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Post by garbulky on Mar 24, 2015 10:16:02 GMT -5
Depends on what you are listening to. If you are far away then you won't easily hear it. If the performance is mic'd then I doubt they have a height dimension recorded.
If you are looking for a more intimate performance like a guy in a living room playing a guitar and singing then you can. Same goes for the choir. You can hear height positioning on a choir with risers. When I record I can hear my wife's guitar below her (not on the recording, though it does somehow record some cues that my brain fills in).
Then there are acapella groups where they record themselves not at a distance but sort of like they are all around you.
Take this lovely recording
You can see the different heights of the singers and you can already hear some really nice positional cues. BUT....I feel it could be done better with a height dimension.
Another use would be a sound expanding in all directions like in a movie. You know the whoosh-bam sound that happens when a character wakes up. Now expanding sounds like that could also appear to extend upwards and hopefully somewhat downwards.
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Mar 24, 2015 10:16:21 GMT -5
For me it's the presence of height channels in music. Instead of a flat bubble, we can now hear a 3d bubble with height included. Hearing a choir on the risers. Having a guy strum a guitar and hear the guitar come from below his voice. The possibilities are huge. Unfortunately it's not happened yet  But the architecture is finally here. So...will I jump into it? Probably not, I've got too many plans for my stereo rig to worry about surround! P.S.: Gravity is INCREDIBLE on surround sound. When you go to a concert, do you hear the singer's guitar below his voice? Nope. In an intimate setting without amplification I do. This is what garbulky is speaking of, IMHO, his wife and himself are accomplished artists in their own right.  |
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Post by pedrocols on Mar 24, 2015 10:36:05 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!!
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Post by monkumonku on Mar 24, 2015 10:46:50 GMT -5
It seems to me that there is also a psychological component involved in placing the location of sounds when watching a movie or other video.
For example, my center channel is below the screen yet when I watch something I perceive the voices as coming from the actor's mouths on the screen, not from the speaker. If a helicopter or jet flies by from the rear to the front or vice versa, my mind makes me hear the sound as over my head. In other words, sound placement depends on my taking cues either from what I see on the screen, or what I expect is "normal" when I hear a particular sound.
Most television screens are not gigantic and the visual field is far smaller than the audio field of having surround sound. Your mind plays a large part in reconciling the discrepancy between what you see on the screen versus where the sound is actually coming from.
Because of this, my own opinion is that Atmos is not something I care about because while it may bring added "realism" to the motion picture experience in the room, the added cost and hassle of adding extra speakers plus the psychological adjustment I mentioned above outweighs any additional benefit. I would think in a very large area like a movie theater, there would be more benefit to something like Atmos, but in the home in the average room, that benefit is significantly decreased.
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novisnick
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Post by novisnick on Mar 24, 2015 10:58:35 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! Cause they Don't allow me to watch wearing my tighty-whites and eat cheese puffs!!!  Ok, now spend the rest of the day getting that picture out of your mind,,,,,,he,,,,,he,,,,,,,he,,,,,,,  |
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Post by nickwin on Mar 24, 2015 11:11:45 GMT -5
If I wanted anything else - like Dolby TrueHD or whatever - i'd have to track down the movie and buy it instead of just renting it. I can listen to music over and over but I have no desire to watch movies over and over. Renting them makes more sense to me. I would say 95% of the blurays I have gotten from Netflix have been Dolby TrueHD, 3-4% DTS MA and then a few other random formats make the last couple percent. The discs Netflix gets are the same as what you would buy, they always have the same audio. Are you sure Netlix just isn't listing all the audio types on there website? Because most discs DO usually have a regular dolby digital mix as well. My apology in advance if I'm just misunderstand your post. I agree with you on streaming quality (although I think Netflix is better than it used to be) and Atmos. One thing that does sound appealing about atmos that it uses one audio mix that adjust to any speaker configuration. You don't need a different mix for 2.1 than 11.2 and everything inbetween. All the extra channels have no appeal to me. I have 5.1 and have no desire to add another speaker. |
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Post by pedrocols on Mar 24, 2015 11:15:00 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! Cause they Don't allow me to watch wearing my tighty-whites and eat cheese puffs!!! Ok, now spend the rest of the day getting that picture out of your mind,,,,,,he,,,,,he,,,,,,,he,,,,,,, Thanks for ruin my life.... |
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Post by darien87 on Mar 24, 2015 11:20:45 GMT -5
That is correct. If you would have the Bluray, you would find DTS and all formats other than ATMOS. The problem with that is you can't rent Blurays anymore. Redbox is going out of business (already has in Canada) and soon we will be left with streaming only or purchasing Blurays. its a sad sad era.... Huh? I rent BD's from Netflix on a daily basis. |
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Post by thrillcat on Mar 24, 2015 11:35:01 GMT -5
If I wanted anything else - like Dolby TrueHD or whatever - i'd have to track down the movie and buy it instead of just renting it. I can listen to music over and over but I have no desire to watch movies over and over. Renting them makes more sense to me. The discs Netflix gets are the same as what you would buy, they always have the same audio. I disagree. Many times rental versions of discs are 'dumbed down'. Netflix especially. They are stripped of special features, and often times, yes, premiere audio tracks. While the disc you buy in the store may have 7.1 DTS-HDMA, the rental version will often only have Dolby 5.1. I dropped Netflix disc service for this main reason. That and the waiting. I tend to rent from my local video store - yes, we have one. The prices are great and they laugh about late fees as they delete them from your account. I also tend to purchase a lot of 'previously viewed' discs. But I've learned to be cautious. One that comes to mind is Ender's Game. I bought it without looking, and when I got it home it was a 5.1 version, even though the versions available for purchase in stores are 7.1 DTS-HDMA. The studio is required to pay licensing to Dolby and DTS for each disc it manufactures with their codecs. It's cheaper for the studios to drop things from the discs for rental versions. It's also the case for future releases - the stuff that winds up in the $5 bin at WalMart. Often these are dumbed down versions that are cheaper to manufacture because of lower licensing fees. But how this is helping the OP better understand Atmos, I haven't a clue. |
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Post by jmilton on Mar 24, 2015 11:49:17 GMT -5
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Mar 24, 2015 11:56:46 GMT -5
Absolutely... and I'm another one of those people it doesn't work well for (I'm talking about in a theater). Personally, I'm not even especially fond of surround sound when it's not well done. As far as watching movies, I'm a visual person. (Which may be why I also prefer to listen to music in a dark room - to eliminate the visual distractions.) When it's overdone, I tend to find surround sound downright distracting. Sure, in that war movie, when the ricochet goes whining off into the distance over your head, or when the attack fighters go screaming into the distance behind you, it adds realism. But, if there's a conversation going on, and I suddenly hear a voice behind me, I turn to look at the person who's talking; guess what, all I see is the side wall of the theater. For that matter, the fighters that made an exit stage-back aren't there when I turn my head either.  I can't stand movies where, in some scene, there are four or five guys talking - and two of them are behind you. Either it annoys me when I turn my head and they aren't there, or it annoys me when I have to concentrate on NOT turning my head. Likewise, a good surround sound recording can add a lot of realism to a big orchestral recording, but I DON'T like recordings where you are placed in the orchestra, with instruments popping up all around you. (For pretty much the same reason why I wouldn't want to be there at a live concert, in person, sitting in the middle of the orchestra. I'd much rather be front row and center.) And, in that battle scene, I'd like to be back a ways where I can see everything that's going on. Put me up on the hill with the commander, or on the admirals flagship, with a perfect view of the entire battle, any day; I have no desire to be stuck down with the crowd on the battlefield or splashing around in the water. To me, the situations where being able to accurately locate objects over my head will add realism rather than simply being annoying are few and far between... and, as you say, they don't justify all the bother of installing more speakers and running more channels. (And, as with any new technology, every new Atmos version of anything that comes out for the next year or two will be sure to include at least one scene where something goes whizzing around your head - just to show off the technology. I suspect I can live without that as well.) You made several good points about cues.... I've personally never had a problem with 2D pictures. The people on the TV screen look like real people and not like paper cutouts. Sure, 3D looks "more like 3D" but even 2D looks "sort of like 3D in my head". When you sit and listen to that live performance, you can tell how far away certain things are, and you can hear whether some of the echoes are coming from the ceiling or the walls, based on all sorts of cues like the relative time differences between what your two ears hear, and how the frequency response gets bent as the sound wraps around your head on its way to your ears. (It's also possible that you would NOT be able to tell what direction certain sounds were coming from without being able to see the singer's lips move, or the guy banging the drum, so your brain could fill in the unavailable detail.) In fact, it would be a fair statement that a well-made binaural recording, which records precisely what sound would reach each of your ears, then reproduces that experience using headphones, can contain every bit of information you would hear if you were actually there in person. Therefore, if you were willing to hold your head perfectly still and wear headphones, a stereo recording can do EVERYTHING that a surround recording (or even Atmos) can do. However, the various cues play a big part in scenes that are artificially produced. If Gollum was really behind you in that cave, mumbling, all the cues would be "perfect". However, odds are that the cave wasn't really there - it was CGI. So now we've got a recording engineer trying to fake all the correct cues that would enable you to tell whether he was behind you or in front of you... and that's not so easy. (Some cues are easy to fake. If you want that two foot model spaceship to look gigantic, you add lots of teeny-tiny fine details, because our brain takes those as cues that the whole ship is big, and you use the right camera lens to make it seem as if you're trying to squeeze something big into the frame. And that last cue only works because we're "programmed" that certain types of shots are used with large objects - so, when we see that focal length, and that depth of field, we read those cues to mean that it's a large object far away rather than a small one close up.) Actual surround sound relieves the recording engineer of a huge burden. He can make things so Gollum's voice REALLY DOES COME FROM BEHIND YOU. That way, instead of having to try and fake all those subtle cues about how the voice changes from bending around your head, it all happens naturally. (That engineer is going to have to fake the cues that tell you you're in a big cave, but the ones about the voice coming from behind you will be real - because it really will be coming from behind you.) Atmos extends this benefit to another dimension. Instead of trying to get all the cues right so you think what you hear is coming from above you, the engineer can arrange for it to actually come from that direction.... (remember that, since you really only have two ears, you could duplicate the experience without anything actually being up there). The down-side of all this is that it sometimes leads to sloppiness. (Let's say I record a singer standing at stage center. Then, when I mix the recording, I decide to place her off to the left, so I "pan" the voice to the left - raise the level in the left channel and lower it in the right. After I do that, she is louder in my left ear, which is one major cue for her actually being over to the left. However, the echoes off the side walls still have equal delays, while, if she was really standing to the left side, the echoes off the left wall should be louder and arrive sooner. The cue of the echoes is now not in agreement with the cue of the levels. And, if there's video, we'd better make sure that I see her standing in a location that agrees with both of the audio cues. If not, this might lead to one of those "modern moments" where the recording simply sounds "unnatural". Luckily our brains seem to be quite able to ignore certain cues when other cues override them or disagree. A modern solution to this might be to close mic the singer, to avoid those sidewall echoes entirely. Now, instead of two cues that conflict, we only have one cue. Of course, then we can add back some fake echoes to avoid having things sound like the orchestra is playing in a concert hall and the singer is singing somewhere else. It's kind of like trying to Photoshop someone into a picture and get the shadows and lighting just right......  ) It seems to me that there is also a psychological component involved in placing the location of sounds when watching a movie or other video. For example, my center channel is below the screen yet when I watch something I perceive the voices as coming from the actor's mouths on the screen, not from the speaker. If a helicopter or jet flies by from the rear to the front or vice versa, my mind makes me hear the sound as over my head. In other words, sound placement depends on my taking cues either from what I see on the screen, or what I expect is "normal" when I hear a particular sound. Most television screens are not gigantic and the visual field is far smaller than the audio field of having surround sound. Your mind plays a large part in reconciling the discrepancy between what you see on the screen versus where the sound is actually coming from. Because of this, my own opinion is that Atmos is not something I care about because while it may bring added "realism" to the motion picture experience in the room, the added cost and hassle of adding extra speakers plus the psychological adjustment I mentioned above outweighs any additional benefit. I would think in a very large area like a movie theater, there would be more benefit to something like Atmos, but in the home in the average room, that benefit is significantly decreased. |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Mar 24, 2015 12:03:52 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! That's partially my solution to Dolby Atmos. Trying to recreate the "Xtreme" theater 10 min. from my house with Dolby Atmos at my house is near impossible. Not to mention the screen that spans the entire width of the theater and even the popcorn can't be exactly reproduced  . But I must say...with my XMC-1, I'm much closer than I was with my UMC-200. $15 for a blockbuster, 4-5 a year is a much cheaper solution. |
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Post by garbulky on Mar 24, 2015 12:13:34 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! That's partially my solution to Dolby Atmos. Trying to recreate the "Xtreme" theater 10 min. from my house with Dolby Atmos at my house is near impossible. Not to mention the screen that spans the entire width of the theater and even the popcorn can't be exactly reproduced . But I must say...with my XMC-1, I'm much closer than I was with my UMC-200. $15 for a blockbuster, 4-5 a year is a much cheaper solution. I guess because I'm more of a sound guy, I find my setup clearer and more enjoyable than higher end theaters. The only times it gets trumped easily is during 3d movies as I do not have a 3d screen. |
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Post by sonicseeker on Mar 24, 2015 12:23:36 GMT -5
That is correct. If you would have the Bluray, you would find DTS and all formats other than ATMOS. The problem with that is you can't rent Blurays anymore. Redbox is going out of business (already has in Canada) and soon we will be left with streaming only or purchasing Blurays. its a sad sad era.... Please say this isn't true. |
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Post by pedrocols on Mar 24, 2015 12:38:57 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! That's partially my solution to Dolby Atmos. Trying to recreate the "Xtreme" theater 10 min. from my house with Dolby Atmos at my house is near impossible. Not to mention the screen that spans the entire width of the theater and even the popcorn can't be exactly reproduced . But I must say...with my XMC-1, I'm much closer than I was with my UMC-200. $15 for a blockbuster, 4-5 a year is a much cheaper solution. So you do not like to pay $15 for a small pop corn? That is not very ptriotic...  |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Mar 24, 2015 15:12:53 GMT -5
I guess because I'm more of a sound guy, I find my setup clearer and more enjoyable than higher end theaters. The only times it gets trumped easily is during 3d movies as I do not have a 3d screen. No offense, but unless you have the JBL synthesis system with Atmos, I can't imagine it exceeding this theater I'm talking about. I thought I had a good system but my system felt like the $1.50 theaters after going here. And I'm an audio guy first too. Now with the xmc-1, it's better than the $1.50 theaters. Lol. This is a different level of awesomeness vs. the regular theaters. |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Mar 24, 2015 15:15:28 GMT -5
That's partially my solution to Dolby Atmos. Trying to recreate the "Xtreme" theater 10 min. from my house with Dolby Atmos at my house is near impossible. Not to mention the screen that spans the entire width of the theater and even the popcorn can't be exactly reproduced . But I must say...with my XMC-1, I'm much closer than I was with my UMC-200. $15 for a blockbuster, 4-5 a year is a much cheaper solution. So you do not like to pay $15 for a small pop corn? That is not very ptriotic... Small popcorn? I get the large and get a refill on the way out . The $15 included popcorn and coke (we share the popcorn so I averaged it out - $60 is what it costs me). |
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Erwin.BE
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Post by Erwin.BE on Mar 24, 2015 15:47:01 GMT -5
When you go to a concert, do you hear the singer's guitar below his voice? Nope.
That's because most rock concerts have bad sound. If you go to a very small venue however with a singer and a guitar without amplification, then things are different. I'd love to hear Serge Gainsbourg's "Melody Nelson" that way.
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Erwin.BE
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Post by Erwin.BE on Mar 24, 2015 15:50:08 GMT -5
Why not just go to the movies? Two channel rules!! Cause they Don't allow me to watch wearing my tighty-whites and eat cheese puffs!!! Ok, now spend the rest of the day getting that picture out of your mind,,,,,,he,,,,,he,,,,,,,he,,,,,,, ^^that's why I don't like to go to the movies: other people! |
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Lsc
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Post by Lsc on Mar 24, 2015 16:13:28 GMT -5
I'll be going to watch the new Divergent movie this week sometime - see how my Dirac'd XMC-1 matches up now. |
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But the architecture is finally here. 
I can't stand movies where, in some scene, there are four or five guys talking - and two of them are behind you. Either it annoys me when I turn my head and they aren't there, or it annoys me when I have to concentrate on NOT turning my head. Likewise, a good surround sound recording can add a lot of realism to a big orchestral recording, but I DON'T like recordings where you are placed in the orchestra, with instruments popping up all around you. (For pretty much the same reason why I wouldn't want to be there at a live concert, in person, sitting in the middle of the orchestra. I'd much rather be front row and center.) And, in that battle scene, I'd like to be back a ways where I can see everything that's going on. Put me up on the hill with the commander, or on the admirals flagship, with a perfect view of the entire battle, any day; I have no desire to be stuck down with the crowd on the battlefield or splashing around in the water.
) 
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