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3D Audio: A New Dimension in Cinema Sound
Digital projection in cinema theatres has spurred a revival in 3D movies. Yet in two decades, there have been no significant innovations to make the aural experience as lifelike and immersive as 3D imagery. This presentation will detail a state-of-the-art audio solution that integrates the full 3D experience into existing technology and standards, can be placed within existing distribution architectures, and is compatible with all forms of multimedia.

Tom Bert & Brian Claypool (Barco, Belgium)

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So, how can you have a "solution" without a problem? I don't know, have these guys at Barco been asleep under a rock for the last two decades? No improvement in the "aural experience"? They want to get more "immersive" than 7.1? Not to mention that the current system is capable of overhead and under the seats channels without doing anything except adding hardware.

Even with two channels, phase manipulation has been around for more than half a century and able to play around with "spreading" sound and "spacializing" sound artificially -- no doubt with 7 plus channels, doing that trickery can create some wild effects, but to what end? Sounds like that same "space-alizer" knob that you used to find on the cheap boom boxes, only now times 7 and with the 3D moniker slapped on it.

And as Bobby has said many times, if there is a problem, it isn't that audio can't be made to sound spectacular with the systems we have in place already, but that theatres are not attentive to it, don't maintain it and bottom line, don't seem to give a rats ass about it.

So will they add a 3D surcharge to this new 3D immersive sensation? Will there be studies to see if 3D sound is dangerous to the ears? Will the public soon tire of the 3D sound fad?
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-15-2011, 08:40 AM:
 
So, now I have a Googolphonic® stereo system, the highest number of speakers before infinity. It's okay for a car stereo but I'd never put it in my house.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 09-15-2011, 10:14 AM:
 
Yeah, the situation is pretty damned annoying. "3D Sound" seems like another excuse from bean counters to "grow revenue." In short, it sounds like a scheme to charge customers a premium for what movie studios and movie theaters should be delivering with the standard ticket price.

Production wise, 5.1 with dialog locked in the center is the typical standard. Studios seem to have very little desire to expand upon that. 7.1 is being used more on Blu-ray than it is in movie theaters just like what happened on DVD with DD 5.1 EX and DTS-ES 6.1. Something like a 10.2 mix would require a considerably greater amount of time and effort during post production. The global media parent company bean counters certainly couldn't like that since it would risk diluting those profit margins. Not to mention that such an elaborate mix would only be playable in a good movie theater. With the movie playing in theaters for only a month, why bother with all that extra effort? Mix it mind for home video and be done with it.

To give the dead horse another whack, digital 2D/3D projection is the primary selling point for theaters now. Even things like stadium seating may have a higher priority than sound system maintenance. Upgrades to the sound system? Nah. Not unless we can tack another $2 or $3 onto the ticket price!

With production/distribution and exhibition running as separate entities the perfect chicken vs. egg situation exists for keeping sound stuck where it is. Theater operators see no need to do any sound system upgrades because the distributors aren't providing any product to make it necessary. The distributors can say there's no need to mix anything in greater than 5.1 because few theaters can handle it.

Of course that chicken vs. egg problem can be easily solved with a few phone calls between studio and exhibition bosses. Such efforts had to be made with movie releases like Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Robocop, Dick Tracy, etc. where new formats or significant changes to existing formats were being introduced.

Now, if any big changes will be made to movie audio it might only happen at a premium price.
 

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 09-15-2011, 10:33 AM:
 
And what percent of the audience can tell, much less care?

There may be some cute effects in big special effects movies, but is it useful at all for movies that are based around people talking?

It will probably be cool the first time someone figures out how to make it sound like a bomb is going off 3 seats over from you, but just like visual 3D, it can't carry a movie.

Good clean sound first. Everything else is just volume.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-15-2011, 11:22 AM:
 
Ehh. Everything is 3D these days. I saw an ad in the newspaper today for a 3D bra for cripesake. It's the biggest buzzword since digital.
 

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Posted by Jim Henk (Member # 3628) on 09-15-2011, 02:40 PM:
 
Not sure.

A while ago, I was in the Mr. Lincoln exhibit at Disneyland, and they passed out headphones that not only played ping-pong stereo left to right, but also made sound in front of you, *and in back of you*, and a 360 degree mix in between. There was even a short sequence where a character was whispering to you, and I swear I turned to see if they had swung some sort of speaker or other device just *over* my head, and a little off to one side.

Is that going to be it? Probably not. Will it be something gimmicky? Probably. Then again, they said the same thing about stereo.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-15-2011, 03:13 PM:
 
You don't need to be wearing headphones to get that effect.

It was during one of the Jurassic Park movies where the dinosaur ate a guy carrying a cell phone (satellite phone?) and was running around the jungle with the thing in its stomach while the phone was ringing. I was sitting in the back row of the theater wondering which asshole in the front row was letting his phone ring in the middle of the movie when I suddenly realized that it was a special effect in the soundtrack of the movie.

I was in that theater to do a tune up on the sound system. When I heard that effect, I stood up and quietly headed for the door. On my way out, I thought to myself, "My work here is done!"

That was over ten years ago. What great improvements in sound technology can they come up with that they haven't already invented?

Like I said, it sounds like Googolphonics all over again.
 

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Posted by Jeff Kane (Member # 6372) on 09-15-2011, 04:05 PM:
 
It's just height info extrapolation. Dolby has been doing it in the home with Pro Logic IIz for about two years now? I've only heard two systems that used it and in one case we dropped out all the other channels just to verify all was working as intended! Underwhelming is an understatement.
 

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Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 09-15-2011, 04:10 PM:
 
Will you need special glasses for your ears? Or would that be headphones? Think of it, people could be talking right next to you, and all you would hear is the movie. They could even add in some 24 frame pull down noise, so that you think that you are watching FILM. The next question: how would you do smell-o-vision sound?
 

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Posted by Ian Parfrey (Member # 5122) on 09-15-2011, 04:22 PM:
 
Jim.

That sounds like a binaural recording you were listening to. They can sound amazingly realistic, one famous recording of a barber cutting hair comes to mind.

quote: Martin McCaffery

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Good clean sound first. Everything else is just volume.

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That is T-Shirt worthy right there! Love it.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-15-2011, 05:45 PM:
 
3D sound? What are they gonna do, mount speakers of the side and back walls? Utterly ridiculous.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 09-15-2011, 08:28 PM:
 

quote: Ian Parfrey

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like a binaural recording you were listening to.

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