, but this is, as of now, just speculation. Maybe they actually do have plans to overhaul each and every theater.
quote: Bobby Henderson
As much as I would like that sort of thing I strongly doubt any movie theater circuit would go along with that. The approach taken these days is like that of IMAX: just stick a big logo on the building, don't provide any specific details about the process and still expect people to pay a bunch of money extra for the movie ticket.
It worked before with two labels that became rather meaningless in the process: THX and IMAX. Why shouldn't it work with a new label that has some strong marketing behind it but will actually be relevant once more?
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-15-2015, 01:35 PM:
The only thing that's going to keep these multi-object based systems around at all is the fact that there are now three of them. I think if you look at this in five years and compare there would have been way more EX systems installed back when it was popular. Studios pretty much let that die though. The real issue with multi-object sound is that it is not easily retrofitted into many existing theaters without great difficulty. That alone is the main blade against it. Cost would be the second reason. Most theaters could not justify the expense.
Mark
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-15-2015, 01:52 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Well, that's why Atmos probably started off with the concept of beds, like I mentioned before, it is a transitional solution. But "beds" can be implemented as objects too, given the right tools, this can be a fully automated process.
A pre-existing sound element that has already been pre-mixed from numerous elements and "flattened" down into something like a stereo mix or 5.1 mix isn't something that can be changed into an individual object, not unless the whole thing is summed into a single monoaural audio track. Summing a stereo or 5.1 stem into a mono object could yield some unwanted, odd sounding results -kind of like noise from a TV set playing from a specific part of the room.
I can't open up a music CD .WAV file and surgically extract the vocals out of the sound mix or individually select any elements I hear in the mix and change them. Making such changes is difficult. It's no different than taking a Photoshop image with many layers, flattening it and saving it as a PNG or JPEG image. Once the image is flattened everything is permanently baked into place. To make any precise edits you have to go back to the layered Photoshop file, if you still have it.
Fundamentally, sound objects are supposed to be isolated sources not contaminated with any other audio. A vocal track recorded on an ADR stage is an isolated object. A gunshot sound can be recorded as an isolated object. Same goes for a shell casing hitting the floor. If you have a pre-mixed 5.1 stem of shell casings bouncing across a floor there's really nothing there to reposition. The sound panning work was already done on that element.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
In my opinion it's best to have a pure format omitting most of the legacy and tools that do the conversion for you.
That might be a pure approach, but it sure is not a practical approach and not flexible either. Creative people prefer to have multiple ways to skin the proverbial cat. The only thing that matters is how good the finished mix sounds.
A movie mix that is built up from pre-mixed stems in combination with discrete objects is probably going to sound more complex and lush than something that was built up solely with objects alone. That's because there's only so much time to dink around with dozens or even hundreds of individual objects from one scene to the next.
Perhaps as time goes on, if MDA is widely adopted in the sound editing community and is available to use in various sound editing systems and software applications we might see libraries of various editable sound effects and sound environments that can be modified in an 3D sound layout. We're not there yet.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'm by no means the biggest fan of Digital IMAX and I have my doubts they will upgrade every location, but this is, as of now, just speculation. Maybe they actually do have plans to overhaul each and every theater.
Some of what I'm talking about with IMAX and their new 4K laser projection has to do with comments from their people made recently in conjunction with the TCL Chinese Theater unveiling its laser-based system with the premiere of Furious 7.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
It worked before with two labels that became rather meaningless in the process: THX and IMAX. Why shouldn't it work with a new label that has some strong marketing behind it but will actually be relevant once more?
There's too many people with profits to protect standing in the way of full disclosure and educating the public. They're not going to let the public know fully just what's up in the projection booth and installed inside the theater. They're making more money just throwing around brand names.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-15-2015, 04:58 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
A pre-existing sound element that has already been pre-mixed from numerous elements and "flattened" down into something like a stereo mix or 5.1 mix isn't something that can be changed into an individual object, not unless the whole thing is summed into a single monoaural audio track. Summing a stereo or 5.1 stem into a mono object could yield some unwanted, odd sounding results -kind of like noise from a TV set playing from a specific part of the room.
You can still import multi-channel samples into your MDA projects. They will appear as separate objects in a group or you can flatten them down to monaural objects. You can even adjust the panning and other parameters on each imported "channel", just like any other object after you've imported them.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I can't open up a music CD .WAV file and surgically extract the vocals out of the sound mix or individually select any elements I hear in the mix and change them. Making such changes is difficult. It's no different than taking a Photoshop image with many layers, flattening it and saving it as a PNG or JPEG image. Once the image is flattened everything is permanently baked into place. To make any precise edits you have to go back to the layered Photoshop file, if you still have it.
The same is true for any audio mix, graphics project or practically any project you can think of. If you threw away your original sources, it's your fault and it's gonna be a lot of trouble to get them back, if at all possible.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Fundamentally, sound objects are supposed to be isolated sources not contaminated with any other audio. A vocal track recorded on an ADR stage is an isolated object. A gunshot sound can be recorded as an isolated object. Same goes for a shell casing hitting the floor. If you have a pre-mixed 5.1 stem of shell casings bouncing across a floor there's really nothing there to reposition. The sound panning work was already done on that element.
Like I mentioned before, a multi-channel source can be imported as multiple objects (those objects can be grouped to keep stuff maintainable, just like Photoshop and Illustrator let you group stuff) and panning can still be adjusted on those separate imported objects if required.
The same goes for background music. If you're stuck with a stereo mix, all you'll get when importing it will be two objects, but you can still freely pan them around like you please.
quote: Bobby Henderson
A movie mix that is built up from pre-mixed stems in combination with discrete objects is probably going to sound more complex and lush than something that was built up solely with objects alone. That's because there's only so much time to dink around with dozens or even hundreds of individual objects from one scene to the next.
The point is, everything that can be done with "stems" or "beds" can be done with objects too. It's up to the tools producing the mix how easy the workflow will be.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Perhaps as time goes on, if MDA is widely adopted in the sound editing community and is available to use in various sound editing systems and software applications we might see libraries of various editable sound effects and sound environments that can be modified in an 3D sound layout. We're not there yet.
If you're looking at what e.g. Fairlight is doing, I'd say we're already pretty much there already. Maybe it will take a release before it becomes a core attribute of ProTools, but Avid need to sell upgrades to keep their shareholders happy, so they're surely going to jump on this bandwagon with full force, before others eat their lunch.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Some of what I'm talking about with IMAX and their new 4K laser projection has to do with comments from their people made recently in conjunction with the TCL Chinese Theater unveiling its laser-based system with the premiere of Furious 7.
I'm not aware that IMAX ever officially acknowledged they don't intent to upgrade all of their deficient digital xenon setups. Somehow I also wouldn't expect IMAX to comment too much on this matter, because it could hurt their brand if they acknowledge some IMAX theaters aren't worth the "premium treatment".
quote: Bobby Henderson
There's too many people with profits to protect standing in the way of full disclosure and educating the public. They're not going to let the public know fully just what's up in the projection booth and installed inside the theater. They're making more money just throwing around brand names.
In the end the people with clue will educate part of the clueless public. Then they might recognize the value of "certification Y", not just because of the cool trailers, but because it was actually better than this other acronym most likely containing an X.
THX worked, because theaters that did have THX didn't sound like shit and people started to notice. Once THX got sloppy, meaningless and could be had for few bucks on your next toilet seat with integrated speakers, people didn't give a damn anymore.
I refuse to give up this idea, there are still a lot of people that actually do care.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-15-2015, 11:25 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
You can still import multi-channel samples into your MDA projects. They will appear as separate objects in a group or you can flatten them down to monaural objects. You can even adjust the panning and other parameters on each imported "channel", just like any other object after you've imported them.
The only thing object-based you'll get importing a multi-channel sample is each channel as an object. The problem is each channel has already been down-mixed from dozens or even hundreds of different audio elements. That's worthless as something to be specifically positioned or panned around a room. You can't really do much of anything with such elements other than change them globally. If you jack around with any of the individual channels with object-like changes you'll break the relationship with the rest of that 5.1 stem.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The same is true for any audio mix, graphics project or practically any project you can think of. If you threw away your original sources, it's your fault and it's gonna be a lot of trouble to get them back, if at all possible.
That's true. Nevertheless I think you're missing the point about the differences between individual audio objects and channel-based audio that has been downmixed from many elements. You simply cannot import a flattened, down-mixed 5.1 track or other multi-channel source into an audio editor and expect to get back all the discrete separate objects that were used to create the original mix. That's just plain impossible. You gotta go back to the orignal, not yet down-mixed ProTools layout or whatever was used to generate the 5.1 mix in the first place.
I cannot open a flattened TIFF image in Photoshop and expect Photoshop to magically expand the image into a bunch of separate layers. The same thing is true for a multi-channel mix.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
I'm not aware that IMAX ever officially acknowledged they don't intent to upgrade all of their deficient digital xenon setups. Somehow I also wouldn't expect IMAX to comment too much on this matter, because it could hurt their brand if they acknowledge some IMAX theaters aren't worth the "premium treatment".
There is a big cost difference between a pair of 4K laser-based projectors versus a pair of 2K xenon-based projectors. They have stated pretty clearly the laser-based systems are only going to be deployed on the biggest screens.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
In the end the people with clue will educate part of the clueless public.
The people who understand have been trying to get the message through, apparently without much luck.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-16-2015, 02:00 PM:
Couple things I missed from earlier in the thread:
quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
Now you have pointed out that there are only 26 movies being released this year in Atmos, it looks like Furious 7, Ant-man, Mad Max Fury Road, Jurassic World are all being left out, that cannot be good for Dolby Atmos
Way to go in jumping to conclusions, Terry. Not every movie released in Dolby Atmos has its Atmos track announced well in advance. Warner Bros. in particular has been pretty bad about making it known only at the last minute certain movies would be relesaed in Atmos. For instance, in February no one in the public knew Jupiter Ascending would have an Atmos track until the week before it was released.
We're less than halfway through 2015. There's still plenty of time for more Atmos mixed titles to be added.
quote: Jonathan Goeldner
surprised we haven't got word on 'Tomorrowland'
It was just announced Tomorrowland will be a Dolby Cinema release. It will have both a Dolby Atmos track and an image enhanced for Dolby Vision projection.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-16-2015, 02:07 PM:
good to hear about 'Tomorrowland'
and there's been confirmation re: 'Jurassic World' too - although the aspect ratio doesn't look correct:
Sound Mix Dolby Digital | Dolby Atmos | Datasat | Auro 11.1
Color Color
Aspect Ratio 1.90 : 1 (IMAX version)
2.35 : 1
Camera Panavision Panaflex Platinum, Panavision Primo Lenses
Panavision Panaflex System 65 Studio, Panavision System 65 Lenses
Red Epic Dragon
Red Epic M-X
Laboratory Company 3 (digital intermediate)
Negative Format 35 mm (Kodak)
65 mm (Kodak)
Redcode RAW
Cinematographic Process Digital Intermediate (4K) (master format)
Panavision Super 70 (source format) (some scenes)
Redcode RAW (5K) (source format)
Redcode RAW (6K) (source format)
Super 35 (source format)
Printed Film Format D-Cinema (also 3-D version)
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-16-2015, 03:34 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
The only thing object-based you'll get importing a multi-channel sample is each channel as an object. The problem is each channel has already been down-mixed from dozens or even hundreds of different audio elements. That's worthless as something to be specifically positioned or panned around a room. You can't really do much of anything with such elements other than change them globally. If you jack around with any of the individual channels with object-like changes you'll break the relationship with the rest of that 5.1 stem
But how is this different from importing a pre-mixed sample into any other Pro-Tools project? And you messing around with the panning of the imported objects is your own responsibility.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Nevertheless I think you're missing the point about the differences between individual audio objects and channel-based audio that has been downmixed from many elements. You simply cannot import a flattened, down-mixed 5.1 track or other multi-channel source into an audio editor and expect to get back all the discrete separate objects that were used to create the original mix. That's just plain impossible. You gotta go back to the orignal, not yet down-mixed ProTools layout or whatever was used to generate the 5.1 mix in the first place.
I guess do know the difference between source project files and compiled/rendered deliverables... But my point is, like I mentioned in other posts and in this post before: This situation is not different from a discrete channel based mix. Isolating a certain sound or other elements from a "flattened" sample is going to be surgical work with an often uncertain end-result.
And yeah, this object based paradigm shift will certainly require some investment in updating your library of pre-fabricated sound effects if you want to get the most out of it. But it's not like this is an entirely new thing. Every TV channel transitioning to HD had to redo quite a lot of boilerplate content and templates to get the most out of HD. But it's not like it's impossible to show SD content on an HD station.
quote: Bobby Henderson
There is a big cost difference between a pair of 4K laser-based projectors versus a pair of 2K xenon-based projectors. They have stated pretty clearly the laser-based systems are only going to be deployed on the biggest screens.
But they also made clear they considered this frankendigital thing to be a stop-gap solution, didn't they? Maybe they actually saved tons of cash for an all-out conversion? I'm pretty sure Barco would give them a nice discount.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The people who understand have been trying to get the message through, apparently without much luck.
A lot of people I know of do still know the difference between a shitty, ok and a great cinematic presentation and avoid the shitty ones, so not all hope is lost. Some also actually made it clear to me they felt cheated by this thing called "IMAX", which one described to me like going to a bad rock concert where the band had been replaced by a big, ugly LED wall.
quote:
and there's been confirmation re: 'Jurassic World' too - although the aspect ratio doesn't look correct:
I hope it does, this 1:2.0 aspect ratio is utterly stupid, inefficient and just serves the ego of the director with his super-cool defacto-exclusive aspect ratio.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-16-2015, 03:49 PM:
yes 2.0:1 IS absurd - but at least the new Jurassic movie should be consistent with the others in being 1.85
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-20-2015, 02:36 PM:
Dolby added a few more titles to its upcoming Atmos Movie Releases list at the Dolby web site. Future releases into the Summer are as follows:
The Age of Adaline • April 24
Avengers: Age of Ultron • May 1
Mad Max: Fury Road • May 15 (Terry's prediction was wrong)
Main Aur Charles • May 15
Tomorrowland • May 22
San Andreas • May 29
Spy • June 5
Entourage • June 5
Traffic • June 15
Inside Out • June 19
Magic Mike XXL • July 1
Terminator Genisys • July 1
Minions • July 10
Marvel's Ant-Man • July 17 (Terry's prediction was wrong)
Pixels • July 24
Pan • July 24
Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation • July 31
Fantastic Four • August 7
The Man from UNCLE • August 14
Internet Movie Database has Jurassic World listed as having both Dolby Atmos and Auro 11.1 mixes, as well as that odd 2.00:1 aspect ratio. I guess we'll have to see how that pans out on June 12. Jurassic World would also seem to be a very key title to hype DTS:X, given the original JP release in 1993 is what launched the original DTS format.
17 of the 19 titles listed above are North American releases. That's not too bad for a release slate through mid August. I was surprised to see movies like Entourage and the Magic Mike sequel getting Atmos treatment. I would not be surprised to see more titles added to the list as various movies get closer to their release dates.
Now, on to some other stuff:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
But how is this different from importing a pre-mixed sample into any other Pro-Tools project? And you messing around with the panning of the imported objects is your own responsibility.
Marcel, do you not understand how down-mixed sound works? There are no individual objects to strip out and pan individually. Some piece of audio already down-mixed into a flattened 5.1 layout has nothing individual to pan. If it's something that's been down-mixed into stereo or 5.1 that piece of audio is locked into that layout. You can layer 5.1 stems for music, sound effects, etc. into a final 5.1 layout. But to have anything that's been down-mixed into a conventional 5.1 layout try to act like it's former object based self prior to mixing is asking too much.
This makes me think of silly things that happen when some people don't understand the differences between certain kind of digital assets. For instance, I've had people bring me a "logo" they want to use on a sign. It's a low resolution JPEG image. I tell them I need vector-based artwork in Adobe Illustrator .AI format. What do they do? Put the JPEG image inside an Illustrator .AI document expecting the artwork to somehow magically translate into clean, scalable vector art.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Every TV channel transitioning to HD had to redo quite a lot of boilerplate content and templates to get the most out of HD. But it's not like it's impossible to show SD content on an HD station.
There is only one correct way to show SD on HD: pillar-box it. Interpolation technology can't invent HD levels of detail from nothing. A video image with 345,600 pixels of detail cannot be inflated into over 2 million pixels worth of detail. There is no way to avoid it looking fuzzy. HD itself is done wrong in many ways. I see that shit all the time, and it is only that: shit. There is zero excuse for any TV station to do on screen graphics for HDTV wrong. Many networks on local TV stations just extract the center 4:3 zone for re-broadcast in SD. But they often don't compose graphics for that safe title area. So you get things like names and phone numbers getting cut off at the left or right edge during the news or a commercial. Some networks air SD content in stretch mode to fill the 16:9 frame -now the camera adds 100 pounds! I really love the one where a TV station will get a letter-boxed SD copy of a commercial originally produced in HD. When it airs it is both letter-boxed and pillar-boxed. Then there's all the dip shits out there grabbing eyewitness video for the news, but holding their phones vertically. It's funny to watch networks try to blow-up the vertical video and do all sorts of other creative things to make the footage less shitty. I have yet to see any of it look better than shit quality. If I had my way, I'd run the damned footage sideways, properly filling the HDTV screen but forcing everyone at home to turn their heads 90 degrees. Maybe that would start giving people a clue about how stupid it is to make a vertical video.
The point with that whole rant is just because a lot of people are goofing up HDTV doesn't mean people have to do stupid shit with next gen audio mixes.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
But they also made clear they considered this frankendigital thing to be a stop-gap solution, didn't they? Maybe they actually saved tons of cash for an all-out conversion? I'm pretty sure Barco would give them a nice discount.
"Lie-MAX" has been around going on 7 years. That's not exactly a stop-gap thing. It appears the company will not convert very many of those existing 2K theaters to the new laser-based system. IIRC, laser-based system will bring back the taller screens we associate with 15/70 film-based theaters. Most multiplex theaters bearing IMAX logos won't be able to do that.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-20-2015, 02:55 PM:
Magic Mike XXL ... [chuckle] ...
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-20-2015, 06:09 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Marcel, do you not understand how down-mixed sound works? There are no individual objects to strip out and pan individually. Some piece of audio already down-mixed into a flattened 5.1 layout has nothing individual to pan. If it's something that's been down-mixed into stereo or 5.1 that piece of audio is locked into that layout. You can layer 5.1 stems for music, sound effects, etc. into a final 5.1 layout. But to have anything that's been down-mixed into a conventional 5.1 layout try to act like it's former object based self prior to mixing is asking too much.
Maybe you're not reading what I'm writing then... I'm not talking about magical "object extraction software", but a very simple concept, I will try to explain it again, please try to follow...
If you import a 5 channel mix into a purely object based environment, the mixing software will create *five* objects, each object containing one of the five channels in your original mix. It will *not* magically extract objects from your flattened mix. Those sound objects will be placed on the *virtual* locations where the speakers are supposed to be in the 5 channel mix, maybe with a little spread applied to it. You probably can tune the default parameters during import or else you can adjust them by hand later on. The specifics are up to the implementation of your chosen tool.
If you have a 5.1 track, you could still argue what should happen with the ".1" track. Should it become a separate object, mixed into one of the other five objects or "averaged" over the other five objects?
quote: Bobby Henderson
This makes me think of silly things that happen when some people don't understand the differences between certain kind of digital assets. For instance, I've had people bring me a "logo" they want to use on a sign. It's a low resolution JPEG image. I tell them I need vector-based artwork in Adobe Illustrator .AI format. What do they do? Put the JPEG image inside an Illustrator .AI document expecting the artwork to somehow magically translate into clean, scalable vector art.
I know all to well about people doing a right-click save-as of their tiny JPEG or PNG logo on their website and expect them to stretch it out over massive proportions. And yeah, I also know the dickheads that manage to copy/paste it into an AI file and expect it to become vector graphics automatically. People generally have no clue how stuff works...
quote: Bobby Henderson
There is only one correct way to show SD on HD: pillar-box it. Interpolation technology can't invent HD levels of detail from nothing. A video image with 345,600 pixels of detail cannot be inflated into over 2 million pixels worth of detail. There is no way to avoid it looking fuzzy.
Well, yeah, but does it really matter if their TV set stretches it from SD to HD or if the broadcaster does it for them? The end result is a practically the same... People don't like black bars or borders, they usually stretch, zoom, tilt and rotate until it fits on the screen and don't mind stuff looking all wrong and blurry.
quote: Bobby Henderson
The point with that whole rant is just because a lot of people are goofing up HDTV doesn't mean people have to do stupid shit with next gen audio mixes.
People goof up all the time, technology will not stop them, just to the contrary, they will just find new ways to screw it all up again and again.
Dolby Atmos mixes also have been screwed up badly for example. Still, I don't understand what you're actually ranting about to be honest. The idea that future MDA formats will be largely speaker-agnostic, so they can better scale to any layout? The non-uniform branding? Or me not getting my point across about the obsolescence of channel-mapped audio in MDA formats?
quote: Bobby Henderson
"Lie-MAX" has been around going on 7 years. That's not exactly a stop-gap thing. It appears the company will not convert very many of those existing 2K theaters to the new laser-based system. IIRC, laser-based system will bring back the taller screens we associate with 15/70 film-based theaters. Most multiplex theaters bearing IMAX logos won't be able to do that.
They could use the lack of suitable technology as a defense. But due to their "patented room layout", even their smallest screens just requires 4K to be taken even remotely seriously as a premium format.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-20-2015, 11:12 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
If you import a 5 channel mix into a purely object based environment, the mixing software will create *five* objects, each object containing one of the five channels in your original mix. It will *not* magically extract objects from your flattened mix. Those sound objects will be placed on the *virtual* locations where the speakers are supposed to be in the 5 channel mix, maybe with a little spread applied to it. You probably can tune the default parameters during import or else you can adjust them by hand later on. The specifics are up to the implementation of your chosen tool.
Dolby Atmos' "beds" approach for any channel-based material would already treat something like this correctly. Each channel-based track in that 5.1 stem would be treated as it would normally be treated in a conventional 5.1 playback environment. The LCR stage channel audio would be rendered as-is. The split surrounds would be rendered as beds for all the surround speakers on the side and back walls, just divided in half the same way any normal split-surround mix would be played. There is no reason to treat a 5.1 stem any different than that.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Dolby Atmos mixes also have been screwed up badly for example. Still, I don't understand what you're actually ranting about to be honest. The idea that future MDA formats will be largely speaker-agnostic, so they can better scale to any layout? The non-uniform branding? Or me not getting my point across about the obsolescence of channel-mapped audio in MDA formats?
"Speaker agnostic" sounds like a neat term, but unfortunately it can be twisted into "hey, we only need 3 speakers to do next gen object-based surround sound on the cheap! We're going to get rich screwing over these dumbass customers! Hooray!" Open MDA looks like a big opportunity for theaters to literally con customers into thinking they're getting something new and state of the art when that really isn't the case.
Marcel, are you willing to get specific with just how many speakers and amplifiers a theater needs in order to render object based surround sound correctly? From what I've read about the original Iosono prototype, Dolby Atmos itself is making some considerable compromises. But at least they are suggesting specific standards for numbers of speakers, amplifiers, subwoofers, etc. based on room size. Open MDA doesn't appear to even do that. From my perspective Open MDA just says any speaker layout will do, regardless of how many or how few there are in the system. It suggests to the theater operator to cut corners, cut costs, do as little as possible and MDA will fill in the gaps.
Non-uniform branding translates into don't even bother with any branding at all. This whole parade of silly acronym labels for premium priced big screen auditoriums may have actually helped IMAX' business. Casual movie goers see all these other high priced theater houses trying to act like they're IMAX or Lie-MAX, but have a lesser, meaningless brand name. A parade of private label brands re-using DTS:X/MDA technology will essentially be the same thing. And they could end up elevating Dolby Atmos' business. Because at least most people have heard of Dolby before. They're not going to know what to think of all the possible re-branding possibilities with MDA. As I said earlier, theaters can't really use "MDA" itself since it sounds like the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-21-2015, 02:22 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Dolby Atmos' "beds" approach for any channel-based material would already treat something like this correctly. Each channel-based track in that 5.1 stem would be treated as it would normally be treated in a conventional 5.1 playback environment. The LCR stage channel audio would be rendered as-is. The split surrounds would be rendered as beds for all the surround speakers on the side and back walls, just divided in half the same way any normal split-surround mix would be played. There is no reason to treat a 5.1 stem any different than that.
The reason is because you want to have a future-proof format, that isn't dependent on the concept of channels. If we find a way, in the future, to do "immersive 3D audio" without boatloads of speakers, the concept of fixed channels is more of a hindrance.
Dolby Atmos used this concept primarily to get traction in the MDA space. It's a hybrid solution, where you can take your basic 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 mix, put those channels into the beds and add pour some object sauce over it and ready is your Dolby Atmos mix. They can do this, because they maintain the basic 7.1 layout as a reference and extend their setup from there.
A truly "next gen" format can do away with those concepts and still perfectly emulate "legacy".
quote: Bobby Henderson
"Speaker agnostic" sounds like a neat term, but unfortunately it can be twisted into "hey, we only need 3 speakers to do next gen object-based surround sound on the cheap! We're going to get rich screwing over these dumbass customers! Hooray!" Open MDA looks like a big opportunity for theaters to literally con customers into thinking they're getting something new and state of the art when that really isn't the case.
Well, yes. But screwing dumbass customers could be done with DTS, SRD and even SDDS. If Brand X wants to avoid associating their name with those kind of setups, it's their responsibility to put some minimal requirements in the specs and enforce them. It's not the failure of MDA as a format, if people cheap out.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Marcel, are you willing to get specific with just how many speakers and amplifiers a theater needs in order to render object based surround sound correctly? From what I've read about the original Iosono prototype, Dolby Atmos itself is making some considerable compromises. But at least they are suggesting specific standards for numbers of speakers, amplifiers, subwoofers, etc. based on room size. Open MDA doesn't appear to even do that. From my perspective Open MDA just says any speaker layout will do, regardless of how many or how few there are in the system. It suggests to the theater operator to cut corners, cut costs, do as little as possible and MDA will fill in the gaps.
Just like you can use multiple renderers to render the same 3D graphics scene (E.g. Mental Ray v.s. RenderMan), you can use different processes to render "3D audio". Besides the size and shape and acoustics of the room, it is highly dependent on the process you're using. VBAP (Dolby Atmos, DTS:X), DBAP and WFS (Iosono) all have specific requirements. And since the research in this space is alive and kicking, people will come up with all kinds of new "rendering" techniques. Of the three systems mentioned, WFS needs by far the biggest speaker density to achieve good results.
Maybe I could do some comparison on what is generally considered a minimum amount of speakers for each system for some "average room size", I will try to do so if I have some time to spare.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-21-2015, 09:57 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
The reason is because you want to have a future-proof format, that isn't dependent on the concept of channels. If we find a way, in the future, to do "immersive 3D audio" without boatloads of speakers, the concept of fixed channels is more of a hindrance.
Please provide some proof in how Atmos supporting both channels and objects is a hindrance. A real hindrance would be expecting a movie production's post production team to deliver a mix that's entirely object-based in the very limited amount of time they have to complete the project.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Dolby Atmos used this concept primarily to get traction in the MDA space. It's a hybrid solution, where you can take your basic 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 mix, put those channels into the beds and add pour some object sauce over it and ready is your Dolby Atmos mix. They can do this, because they maintain the basic 7.1 layout as a reference and extend their setup from there.
Get traction in the MDA space? Dolby Atmos was in development long before DTS' MDA and has had a product on the market for nearly 3 years. Meanwhile MDA is fixing to get a product into the market.
Dolby Atmos is indeed a hybrid solution. It has the capability of handling both channel-based and object-based audio simultaneously. A sound designer can choose to mix a movie in Atmos entirely based on objects. Likewise someone can generate an Atmos-mix with nothing more than 9.1 channels of totally "bed" based audio (but that obviously wouldn't be a good thing). An analogy to this would be how Adobe Illustrator accommodates both vector-based artwork and raster-based artwork into the same layout. It would be flat out stupid and counter-productive to make Illustrator a purely vector-only application.
There are valid reasons for providing support for both objects and beds in Atmos. No other sound format appears to be going object-only either.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
But screwing dumbass customers could be done with DTS, SRD and even SDDS.
With those sound formats most of the 5.1 surround done wrong has little to do with the sound formats themselves and mostly to do with the theater's speakers, amps, choice of crossover, etc. Another big thing is maintenance. On that level a theater could be screwing over customers by doing mono or stereo sound wrong.
But here's the thing with next-gen surround sound: it's almost always a featured ingredient in premium priced auditoriums. It is rare to find an Atmos sound system or Auro sound system in a standard priced auditorium. On that level there is a requirement to do the damned job right. Dolby Atmos is closer out of any of the systems being marketed right now in demanding standards for doing the job right. Open MDA doesn't appear to be suggesting any quality standards at all.
I won't be all that critical of a standard priced theater doing a slight amount of Open MDA enhancement to what is really only a conventional 5.1 surround system as long as I don't have to pay anything extra to see a movie in that room. But if I'm going to be paying $13 or $16 for a ticket and the theater is pulling the same cost cutting bullshit I'll get justifiably angry and not visit that particular theater again.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Just like you can use multiple renderers to render the same 3D graphics scene (E.g. Mental Ray v.s. RenderMan), you can use different processes to render "3D audio". Besides the size and shape and acoustics of the room, it is highly dependent on the process you're using. VBAP (Dolby Atmos, DTS:X), DBAP and WFS (Iosono) all have specific requirements. And since the research in this space is alive and kicking, people will come up with all kinds of new "rendering" techniques. Of the three systems mentioned, WFS needs by far the biggest speaker density to achieve good results.
Fundamentally 3D object based sound requires enough speakers and amplifiers to properly render the audio. It's no different than a digital image requiring enough pixels of native detail to reach an acceptable level of quality. Some cheap approach that uses hardly any more speakers and amplifiers than a standard 5.1 sound system will be woefully inadequate. There's just no way around that.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-22-2015, 03:55 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Please provide some proof in how Atmos supporting both channels and objects is a hindrance. A real hindrance would be expecting a movie production's post production team to deliver a mix that's entirely object-based in the very limited amount of time they have to complete the project.
Are we in court now? Like I already mentioned:
- 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. If everybody supports this open MDA format, it will eventually benefit those post production teams, because they only need to create a single mix, not countless other, tweaked mixes in whatnot formats.
- Like I also mentioned before, if you want a pure, speaker agnostic or actually a largely sound system agnostic delivery format, you want to get rid of anything specifically targeted at speaker or speaker group A, B, C, etc. Your sound system should map this dynamically, based on the metadata in the format and not because of some assumed speaker layout.
This has nothing to do with allowing others to cheap out, but just with a little bit of visionary that things might change in the future. You can't anticipate all possible scenarios, but you can at least try to look a little bit ahead.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Get traction in the MDA space? Dolby Atmos was in development long before DTS' MDA and has had a product on the market for nearly 3 years. Meanwhile MDA is fixing to get a product into the market.
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.
Although none of those systems made a really big impact, they were out there, so Dolby was not a leader in this space for quite a while. Dolby obviously could use their considerable weight to introduce their system to a broader market. Then again, they needed to get traction and did so using a hybrid solution, to lower the bars for post production teams to deliver Atmos mixes.
We're now a few years down the road and production tools continue to evolve. The next generation tools will start supporting object based sound natively. So production of those mixes becomes easier. If you can eventually do just one mix and maybe just one deliverable, that would only help the post production teams to get their work done more efficiently.
quote: Bobby Henderson
An analogy to this would be how Adobe Illustrator accommodates both vector-based artwork and raster-based artwork into the same layout. It would be flat out stupid and counter-productive to make Illustrator a purely vector-only application.
There are valid reasons for providing support for both objects and beds in Atmos. No other sound format appears to be going object-only either.
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.
quote: Bobby Henderson
With those sound formats most of the 5.1 surround done wrong has little to do with the sound formats themselves and mostly to do with the theater's speakers, amps, choice of crossover, etc. Another big thing is maintenance. On that level a theater could be screwing over customers by doing mono or stereo sound wrong.
The same for MDA based installs. The quality is dependent on the chosen implementation and maintenance... And here it's also not the failure of the format, but the implementation.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Open MDA doesn't appear to be suggesting any quality standards at all.
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.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I won't be all that critical of a standard priced theater doing a slight amount of Open MDA enhancement to what is really only a conventional 5.1 surround system as long as I don't have to pay anything extra to see a movie in that room. But if I'm going to be paying $13 or $16 for a ticket and the theater is pulling the same cost cutting bullshit I'll get justifiably angry and not visit that particular theater again.
Isn't this just the general rant against the "Premium Large Format" stuff that's happening all over the globe and which Digital IMAX was at least partly responsible for? People seemingly pay premium prices for a 5.0 sound system too. Nothing is going to stop anybody to build a crappy, "below spec" setup with some big bang logo, brand and marketing campaign calling it the best thing since laser-sliced bread.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Fundamentally 3D object based sound requires enough speakers and amplifiers to properly render the audio. It's no different than a digital image requiring enough pixels of native detail to reach an acceptable level of quality. Some cheap approach that uses hardly any more speakers and amplifiers than a standard 5.1 sound system will be woefully inadequate. There's just no way around that.
I didn't have the time yet to come up with meaningful numbers. But yes, nobody here is denying that you need an adequate number of speakers and amplifiers with all current systems, whatever the adequate number is, depending on room size and chosen implementation.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-22-2015, 05:40 AM:
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?
Isn't this less of a format war and more of a processor sales war?
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.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-22-2015, 07:17 AM:
It's the studios who want a single, open standard. Once MDA is there, they will not want to support Dolbys ATMOS any more.
Dolby can still offer 'the better' MDA system by using/implementing optimized playback methods, some of which are already in use by ATMOS. They are not part of MDA and can stay proprietary as a method to separate the better from the not-quite-so-good MDA systems.
- Carsten
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.
Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 04-22-2015, 11:15 AM:
quote: Thomas Jonsson
but it looks like the number of movies are decreasing. Any opinion on this?
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?
quote: Frank Angel
The real question is, how much will the difference a patron notices in the theatre influence their ticket-buying decision? I have come to the conclusion that the public will shell out money for even the worst presentation if it's a movie they want to see and it's convenient.
quote: Frank Angel
Over and over again the majority of the public will choose convenience over quality and it is a real question if Atmos will make any significant impact on pulling asses into seats. So what would motivate an exhibitor to spend all that money for so little return on his investment, other than prestige...the ability so say that at least on a few screens he's got state-of-the-art.
You do have some good points, but I do think that reserved seats and giant screens with no masking are more appealing to the average customer than speakers on the roof.
quote: Mike Blakesley
instead they're paying premium prices for oversized unmasked "Liemax" screens running 5.1 sound, so the studios figuring "what's the point?" It's not surprising.
You don't have masking? I thought I read that you do flat on a scope screen. Anyone complain? At this point in time, I don't think the masking matters to anyone but the folks on the this forum, there is a new generation of young teens who probably never knew what it was like to watch a movie with masking. Wall to wall is probably more appealing to the new generation.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 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.)
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-22-2015, 07:36 PM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
AC-3 is just a 5.1 channel audio format based on the same compression technology as the MP3 format.
What makes AC-3 "different" is the cross channel bit sharing based on psychoacoustic masking. It isn't just 5.1 channels compressed. It is 5.1 channels compressed at varying levels of compression depending upon what the other channels are playing.
I've never done the experiment but supposedly you can hear some really messed up audio by playing a scene with a lot of sound going on in all channels and turning off the amps to all but say the left front.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 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.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 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.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 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!
Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 04-23-2015, 03:48 PM:
quote: Carsten Kurz
Harman’s Lexicon Introduces QLI-32 Quantum Logic® Immersion Processor for Spectacular Cinema Surround Sound
I know Harman has produced some spectacular up-mixers for home theatre, but will people really go for that in cinemas? I know when Auro-3D rolled out, the Hollywood studios made it very clear to Barco and Auro that the Auromatic upmix engine was never to be used on 5.1 or 7.1 theatrical content. The mixers, filmmakers and their studio bosses were not at all supportive of the idea of the cinema processor tampering with the sound mix to that extent.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-23-2015, 04:39 PM:
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.
Wondering what Harman is thinking how much success such a product could have in the cinema market?
- Carsten
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 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.
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.
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-23-2015, 07:14 PM:
Kintek would be so proud to hear that their style of multi-channel audio from even Mono is continuing into the DCinema immersive world with the new Lexicon piece.
Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 04-23-2015, 08:09 PM:
Agree with Steve.
It's Kintek with better analyzing tools. Works with 2.0, 5.1 and 7.1 tracks if I heard correctly.
Still synthesizing the original soundtrack with what are bound to be varying results.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-24-2015, 12:41 AM:
Up-mixing and broadening existing sound mixes from e.g. mono to stereo is nothing new. It has been tried and done for ages, both analog and digitally. Even some Hifi stereo sets boasted all kinds of "upmixing filters", raging from simple "loudness boosts" to "fake stereo from mono".
Orban for example, produces many professional filters targeted at those kind of applications. Orban is a household brand in the broadcast industry and they're at least partly responsible for the trend to make many radio stations sound as loud as possible within the given constrains...
But like Daniel already put it, the movie industry is a little bit different, many film makers and studios don't appreciate if you mess around with their mixes this way.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-24-2015, 03:54 AM:
quote: Lyle Romer
What makes AC-3 "different" is the cross channel bit sharing based on psychoacoustic masking. It isn't just 5.1 channels compressed. It is 5.1 channels compressed at varying levels of compression depending upon what the other channels are playing.
Well, yes. And you can essentially do the same with MP3 and stereo (L + R) tracks. Dolby had to cut quite some corners to make it a feasible format to fit in between the sprocket holes and include some error checking too.
Those lossy compression algorithms are not designed to reproduce the exact wave that went into them. They're developed to reproduce sound that, to a varying degree, sounds indistinguishable to your ears and AC-3 applies this to all 6 channels.
Try to listen with a headphone with one ear to a joint-stereo MP3, it sounds really awful, especially those compressed with older encoders, that didn't switch to "L+R stereo" for the complicated parts.
Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 04-24-2015, 09:19 AM:
Harmon probably has better control and better "paint job" compared to Kintek. I did an early demo of Kintek and sonic results where good to awful. Orban chips where used in RGM stereo systems to give better channel separation….history repeats itself.
Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-24-2015, 10:32 AM:
Never saw a RGM with Orban but Christie used it as did Opu360
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-27-2015, 07:46 AM:
I have no idea what or why Universal decided 'Furious 7' and 'Jurassic World' to not be mixed in Dolby Atmos ... what's that all about?
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 05-27-2015, 09:37 AM:
Jonathan-
The semi-cynical part of me says "follow the money".
I've been able to observe a couple of ATMOS mixing sessions and it can be a
very time consuming process to do some of the more complex ATMOS mixes.
Time is money.
Perhaps the studio bean-counters didn't think they'd get a decent return
on their investment in the extra post-prodcution time/labor costs.
Or perhaps those films had already gone way over their proposed budgets
during production, so a decision was made to 'fix the budget in post" by
not doing the ATMOS mix. Of course I'm speculating but stuff like this happens.
(And yes, even < I > was surprised to see those two releases with non-Atmos sound)
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-27-2015, 11:07 AM:
given these are tent pole franchises for Universal - yes, it's very surprising and disappointing.
The sound aspect of post production always seems hit or miss.
Sony hasn't embraced 7.1 let alone Atmos - thankfully 'Pixels' will at least have the latter.
Posted by Aran Clifford (Member # 9379) on 03-20-2016, 12:57 PM:
Hi all,
Its been really interesting looking at all your posts about Atmos and its competition.
Im currently undertaking a dissertation in surround sound formats and what the future could be for these. I've put together a quick survey (about 7 or 8 questions) to see about peoples feelings with these formats. It would be great if you could help and spare a couple of minutes to fill out this survey. It would help me greatly and it might just be interesting for all of you too!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GZMtUEr4tqlEEnOPYCrNFRgZEhgh-ZES-mCKHJD9K6I/viewform
Thanks!
AC
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-20-2016, 06:21 PM:
Instead of luring people to some other site, why not post those questions here, so the discussion about those questions takes place in the open?
Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 03-20-2016, 10:02 PM:
Here is the survey for archival purposes:
The Future of Cinema Sound
A survey trying to assess peoples feelings on a number of formats and their place in the future of Surround Sound in Films.
About You
What is your gender?
Male
Female
Other
Prefer not to say
What is your age?
16-18
18-25
25-30
30-40
40-50
50-60
60-70
70+
Prefer not to say
The Survey
In the last year how many times have you gone to a cinema to watch a film?
None
1-5
5-10
10-15
15+
In the last year, which formats have you watched films in?
5.1
7.1
Dolby Surround 7.1
Auro 3D
Dolby Atmos
DTS X
Other:
If given the option what format would you go to see a Film in?
5.1
7.1
Dolby Surround 7.1
Dolby Atmos
Auro 3D
DTS X
Other :
Would you be willing to pay a higher ticket price in order to go see a film in an immersive audio format, such as, but not limited to, Dolby Atmos, Auro 3D or DTS X?
Yes
No
Depends on the Film
How much more would you be willing to pay in order to view a film in an immersive format?
Nothing
£1-2
£3-5
£5+
Would you purchase a home cinema system with immersive format capabilities?
Yes
No
How much would you be willing to pay for such a home cinema system?
£250-500
£500-750
£750-1000
£1000-1500
£1500-2000
£2000-2500
£2500+
I would not buy one
Would you like to see more cinemas equip their theatres with larger formats above 5.1?
No
Yes, with 7.1
Yes, with Dolby Surround 7.1
Yes, with Auro 3D
Yes, with Dolby Atmos
Yes, with DTS X
Yes, with a different format
Do you think the future of Film audio lies in...
Object Based Formats
Channel Based Formats
Hybrid Formats
Any additional comments
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-20-2016, 10:27 PM:
The survey is missing one essential question:
"Do you care about the difference between the various cinema sound formats currently being used in movie theaters?"
Yes, I am passionate about movie sound
I like to hear good sound but I don't necessarily like the upcharges for it
No, as long as I can hear the dialogue I'm fine
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-20-2016, 11:25 PM:
Is Dolby ATMOS currently the only object-based system out there. I ask this because the Maya Cinema in Bakersfield is "transforming" one of their big screens with "MPX" (Maya Premium Experience." The website says it includes:
MPX 3D sound has amazing audio quality! MPX clarity of sound effects is phenomenal and delivers total immersion into the film. MPX sound is delivered anywhere in the theatre, including overhead. MPX sound can isolate any speaker and bring a sound to it as you would hear it in real life.
No matter where you sit, MPX sound envelops you, and its rich clarity brings the film directly to you.
◦AN INCREDIBLE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE IN SOUND AND VISION!
◦UNCOMPRESSED 3D SURROUND SOUND
◦PURE ALL DIGITAL PROJECTION
◦100 THOUSAND AMPS OF POWER – 60 CHANNELS OF GLORIOUS SOUND – MORE THAN 70 SPEAKERS, INCLUDING OVERHEADS –
I'm thinking they mean 100,000 WATTS of power. There is NO mention of this being a Dolby Atmos system, and they already have had one in place since December 2013 in their other large auditorium. But their description sure sounds like an Atmos system, unless there are others that can emulate it.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-21-2016, 01:03 AM:
There is DTS:X, which is a competing format to Dolby Atmos. But it doesn't mention object based audio anywhere, so it could also be Auro 3D, although then their claim of uncompressed audio would be false.
quote:
In the last year, which formats have you watched films in?
5.1
7.1
Dolby Surround 7.1
Auro 3D
Dolby Atmos
DTS X
Other:
You could fit anything under "Other", but we're missing tons of options here, like all analog options and stuff like DTS-6, DTS-8, SRD, SRD EX and IMAX (which could also be differentiated). Also, what's supposed to be the difference between 7.1 and Dolby Surround 7.1? And what happened to Dolby Surround 5.1?
Also, wouldn't it be better to ask for estimated films watched in a given format instead of just to tick boxes?
And in addition to what Mike already proposed, I'd ask people if they're actually choosing to see a film in a certain location that offers it in one of the "premium" audio formats.
The option "Do you think the future of Film audio lies in..." is also missing at least one essential option: "I'm not sure". An other one could be: "I don't care".
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-21-2016, 09:08 AM:
quote: Marcel Birgelen
But it doesn't mention object based audio anywhere, so it could also be Auro 3D, although then their claim of uncompressed audio would be false.
Well, it does say that any sound can be isolated in a single speaker.
Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 03-21-2016, 09:12 AM:
I suspect sound will never be a motivating factor for the majority of the public. When they go out to a movie, they can see the picture and our eyes know good from bad. While our ears know good sound from bad sound, they do not have a frame of reference to judge if what they are hearing sounds better or worse than the same film playing in a different sound format.
Remembering, the majority of the public is still listening to television via the cheap built-in tv speakers rather than a home theatre sound system. I find it hard to believe that they will pay a premium for better sound.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-21-2016, 11:20 AM:
I've had people over the years ask how many "watts" our sound system is, or how many speakers do we have, that kind of thing. But nobody has ever asked about brand names or numbers like 5.1, even though we play a Dolby logo before every movie.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-21-2016, 04:05 PM:
quote: Paul Linfesty
Well, it does say that any sound can be isolated in a single speaker.
Yeah, whatever they actually want to imply with it, it suggests something "objecty". Since they do not advertse the Atmos brand, which is generally known to be a premium brand worth advertising, it will probably be an DTS:X based system they're installing.
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I suspect sound will never be a motivating factor for the majority of the public. When they go out to a movie, they can see the picture and our eyes know good from bad. While our ears know good sound from bad sound, they do not have a frame of reference to judge if what they are hearing sounds better or worse than the same film playing in a different sound format.
This is why some unbiased research into this whole subject would still make a lot of sense for the industry as a whole. Frankly, we don't know how much the average public actually cares about those different sound formats. We probably all have our own theories, backed up by gut feelings and experience, but that's about it.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I've had people over the years ask how many "watts" our sound system is, or how many speakers do we have, that kind of thing.
People are easily impressed by some big numbers often signifying nothing. "Mine has more * than yours!"
The IMAX marketing team understood that part, that's how they market their 100 Gazillion Megaoomph sound system.
Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 03-23-2016, 10:01 AM:
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
I suspect sound will never be a motivating factor for the majority of the public. When they go out to a movie, they can see the picture and our eyes know good from bad. While our ears know good sound from bad sound, they do not have a frame of reference to judge if what they are hearing sounds better or worse than the same film playing in a different sound format.
I think in either the case of audio or video, people notice when things are at the extremes. If the audio or video are without problems, they have no complaints but they are also unimpressed. If a speaker is crackling or there are visual flaws in the presentation, most people will notice, but to varying degrees.
The upside is that if you can put out a truly impressive presentation, people will take notice (but also, to varying degrees). My guess is that people will be more likely to notice impressive sound than they will notice impressive video.
The video in a presentation competes with what we see in normal life, and our eyes are better at taking in the natural world than any video system (film or digital) is capable of projecting.
However, sound is where movies can excel in comparison to real life. Few people experience the wide range sounds that are portrayed in movies, so the opportunity exists to improve upon the real-world experience. Low-end bass is one area where many theaters fall short, and where the most opportunity to make an impression can be found. When you watch a parade, what would the marching band sound like if the percussion section sounded like they were banging on toy drums and overturned buckets? The bass drum hits your gut and triggers a response, just like an explosion or even a fist-fight on-screen.
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Remembering, the majority of the public is still listening to television via the cheap built-in tv speakers rather than a home theatre sound system. I find it hard to believe that they will pay a premium for better sound.
This is the opportunity that theaters have to create a positive impression! Their experience at a movie theater had better be much better than their experience at home, because if it's not, the theater has failed its paying customers. If you are just trying to be as good as John Smith's soundbar, you're not setting your standards high enough.
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-24-2016, 08:21 AM:
So an article appeared in today's local paper about the Maya's new MPX system. The article says that it was developed with Dolby, so the question I have is, is Dolby franchising out it's ATMOS system?
(from The Bakersfield Californian)
Now hear this: Maya Cinemas is putting the audio in auditorium with a new sound system capable of nearly 10 times the power available in most theaters, according to a spokesman for the four-theater chain.
“Our system can use up to 200,000 watts of power. In a normal theater, you’d be lucky to have 30,000 to 40,000 watts,” said Larry Porricelli, who announced the enhanced auditorium will debut to Bakersfield movie-goers this evening with the premiere of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.”
“It makes it fun for the moviegoer.”
And fun for the movie-goer has become the price of staying in business for theater chains, forced into a constant state of technological one-upmanship in an age when viewers demand an ever-more-life-like picture, superior sound quality and a visceral, immersive experience.
In December, Reading Cinemas brought IMAX technology to Bakersfield in a seven-figure auditorium overhaul that unveiled a new screen, seating, blacked-out walls and carpeting, as well as sound and projection upgrades.
Though Maya’s conversion of Auditorium No. 1 to its proprietary MPX technology was not as extensive a retrofit, chain founder Frank Haffar estimates the cost at a quarter million dollars — worth every penny, he said, for the enhanced experience.
“You feel the sound,” Haffar said. “... The way we designed and tilted the speakers, the sound doesn’t have to be so loud that it bothers you. You are part of the movie. You feel it. You sense it.”
The technology, developed by Maya in association with Dolby, was unveiled at the chain’s Fresno cineplex last year.
“It was unreal, the response,” Porricelli said. “It became greater and greater and greater. That theater is the highest-grossing auditorium at Maya in Fresno.”
Patrons will pay an extra $2 for the experience, bringing the movie ticket to $12 for general admission, $9 for children and seniors.
The technology also brightens the picture, Porricelli said, and requires the use of two projectors. The format is available in both 2D and 3D presentations.
“We have an expression we use: Experience the difference. That’s about all I can say without going into all the technological things.”
The MPX theater is one of the two largest in Maya Bakersfield’s 16-auditorium complex. The other theater, Auditorium 16, will continue to offer the Dolby Atmos surround-sound system, introduced in 2012.
It was the innovative Atmos system that persuaded Haffar that Maya could improve on the concept in both sound quality and flexibility, he said. The MPX system was developed to be compatible with any movie, whereas Dolby Atmos is limited to films whose sound is processed using that format.
“The technology, we invented it for us,” Porricelli said, “but other companies have also invented their own. It’s a trend in the industry.”
In addition to the Bakersfield auditorium, the Los Angeles-headquartered Maya will debut the technology this week at its complexes in Salinas and Pittsburg, Calif.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-24-2016, 11:32 AM:
200,000 watts? I'd be curious what scale that's measured on.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-24-2016, 12:08 PM:
This "Maya MPX" thing is yet another stupid alphabet soup infected acronym concept to cash in on the Lie-MAX scheme without having to pay IMAX any money. Add this one to the dozens of other premium big screen fake formats in North American cinemas alone. It pisses me off when a movie theater chain has the balls to suggest they developed their own unique sound/projection presentation format and then hide the sound/projection details of what's really behind the premium screen brand.
To me, I only care about the specifics of what sound format is being presented and what projection format is being presented. For instance, 2K, 4K, dual 2K, dual 4K, laser, HDR and other stuff like that for projection and things like 5.1, 7.1, Atmos, Auro, etc. for the sound mix. That actually tells me something.
I couldn't give two shits about some alphabet soup nonsense label stuck on the auditorium entrance. I feel insulted by the label, as if I'm too stupid to understand anything resembling details. The practice of using a brand the theater chain invented to hide sound/projection specifics just gives off the stink of bullshit. You get to part with $14 for your ticket and then you might experience a 2K movie letterboxed on an unmasked screen and hear some cranked up 5.1 audio, but it's essentially no better than watching a Blu-ray on your big HDTV at home.
Many of these non-IMAX premium priced theaters are fundamentally no different at all than a normal priced theater. The room and screen is just bigger, that's it. But you'll pay at least a couple or so dollars extra to watch the movie in that room.
If you're able to check the booth you're bound to find just one single projector. It may only be capable of 2K and not 4K. Very few of these non-IMAX premium theaters are equipped with dual projectors. Most of these non-IMAX premium theaters only have 5.1 or 7.1 surround. All but two of Carmike's Big D theaters are wired for 7.1 (they have one Auro screen in Georgia and one Atmos screen in Illinois). A small minority of Regal's RPX theaters have Atmos or Auro; the majority of those have conventional surround sound. Cinemark has just about all its "XD" screens equipped with Auro 11.1, but since title support for Auro is so bad most movies on XD screens just have ordinary yet loud sound anyway.
IMAX with Laser and Dolby Cinema are the only digital-based premium big screen concepts out there that actually interest me at all. The theater I usually visit to watch movies in Dolby Atmos charges only $1 extra above the normal price, so that's not too bad a deal.
Regarding DTS:X, it is an object oriented surround sound format like Dolby Atmos. However, it's very unclear how it is getting deployed into commercial movie theaters. Title support is pretty limited. If anything, there is more DTS:X activity going on in the home theater space than in commercial cinemas.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-24-2016, 02:32 PM:
I gotta change the name of my theatre to the Roxy RX-3000 and crank the prices up!
Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 03-24-2016, 02:39 PM:
quote: Paul Linfesty
It was the innovative Atmos system that persuaded Haffar that Maya could improve on the concept in both sound quality and flexibility, he said. The MPX system was developed to be compatible with any movie, whereas Dolby Atmos is limited to films whose sound is processed using that format.
Wow an individual theater "improved" Atmos? I wonder how exactly? You'd think that'd be bigger news........
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-24-2016, 09:12 PM:
This TV coverage of Maya MPX really cracks me up with how gullible people are by hype! http://www.turnto23.com/news/local-news/just-in-time-for-batman-versus-superman-maya-ready-to-unveil-new-mpx-theater
The truth: The Christie duo projector has been in place in this auditorium since December 2012 with the Cirque du Soleil movie. Only, they have been using for strictly for 3-D (2D only uses the direct projector). Except for these new speakers, nothing has changed in the theatre. Even the demo they are showing in the TV clip uses a Dolby snipe, but for 7.1, something they already had. And as stated, they still have Dolby Atmos in their other large screen. (This screen is 50 feet wide before MPX, and is 50 feet wide with MPX. And people interviewd seem to be buying it. one couldn't explain it, but it was just better (I guess because it has MPX above the door). Things like this will kill the theatre business in the long run.
NOTE: for some reason, this site didn't allow me to copy and paste the accompanying article.
Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-26-2016, 03:22 PM:
So what exactly is happening in a Dolby ATMOS mix? Are object channels laid on top of a standard 7.1 mix? And if so, what happens in a theatre with just 7.1? Does it just ignore those object-based channels? I don't see how a pre-Dolby Atmos box could fold down those into the 7.1 mix. And if this is not happening, are those extra object channels just extraneous?
Or am I completely off base and there is actually a totally different 7.1 mix and a totally separate Atmos mix that includes a 7.1 base?
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-26-2016, 03:51 PM:
A Dolby Atmos mix doesn't have channels. It has objects and so called beds, which will be dynamically mixed by the Atmos processor to the corresponding speaker(s) in the auditorium.
An object is a sound that can be panned around in 3D. Beds are more static concepts, they essentially replace the idea of the channels in older, discrete channel formats.
A theater without an Atmos compliant decoder (the CP850) will not be able to playback the Atmos soundtrack, so it will have to revert to a standard 5.1 or 7.1 mix.
All movies released in Dolby Atmos do come with 5.1 and most often also 7.1 soundtracks too, which is also mandatory to be DCI compliant.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-27-2016, 01:50 PM:
The "beds" in an Atmos mix are, in effect, channels. Beds work exactly the same as channels in the surround environment and assign across the same speakers in an array as any surround channel. You can have up to six beds working in the surround field since there are effectly six surround arrays (left, right, rear left, rear right, top left and top right).
Objects are floated independently above those beds. I think of the relationship in the manner of a layered Photoshop image. You can flatten a bunch of imagery into the bottom background layer and then have individual things floating on top of it on separate layers.
You can cheat a plain 5.1 or 7.1 mix into Atmos by simply porting all the down-mixed audio in those channels into beds within an Atmos layout. The CP-850 basically does this already from a hardware standpoint when playing conventional LPCM surround tracks for backward compatibility. The CP-850 also does this if the movie theater has gone on the cheap regarding the number of amplifers it put into the sound system. A minimal Atmos setup would be just a 9.1 channel sound system.
A lot of movies mixed in Atmos are really hardly any different than conventional 5.1 or 7.1. Basically the mix has 5.1 or 7.1 worth of beds, ported over from the original mix. The post production crew sprinkles a few object-based effects into the mix. Maybe they'll do just enough to let you know the ceiling speakers are there once or twice in the movie. The end result is a mediocre sounding mix that is Atmos in name only. This is a common complaint I have about movies presented in Atmos. Far too many of them sound no different than conventional 5.1 or 7.1. Not enough movies are taking advantage of Atmos' creative capabilities. Unfortunately it takes extra time to make a really good Atmos mix. Post production crews don't have much time to complete projects at all, much less have time to do more elaborate things.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-27-2016, 05:00 PM:
Even the ceiling speakers have their own bed, so you could use that Atmos feature without defining a single "object".
But yeah, not all Atmos mixes are created equal, but then again, sound mixes in general aren't created equal. There are lots of bad surround mixes out there and many of those mixes aren't even using 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 to their full potential.
And in a world of oversized wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling screens and Atmos with 5 speakers behind the screen, why can't dialog not just follow where the mouth of the one speaking is? No, it has to come out dead center, always. Just like background music, which HAS to play in FL and FR, don't dare to use the surrounds for anything other than the occasional explosion, helicopter/fighter/ufo flyby or bunch of sirens sweeping by...
Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-27-2016, 10:26 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
This "Maya MPX" thing is yet another stupid alphabet soup infected acronym concept to cash in on the Lie-MAX scheme without having to pay IMAX any money. Add this one to the dozens of other premium big screen fake formats in North American cinemas alone.
quote:
I gotta change the name of my theatre to the Roxy RX-3000 and crank the prices up!
Props to whoever of you is the first to label your system "SoundEXtreme (SEX).
Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 03-28-2016, 04:31 AM:
quote: Paul Linfesty
Our system can use up to 200,000 watts of power
1.21 Gigawatts! (cit.)
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-28-2016, 06:39 AM:
You know, the old EURODIF enrichment plant in Tricastin, France required three dedicated nuclear reactors to operate. They supplied around 1 GW of electrical power each. It's nice to know you need about one nuclear reactor per auditorium those days.
Posted by Cloud Zhou (Member # 9300) on 03-29-2016, 10:39 PM:
Hundreds of Dolby cinemas are rolling out in the coming years world wide. Hopefully more movies will be mastered in Dolby vision plus Dolby Atmos
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-30-2016, 07:27 AM:
How are they paying for it? Last I heard, it was hundreds of thousands of dollars, per auditorium. One would have to generate an awful lot of EXTRA revenue in order to pay for it. In some dense markets, I can definitely see it but I suspect in many parts of the planet, there aren't enough people to buy tickets to justify it.
Hopefully, the price will come down.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 03-30-2016, 09:06 AM:
They will come down once MDA is fully standardized and allows competition. Then maybe ATMOS will be the premium MDA system, but not the only object based audio system anymore.
- Carsten
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 03-30-2016, 12:01 PM:
I was referring to the whole Dolby Theatre aspect...not just Atmos...Atmos can be cheaper if you don't put in so many speakers. That is one of the potential pitfalls and I suspect it has already happened. There is nothing to stop someone from putting in a Dolby Atmos with just the 7.1 channel configuration and calling it Atmos...there is no minimum standard there. Heck, you can have Atmos on your iPad!
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-30-2016, 01:35 PM:
quote: Cloud Zhou
Hundreds of Dolby cinemas are rolling out in the coming years world wide. Hopefully more movies will be mastered in Dolby vision plus Dolby Atmos
I have been watching the pace of Dolby Atmos installations for the past few years since it was first introduced. Progress has been slow. The rate of new installs is very slow in the United States; it looks almost like Atmos has hit a plateau and not gaining any new ground. Some fairly big markets have no Atmos-equipped screens at all: St. Louis, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Tucson, Brownsville-McAllen, Jacksonville, Nashville, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Colorado Springs, El Paso, etc.
In the United States it looks like AMC will be the only exhibitor putting in Dolby Cinema screens, via their own Dolby Cinema @ AMC Prime thing. It looks like a Prime auditorium rather than the futuristic room with all the angled stealth fighter paneling. AMC says they'll install 100 such screens, but they'll take 10 years to do so. Currently they have 16 finished Dolby Cinema @ AMC Prime screens with another 3 installs in progress. That's not much, but it's still a lot more than IMAX with Laser.
AFAIK, no other US theater operators have any plans to install their own Dolby Cinema screens.
quote: Steve Guttag
How are they paying for it? Last I heard, it was hundreds of thousands of dollars, per auditorium. One would have to generate an awful lot of EXTRA revenue in order to pay for it. In some dense markets, I can definitely see it but I suspect in many parts of the planet, there aren't enough people to buy tickets to justify it.
A full blown Dolby Cinema theater with all the stealth fighter decor, like the original JT Eindhoven screen in the Netherlands, cost over $2 million to build and equip. AMC probably is not paying nearly as much to stick with their Prime-oriented decor. The biggest part of the cost is the pair of Christie 4K laser projectors.
I wonder if they include a screen shaker thingie like what Boston Light and Sound is using for their portable big screens. Apparently speckle is a big problem with laser. Something bizarre like a screen shaker is needed to defeat speckle. Wouldn't rapidly vibrating the screen introduce blur and just kill image resolution?
quote: Carsten Kurz
They will come down once MDA is fully standardized and allows competition. Then maybe ATMOS will be the premium MDA system, but not the only object based audio system anymore.
MDA is doing nothing to bring down the cost of installing "immersive audio" -at least not in terms of installing such a thing correctly. The biggest selling point I've heard with MDA is it can allow a movie theater to do immersive audio on the cheap. You end up playing some kind of slightly enhanced surround sound just to get a more fancy name on the marquee unless you roll in the "improved" surround sound into your own theater's fake premium format "experience."
The biggest cost driver in an immersive sound system is all the amplifiers and better quality speakers required not to make the effort a stupid waste of time. It's bad enough a Dolby CP-850 with full Atmos capability costs $26,000 (it used to cost $33,000). If you put Atmos in a theater with 500 seats and a 70 foot screen, you're probably going to blow at least another $40,000 or more on speakers and amps.
An Auro processor costs just about as much as an Atmos processor, but since Auro is really a glorified 5.1 system (that runs in 5.1 almost all the time due to lack of Auro 11.1 titles) not nearly as many amplifiers are needed.
From what I can see DTS' MDA format is in a very murky, ill-defined situation. It sure isn't doing paying customers any favors. There appears to be no dedicated web site, social media presence or anything to tell customers which movies are being mixed and released in DTS' MDA format and specifically which movie theaters are equipped to play it. At least Dolby has both of those listed on their web site, although I really wish they would list how many Atmos screens are at each location.
The suggested speaker layout for MDA looks a lot like Auro. I'm tempted to call it Auro Part 2 and it's playing just as bad due to the lack of title support. If anything MDA is looking even more like a home theater technology than Atmos. Atmos has a very different speaker layout. So the notion of having post production crews create a mix in MDA format and expect it to play on Atmos systems is asking for trouble. It might take a lot more than a firmware update to make a Dolby CP-850 able to play MDA format audio.
Even on the authoring end MDA is very unclear. What digital audio editing applications support the MDA plug-in? Or does MDA have a stand-alone sound editing app? Dolby has something that works with ProTools. To me it looks like MDA is some kind of mysterious beta product.
quote:
I was referring to the whole Dolby Theatre aspect...not just Atmos...Atmos can be cheaper if you don't put in so many speakers. That is one of the potential pitfalls and I suspect it has already happened. There is nothing to stop someone from putting in a Dolby Atmos with just the 7.1 channel configuration and calling it Atmos...there is no minimum standard there. Heck, you can have Atmos on your iPad!
The whole situation has turned into a mess. The lack of standards or being flexible with standards allows for one Atmos theater to be kick ass and another one forgettably lame. The marketing bullshit is an even worse problem. Theater chains create their own home-grown premium priced "process" to sell to customers, hiding the specifics about projection and sound. It's all very misleading. I think IMAX deserves much of the blame for this serious problem. They got the ball rolling by ripping out real large format film projection gear, replacing it with HDTV resolution gear, yet still claiming in the salesmanship it was all still the same and every bit as good -if not a little better since it was digital.
Posted by Cloud Zhou (Member # 9300) on 03-30-2016, 08:34 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
I have been watching the pace of Dolby Atmos installations for the past few years since it was first introduced. Progress has been slow. The rate of new installs is very slow in the United States; it looks almost like Atmos has hit a plateau and not gaining any new ground. Some fairly big markets have no Atmos-equipped screens at all: St. Louis, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Tucson, Brownsville-McAllen, Jacksonville, Nashville, Charlotte, Pittsburgh, Colorado Springs, El Paso, etc.
In the United States it looks like AMC will be the only exhibitor putting in Dolby Cinema screens, via their own Dolby Cinema @ AMC Prime thing. It looks like a Prime auditorium rather than the futuristic room with all the angled stealth fighter paneling. AMC says they'll install 100 such screens, but they'll take 10 years to do so. Currently they have 16 finished Dolby Cinema @ AMC Prime screens with another 3 installs in progress. That's not much, but it's still a lot more than IMAX with Laser.
AFAIK, no other US theater operators have any plans to install their own Dolby Cinema screens.
Not sure about US, but in China, 100 new Dolby cinema screens will be open for Wanda Cinemas in the next 5 years.
Since Wanda is the parent company of AMC and Hoyts, I will not be surprised if there are more Dolby cinemas coming in US and Australia too.
Here is a link about the news of 100 Dolby cinemas coming to China
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wanda-cinema-line-dolby-laboratories-140000849.html
Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 03-30-2016, 10:58 PM:
"Heck, you can have Atmos on your iPad! "
I'm waiting for the IMAX app for the iPad...
Harold
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2016, 10:56 AM:
quote: Cloud Zhou
Not sure about US, but in China, 100 new Dolby cinema screens will be open for Wanda Cinemas in the next 5 years.
China has over 3 times the population of the United States, so I'm not surprised. But still 100 screens over the next 5 years translates to only 20 new screens per year. That's still not a great installation pace. AMC is planning about 10 new Dolby Cinema @ AMC Prime screens per year in the United States.
The bigger problem here in the United States is no other theater chains supporting Dolby Cinema. I think Dolby needs to get more theater chains on board.
Meanwhile there's hardly any new Atmos sound systems going into American theaters outside of those AMC Prime installations.
Cost and complication are the two big things limiting proliferation of Atmos. Even discounted to $26K the CP-850 is pretty expensive. I don't know if companies such as QSC can bring down the cost per amplification channel without hurting performance/quality. Using QSC's Q-Sys system immersive sound done right in a large room would need around a couple dozen 4-channel power amplifiers, Q-Sys Core Processor, Q-Sys I/O unit and a high quality Ethernet switch. What does a package like that cost? Then there's the speakers, a lot of them. For example, Harkins' Cine Capri theater in Oklahoma City has 50 surround speakers visible, 20 on the side walls, 20 on the ceiling and 10 on the back wall, plus a pair of sub bass systems for timbre matching. I'm sure that adds up to some serious money, even for conventional channel-based surround sound. And then there's the stage channel setup. A whole lot of money can get spent there alone. To me it looks like it would be easy for an immersive sound setup to go well past the $100,000 mark.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 03-31-2016, 11:53 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
Cost and complication are the two big things limiting proliferation of Atmos
I think this is why Dolby has gone the Dolby Cinema route. The exhibitor only has to pay for construction/renovation costs and Dolby provides the equipment "for free."
This way, they are able to pay for the equipment through upcharges. Most people won't pay an upcharge just for Atmos but by combining it with a true premium auditorium and laser projection, it can command an upcharge.
I think that standalone Atmos (or any object based sound) just doesn't make enough difference to Joe Public to be worth the investment.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2016, 02:02 PM:
Overall I'm in favor of Dolby pushing a Dolby Cinema approach similar to that of IMAX, where they presumably pay for the sound/projection gear in return for a cut of the box office take. However, I think it's a lousy idea for Dolby Cinema to be confined to AMC branded theaters. They have to get at least some other exhibitors on board.
It might be a challenge getting chains like Regal or Cinemark to install any Dolby Cinema screens since they've put so much into their RPX and XD brands. I think Dolby Cinema would be really good in some of the smaller regional chains that put a little more emphasis on quality, such as Warren Theatres, Alamo Drafthouse and Cinetopia. I would like to see at least some theaters in the Western Hemisphere build some Dolby Cinema screens more like the original design in the Netherlands. While I'm wishing, it would be even better to have a Dolby Cinema setup that had a common height screen.
Dolby Cinema has a distinct advantage over other theater chain based premium labels like RPX, XD, etc. The brand actually establishes a certain higher standard that's worthy of a premium ticket price. Dual 4K laser projection with Dolby Vision capability and Dolby Atmos audio? Yeah, that's more than regular single projector 5.1/7.1 fare that you're going to get in a typical RPX, XD, BigD, etc.
Dolby Cinema even appears more advanced than IMAX with Laser. At least with the Dolby Cinema name you'll know top level gear is installed in the theater. With IMAX you won't be able to tell until after you bought your ticket and watch the movie. IMAX is just IMAX regardless if it's film, twin-2K digital or twin-4K laser with 12 channel audio. IMAX just acts like it's all the same and charges a high ticket price all the same too.
quote: Lyle Romer
I think that standalone Atmos (or any object based sound) just doesn't make enough difference to Joe Public to be worth the investment.
My feeling is you install a sound system like that correctly or you don't do it at all. An Atmos installation done right is going to get some positive attention. I love a really powerful, well tuned sound system. It's one of the things I loved most about the GCC Northpark #1 THX theater in Dallas. Movie theaters that do just enough to get a sound or projection brand on the marquee don't do themselves any favors and they'll impart negative impressions to that fancy sound/projection format.
Harkins originally didn't charge any ticket price premium for its Atmos-equipped Cine Capri theaters, but in the last year or so they added a $1 surcharge. That's still not a deal breaker.
Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 03-31-2016, 02:59 PM:
Something tells me that the GCC Northpark probably did more business than similar theaters too... Good sound sells tickets. But in these days of shareholder value, no one is running out to get the latest greatest sound systems. Back then, there was more competition. You needed that leg up.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-31-2016, 06:15 PM:
The GCC Northpark 1-2 was a huge twin theater. The #1 THX screen had around 1200 seats. Seating capacity and location in the higher end Northpark Mall certainly had to boost business.
The first time I set foot in that auditorium I mouthed the word "wow." I didn't expect to find a room that size outside of Manhattan. Then I got hooked by the actual show quality. Modern movie theaters can do the same thing. They just have to put in the right amount of investment and effort to deliver.
Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 04-01-2016, 11:56 PM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
The first time I set foot in that auditorium I mouthed the word "wow." I didn't expect to find a room that size outside of Manhattan.
The Ziegfeld has closed. There are a few big screens left in Manhattan, but no more big theatres with high seating capacity. It probably tops out at about 600. NYC is no longer the leader in presentation technology that it once was, although it does have one AMC Prime/Dolby Vision screen and several Dolby Atmos screens, although they never advertise when a screen is playing a film in Atmos. Because it has lounge seating, the AMC Prime screen has only about 230 seats.
Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 04-02-2016, 12:08 AM:
The other thing that I think is affecting ATMOS adoption is simply monetary, as stated before, it's incredibly expensive on it's own and you really can't justify a ticket increase just for atmos (at least with most of the General Public) and if you're a major company planning to add it to your big screen concept, what is the point? Customers are paying for what they perceive is a premium experience with just plain 5.1 (or ATMOS/Auro in a few installations of XD/RPX/BigD).
I think that most of the big 4 have seen much better ROI on installing recliner seats as compared to object based sound. Part of it is the customer today really can't tell the difference (which i think can easily be solved with better marketing, but I digress).
Posted by Cloud Zhou (Member # 9300) on 04-10-2016, 06:38 PM:
The latest news today,
Wanda Cinema Line, China's largest cinema chain owned by Dalian Wanda Group, will buy 800 units of Dolby digital cinema processors to deploy in all of its new cinema screens in China by the end of 2016.
http://m.4-traders.com/DOLBY-LABORATORIES-INC-12317/news/Dolby-Laboratories-Wanda-to-equip-800-new-screens-with-Dolby-22138682/
Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 04-10-2016, 10:02 PM:
From the article:
"Dolby Laboratories announced the deal on Wednesday, which includes the Dolby Atmos Cinema Processor CP850 and the Dolby Digital Cinema Processor CP750."
It would be interesting to know how many of each.
Harold
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-11-2016, 08:44 AM:
There's probably no formal statement regarding how many of which, but I think there are press releases covering the number of ATMOS screens Wanda want's to install, so you could calculate an estimate.
That said - the Dolby Cinema at Eindhoven has/had a full redundant (second) CP850 installed in it's booth, and I don't know if that is common strategy for Dolby Cinema ;-)
- Carsten
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-11-2016, 09:33 AM:
If I recall correctly Dolby is now selling two different versions of the CP850, one with full Atmos capability and another significantly less expensive version that can be upgraded later with Atmos functions. I guess that's a way to encourage theater operators to move up from the CP750.
Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-12-2016, 05:33 AM:
quote: Bobby Henderson
If I recall correctly Dolby is now selling two different versions of the CP850, one with full Atmos capability and another significantly less expensive version that can be upgraded later with Atmos functions. I guess that's a way to encourage theater operators to move up from the CP750.
If they are doing this, I assume it is just some kind of software upgrade. Electronics are so integrated now that I wouldn't think there is an "Atmos Card" in the CP850 as part of the design.
It would be a similar strategy to way back when they sold the CP-500 with or without Dolby Digital. Only then, there were actual physical boards missing.
Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-12-2016, 06:03 AM:
The CP850 arives in a ridiculously large carton (looks like a repurposed DSS200 box, maybe they will use something smaller when those run out) marked "CP850 BASE".
It will not load an Atmos room design (with ceiling speakers) or play Atmos sound.
The CAT1600/1601 audio hardware is all in there though, and I'm not sure if you can even buy one without generating the Atmos license activation code.
The CP850 decodes the Atmos CPL audio, not your server so it has a secure media block like the server (the CAT1600). That requires a different security manager version for servers (not DCI compliant so far) and a second KDM - at least for some server models.
To activate Atmos you find the activation codes that were emailed to whatever email address the purchase order came from (Dolby support is used to having those get lost by purchasing departments and will help you get them). Then you plug that code into the Dolby activation portal with your CP850 and CAT1600 serial numbers for it to spit out an "entitlement" (.dae) file. Then you open the CP850 web gui and upload the entitlement... voila! Atmos!
The CP850 is nicely built like the DSS servers were. The (much smaller/lighter than a DSS200) chassis is quite full. I haven't poked deep to see the system board(s), the audio boards fill the "top layer" once the chassis cover is off. Way more complex than the single board CP750.
Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 04-12-2016, 07:16 AM:
Pretty darn big news on the Wanda rollout!
Too bad it isn't doing crap over here.
Wonder what the cost difference is compared to Dolby Digital adjusted for inflation.
This thread opened one year ago today.
Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 04-12-2016, 09:13 AM:
The cost could only be compared to Auro or DTS-X. Regardless of the processor cost, more money gets spent on speakers, amps, wire, and tech time hooking it all up: Atmos means a considerable increase in all of these costs compared to a 5.1 or 7.1 system.
The speaker and amp selection and count depends on the room size and shape - Dolby has to give their blessing that the design meets their specs.
Once configured, you upload the room design into the CP850 so it knows where the speakers are. On playback, it maps the ATMOS audio objects into the room, sending audio object sound to whatever speakers will best locate that sound where the post production sound mixer wanted it.
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-13-2016, 09:26 AM:
I wonder how much Atmos-equipped theaters are having to pay for the Dolby Connect service? Is that an ongoing service cost via subscription or is it just paid up front in a big lump sum fee?
Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 04-15-2016, 05:02 PM:
I noticed this afternoon that there was a FANTASOUND logo to the right of the DOLBY ATMOS logo on the end credits of "The Jungle Book." I found an article about the movie from Forbes (April 7). Here is an excerpt:
Another fascinating moment during the press conference came when Favreau talked about his love of the film Fantasia, and how Walt Disney's desire to put the audience in the middle of the orchestra sound led to installing multiple speakers all around theaters in a few select locations. That concept and the impact it had on Favreau personally led to a specific decision in how to approach The Jungle Book. Favreau explained, “I remember when I was talking to my sound people and to my composer John Debney, I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to explore what Fantasound [as the original Disney stereophonic sound was named] would be now?”
The Jungle Book credits actually refer to the film as using Fantasound, because it turns out the filmmaker’s desire to bring back the concept was far more doable than he might’ve first imagined it would be. “The sound engineer said, ‘Well, [Dolby] Atmos sound has that many speakers all around the theater. You use it for sound effects, there’s no reason you couldn’t use it for music,’ ” Favreau said. “ [John Demney is] a Disney guy. He grew up on the Disney lot. He knew Walt, and he hung out with the [songwriting team] Sherman Brothers when he was a little kid. So he breathes Disney, he knows the culture, and he really leapt at the opportunity. So when we were mic’ing the orchestra, we isolated instruments when we could. And in the sound mix, Lora Hirschberg — who’s our music mixer — we tasked her in the Atmos mix with creating a Fantasound mix.”
So in Dolby Atmos, Favreau adds, “[Y]ou will feel there are instruments that move around the theater, especially isolated instruments, like the flute as Mowgli’s running. So if you see it in a Dolby Cinema, you’ll experience a version of what we were trying to channel, which was Walt’s vision for this.”
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 04-16-2016, 09:21 AM:
quote: Robert Harrison
there was a FANTASOUND logo to the right of the DOLBY ATMOS
logo on the end credits of "The Jungle Book."
I noticed that a couple of weeks ago during some pre-opening sreenings.
Actual Photo:
Thanks for the 'backstory' on that!
I found the The "Filmed in Downtown Los Angeles" credit somewhat amusing too.
Don't movie studios bother to build sets anymore? Every production still photo
I've seen from this film shows the child actor working in front of a green screen
surrounded by minimal props & a wholebuncha ping-pong balls on sticks.
At least the 'original' (1942) version of this film had real locations (even if they
might have been on a backlot) and real wild animals instead of artificially
generated creatures. (and 'real' Technicolor too! )
Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 04-17-2016, 03:41 PM:
quote: Mike Blakesley
200,000 watts? I'd be curious what scale that's measured on.
It's 200,000 watts peak-to-peak. So that's 100,000 watts peak. Which is 70,000 watts RMS. But that's at 10% distortion. At 1% distortion it's 10,000 watts. But that's at 60Hz to 8KHz. At 20-20KHz at .5% distortion it's 5000 watts. But that's with each channel driven individually. With all channels driven, it's 3000 watts. But there's 64 channels. So it's 46.875 watts per channel.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 04-17-2016, 03:59 PM:
quote: Forbes Article
So in Dolby Atmos, Favreau adds, “[Y]ou will feel there are instruments that move around the theater, especially isolated instruments, like the flute as Mowgli’s running. So if you see it in a Dolby Cinema, you’ll experience a version of what we were trying to channel, which was Walt’s vision for this.
Aside from the "Fantasound" nonsense, I can say The Jungle Book does have a pretty good Dolby Atmos mix. I didn't really notice lots of individual instruments of the score being positioned in different areas of the theater, but the score was often shifted into the surrounds. One of the best Atmos-specific surround effects in the movie is the dialog from the snake, Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Her voice tracks around the room and over the ceiling as she hypnotizes Mowgli.
Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 04-23-2016, 04:15 PM:
the 12-channel IMAX-laser sound mix is equally impressive and very immersive.
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