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Post by FilmMixer on Jun 11, 2014 13:00:22 GMT -5
Pro Tools doesn't quite work as you described... Sounds don't contain metadata in regards to panning, eq, volume, etc.. That's good, because I did not say they did. I said "associated," not "contained." This is a chat forum, not an AES conference. I err on the side of conceptual descriptions where possible so as to not get too deep into minutiae. As one of the inventors of MDA, I think I know how this stuff works. Carry on. Didn't know it was you.  I understand the context of your point, and didn't want a generalization to be taken as a given... I was framing my reply as it relates to Atmos, not MDA or anything else...  And because it is a chat forum, it's important that those involved in the discussion about Atmos don't confuse MDA's approach with what Dolby is doing... |
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Post by wbroshea on Jun 11, 2014 13:11:56 GMT -5
Misunderstood you. In a system without an Atmos-enabled AVR the sound will simply be the regular 5.1/7.1 as it has been designed to be backwards compatible. Which is why I stated that Atmos offers no advantage for those with 5.1 systems on the other thread... where you then told everyone that I was wrong... I'm so confused now. How does that show there will be no benefit for those with a 5.1 system and an atmos enabled AVR obviously? |
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 13:31:00 GMT -5
Moved from the XMC-1 thread to this thread.No he didn't... Atmos will not offer any advantage for users with 5.1.... for reasons that should be quite clear and that you have posted about yourself. RD was talking about object based audio as a generality (and really only MDA is fully object based..) You confirmed my original comment here: "Misunderstood you. In a system without an Atmos-enabled AVR the sound will simply be the regular 5.1/7.1 as it has been designed to be backwards compatible." Roger has listed the benefits of Atmos audio when used in a 5.1 system. He is perfectly clear what they are. You do understand that I am talking about an Atmos mix rendered to a 5.1 speaker layout via an Atmos-enabled AVR (where the AVR knows the speaker locations) and not a 5.1 channel track played back using 5.1 speakers?
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 13:33:30 GMT -5
Misunderstood you. In a system without an Atmos-enabled AVR the sound will simply be the regular 5.1/7.1 as it has been designed to be backwards compatible. Which is why I stated that Atmos offers no advantage for those with 5.1 systems on the other thread... where you then told everyone that I was wrong... I still think that what you said, which is in contradiction to what Roger has also said, is incorrect. Or rather, I think we are at cross-purposes. See my reply just above this one for what I mean. |
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Post by FilmMixer on Jun 11, 2014 13:59:43 GMT -5
Which is why I stated that Atmos offers no advantage for those with 5.1 systems on the other thread... where you then told everyone that I was wrong... I'm so confused now. How does that show there will be no benefit for those with a 5.1 system and an atmos enabled AVR obviously? Atmos isn't "object based audio" or MDA (or any other completely object based system...) The discussion isn't interchangeable... Atmos uses a channel bed + objects, which limits some of it's flexibility. Even if Dolby designed the system to down mix on the fly to 5.1 when playing a hypothetical Atmos track, there is no sonic benefit to playing back object in a system where you are relying on phantom imaging for spatial position... which is a limitation of only having 5 speakers.. The object metadata for panning is the same resolution as the panning data for audio used in the channel bed... It will present itself in the same way... With theatrical Atmos, even though the RMU (the rendering mastering unit) will down mix in near realtime to multiple formats (5.1 and 7.1 primarily) there are times when you need to "remix" the objects to get the desired effect... i.e. do you want the overhead sound to be down mixed into the mains LCR, the surrounds, both, etc? There is no metadata information that tells the engine what the intent is when down mixing.... Regardless, if you believe the rumors that Dolby is going to use a backwards compatible codec, I'd be surprised if they went to the trouble (complexity and cost) to create a decoder to down mix an Atmos mix on the fly on an Atmos equipped AVR in a 5.1 room setup.... why not just playback the 5.1 mix and be done with it? |
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Post by cwt on Jun 11, 2014 14:05:50 GMT -5
According to roger dressler truehd can accommodate atmos in the extension data, which would mean backwards compatibility with all current decoders. The same goes for the dts version of atmos. And something emocustomer just said ; Are these statements referring to the same thing Let's ask him: Yes. Same thing. To get any of the Atmos benefits, yes, you will need an Atmos decoder. If Dolby provides room EQ, it is separate from Atmos, per se. Thanks surroundhound ; really just hoping the atmos metadata in the lossless bitstream could have a positive influence without any specific x/y axis positioning but logically should realize a lot of processing above the basic bed is required for specific objects ; nothing comes for free that's for sure  |
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 14:21:19 GMT -5
[I'd be surprised if they went to the trouble (complexity and cost) to create a decoder to down mix an Atmos mix on the fly on an Atmos equipped AVR in a 5.1 room setup.... why not just playback the 5.1 mix and be done with it?Because then you wouldn't get the benefits of Atmos with the 5.1 speaker layout. Benefits such as the ability to have the dialog as its own object which would then allow the user to raise the level of just the dialog (without affecting any other part of the mix) if he was having difficulty hearing the dialog well (eg someone who has age-related hearing impairment for example). Etc. |
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Post by FilmMixer on Jun 11, 2014 14:21:29 GMT -5
Which is why I stated that Atmos offers no advantage for those with 5.1 systems on the other thread... where you then told everyone that I was wrong... I still think that what you said, which is in contradiction to what Roger has also said, is incorrect. Or rather, I think we are at cross-purposes. See my reply just above this one for what I mean. The OP said that Atmos (not MDA, object solutions, etc...) will benefit 5.1 users... You are assuming that Atmos for the home, which is what the discussion was about with the OP, will render to 5.1 on the fly. If thy use the legacy codec in 5.1 setups, Atmos equipped AVR or not, there there will be no advantage.. Even if they render on the fly, there are no indications that any sort of remming technology will be part of what they are intending.. An object panning from front to back with pan values of 100 > -100 will sound exactly the same when traveling between two speakers regardless if it is playing back on the fly or rendered into the channel based output.. emocustomer said: " Roger has listed the benefits of Atmos audio when used in a 5.1 system. He is perfectly clear what they are. You do understand that I am talking about an Atmos mix rendered to a 5.1 speaker layout via an Atmos-enabled AVR (where the AVR knows the speaker locations) and not a 5.1 channel track played back using 5.1 speakers?" No he didn't... He was referring to object based solutions, which Atmos is not.. "Not to leave you with the impression that the only home user benefit is the number of speakers, the following lists some of the ways object-based audio can bring benefits to a 5.1 speaker system." Which is not Atmos.... The example he listed presume that all the audio are objects... which is, again, not Atmos.. For example.. "If the device has some sort of stereo widener, then it widens everything, even the sounds that should have stayed near the screen. Object rendering allows the widening to be applied selectively, only to the ambience or music, while leaving the onscreen cues tied to the image." Atmos at this point doesn't use a rendering engine for the bed channels.. so again, it's not going to benefit consumers in the type of examples he uses for MDA/object based audio. To recap: The OP said: Atmos will benefit those with 5.1 setups. I said it would not offer any sonic benefit. You said I was wrong and that Roger corrected me, which he did not. I think we can move on. |
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 14:25:01 GMT -5
^^^^^ Before we move on, let's ask Roger just one more question: will Atmos-enabled AVRs benefit people who have just 5 satellite speakers and 1 subwoofer?
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Post by FilmMixer on Jun 11, 2014 14:30:49 GMT -5
[I'd be surprised if they went to the trouble (complexity and cost) to create a decoder to down mix an Atmos mix on the fly on an Atmos equipped AVR in a 5.1 room setup.... why not just playback the 5.1 mix and be done with it? Because then you wouldn't get the benefits of Atmos with the 5.1 speaker layout. Benefits such as the ability to have the dialog as its own object which would then allow the user to raise the level of just the dialog (without affecting any other part of the mix) if he was having difficulty hearing the dialog well (eg someone who has age-related hearing impairment for example). Etc. That would most certainly be beneficial.. However, that is a theoretical example that has no bearing on how Atmos works at this time. |
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 14:40:55 GMT -5
Because then you wouldn't get the benefits of Atmos with the 5.1 speaker layout. Benefits such as the ability to have the dialog as its own object which would then allow the user to raise the level of just the dialog (without affecting any other part of the mix) if he was having difficulty hearing the dialog well (eg someone who has age-related hearing impairment for example). Etc. That would most certainly be beneficial.. However, that is a theoretical example that has no bearing on how Atmos works at this time. I guess we'll see come September. How it works in commercial theaters and how it works in the home aren't going to be the same. I'm still interested in Roger's reply to that straightforward question if he is around. |
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Jun 11, 2014 15:38:16 GMT -5
According to everything I've read, the main benefit of Atmos is going to be what I would term "adaptability". Assuming you have a 5.1 setup, with all five speakers "where they normally belong", then the result you would get by having your AVR do "a proper Atmos rendering" should be precisely the same as you would get by simply playing the included 5.1 channel mix. (Because they got the included 5.1 mix by rendering the Atmos content to a "standard 5.1 channel setup"; which should give the same result as you would get from any other "compliant decoder".) Since we're talking about a "typical standard" installation, the value of Atmos adaptability is minimized in this situation. (I'm assuming that our goal is to produce a precisely "correct" output as closely as we can; the ability to adjust certain entities, or groups, falls outside this discussion for the moment.) A theater benefits because their speakers are NOT placed in standard locations (according to the standard 5.1 layout), and so the "standard 5.1 rendering" included won't match their setup very well. In fact, if all theaters followed Dolby's recommendations for speaker placement precisely, then one "static rendering" would work well for all of them anyway. The point is that many theaters won't do so, so many theaters will have different requirements, and different numbers of speakers in different locations - which is why they'll do much better if they have the Atmos renderer custom render a version to match their system. Unfortunately, Atmos' ability to compensate for speaker locations depends on how many speakers it has to work with. (For the same reason that a 5.1 system can almost always make a "virtual center channel" if all you have are Left Front and Right Front speakers, and have it come out sounding quite good, but it can't compensate very well if you have a Left front and Center speakers, but no Right Front speaker. I can actually see two situations where Atmos promises to be very useful for "home" use. First, in a large room, with many ceiling or wall mounted speakers, where Atmos would make the positions of each individual speaker less critical, and should be able to produce consistent results from various layouts. Again, it's not going to be able to "place" an object on the ground if all you have are ceiling speakers, but it's got a much better chance of producing a result that is closer to what was intended. Also, if your speakers are in "odd" locations, Atmos should do an excellent job of "using" them all to best advantage (it should be very smart at calculating which speakers to use to position an entity at some point between several speakers). Of course, this will also rely on your AVR (or pre/pro) having enough channels to run each of those speakers independently. Atmos' true power relies, to a large degree, on being to address each speaker individually. I can see this being useful in large homes, and even in business venues other than theaters, as long as they invest in more than five speakers (and amplifier channels and decoder capabilities to go with them). Another possibility, which, believe it or not, seems very well suited to Atmos, would be in a car. A car is the typical situation where you have lots of speakers, but space constraints prevent ANY of them from being optimally located. In a car, it's also more practical to have many low-powered amplifiers, each running a speaker, or perhaps even a whole bunch of powered speakers. I'm not sure of the practical usefulness of surround sound in a car, but Atmos should be able to do an excellent job of placing things where they belong - independently of where the physical speakers are located - which would solve one of the biggest issues in car audio..... Hmmmm... interesting thought there.... tell an Atmos decoder that the two channels of your stereo music signal were two "entities" located "left front" and "right front", tell it where all your speakers are, and let it sort out all the messy bits about what to send to which speakers to make it sound like those two channels were located in the right places...... Because then you wouldn't get the benefits of Atmos with the 5.1 speaker layout. Benefits such as the ability to have the dialog as its own object which would then allow the user to raise the level of just the dialog (without affecting any other part of the mix) if he was having difficulty hearing the dialog well (eg someone who has age-related hearing impairment for example). Etc. That would most certainly be beneficial.. However, that is a theoretical example that has no bearing on how Atmos works at this time. |
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Post by srrndhound on Jun 11, 2014 16:22:24 GMT -5
Assuming you have a 5.1 setup, with all five speakers "where they normally belong", then the result you would get by having your AVR do "a proper Atmos rendering" should be precisely the same as you would get by simply playing the included 5.1 channel mix. (Because they got the included 5.1 mix by rendering the Atmos content to a "standard 5.1 channel setup"; which should give the same result as you would get from any other "compliant decoder".) Since we're talking about a "typical standard" installation, the value of Atmos adaptability is minimized in this situation. Absolutely correct. Absolutely whhaaat?  How are commercial theaters not using the standard 5.1 layout? They mix 5.1 in such theaters to play in such theaters, so the match is perfect. Atmos will not affect that, as it needs no help. |
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Post by srrndhound on Jun 11, 2014 16:25:19 GMT -5
^^^^^ Before we move on, let's ask Roger just one more question: will Atmos-enabled AVRs benefit people who have just 5 satellite speakers and 1 subwoofer? I can only speak theoretically, as I do not know the details of what consumer Atmos will support in AVRs. On that basis the answer is yes, with some example "cases" given in a previous post. |
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Post by Andrew Robinson on Jun 11, 2014 16:30:14 GMT -5
Assuming you have a 5.1 setup, with all five speakers "where they normally belong", then the result you would get by having your AVR do "a proper Atmos rendering" should be precisely the same as you would get by simply playing the included 5.1 channel mix. (Because they got the included 5.1 mix by rendering the Atmos content to a "standard 5.1 channel setup"; which should give the same result as you would get from any other "compliant decoder".) Since we're talking about a "typical standard" installation, the value of Atmos adaptability is minimized in this situation. Absolutely correct. Absolutely whhaaat? How are commercial theaters not using the standard 5.1 layout? They mix 5.1 in such theaters to play in such theaters, so the match is perfect. Atmos will not affect that, as it needs no help. I believe he was referencing the number of speakers typically employed in a commercial theater environment. True there are three across the front, but there are often more than two surrounds in a commercial theater, despite those speakers being fed either the same surround info all at once or some form of matrixed surround in order to give the illusion of more than 5 discrete channels of information -i.e. more than just a left and right surround. What that has to do with Atmos I'm not sure as I have not been following the conversation closely, but I believe he was referring to the differences in the number of surround channels etc. Could be wrong. |
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Post by FilmMixer on Jun 11, 2014 16:46:45 GMT -5
^^^^^ Before we move on, let's ask Roger just one more question: will Atmos-enabled AVRs benefit people who have just 5 satellite speakers and 1 subwoofer? I can only speak theoretically, as I do not know the details of what consumer Atmos will support in AVRs. On that basis the answer is yes, with some example "cases" given in a previous post. The Atmos workflow up to this point has made no acknowledgement as to what kind of audio an object is, for example dialog or music. I can't comment in how this night change. I stand by my assertion based on what I know at this point in time. |
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Post by emocustomer on Jun 11, 2014 18:37:24 GMT -5
^^^^^ Before we move on, let's ask Roger just one more question: will Atmos-enabled AVRs benefit people who have just 5 satellite speakers and 1 subwoofer? I can only speak theoretically, as I do not know the details of what consumer Atmos will support in AVRs. On that basis the answer is yes, with some example "cases" given in a previous post. Thanks Roger. |
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Post by srrndhound on Jun 11, 2014 18:59:41 GMT -5
I believe he was referencing the number of speakers typically employed in a commercial theater environment. True there are three across the front, but there are often more than two surrounds in a commercial theater, despite those speakers being fed either the same surround info all at once or some form of matrixed surround in order to give the illusion of more than 5 discrete channels of information -i.e. more than just a left and right surround. Yes, in a cinema the surrounds are presented over arrays, several speakers carrying the same signal (there's no matrixing or other tricksing used). But that is the standard for 5.1. Perhaps Keith is thinking about the ITU BS.775 standard, which has nothing to do with cinemas. |
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Post by TempTag on Jun 11, 2014 23:41:02 GMT -5
I love the idea of Atmos (I have been to an Atmos theater) and would welcome consumer gear with the technology.
I do wonder - for Atmos to work as intended in the home - will Dolby have some technology included to remap speakers to simulate correct Atmos placement - meaning the sounds bits come generally from the right places - or is remapping an integral part of the Atmos technology? I guess another way to ask my question, is how important is speaker placement to successful Atmos?
(This is where I put in a Trinnov plug- if Atmos can outdo Trinnov AND be available on consumer AVRs sign me up!)
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Post by cwt on Jun 12, 2014 6:20:28 GMT -5
I love the idea of Atmos (I have been to an Atmos theater) and would welcome consumer gear with the technology. I do wonder - for Atmos to work as intended in the home - will Dolby have some technology included to remap speakers to simulate correct Atmos placement - meaning the sounds bits come generally from the right places - or is remapping an integral part of the Atmos technology? I guess another way to ask my question, is how important is speaker placement to successful Atmos? I think what atmos [with more speakers the better ]does temptag is to improve the soundfield localization as distinct from trinnov room eq . To paraphrase Keithl There is also dolby atmos eq which is separate as Roger said How this interacts we may have to wait till September atm it's just a reference to what happens in the cp850 dolby atmos cinema processor Though separating room eq from atmos I do see a type of symbiosis between trinnov remapping and atmos rendering on multiple axes to place objects where needed That stmos rendering will make what Keith said here come to the fore |
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How are commercial theaters not using the standard 5.1 layout? They mix 5.1 in such theaters to play in such theaters, so the match is perfect. Atmos will not affect that, as it needs no help.
