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Post by davidl81 on May 10, 2018 0:35:32 GMT -5
Atmos home only has 7.1 bed (fixed sound direction)channels period. Movie Atmos has 9.1 beds (two are overhead). Movie sounds of up to 118 objects is encoded accompanied with with x,y,z coordinate metadata to locate a sound in space and its movement without regard to the number of speakers. Movie Atmos can support 9.1 bed channels and 118 objects into 64 amp channels. Home processors are limited by the number of amplifier channels the manufacturer cares to support or a max of 34 separate amp channels. The rendering software (by either the manufacturer such as Trinnov, or the DSP provider or both, but not Dolby which has provided a complete 128 channel possibility from the getgo), must steer the sound to the number of amplified channels they wish to support or can support. The original movie Dolby mix can use up to 9.1 beds and 118 objects via 64 amp channels and all that information is possible in any given movie, but is is downgraded to a max of 7.1 beds, and 34 amp channels max for home use via BluRay authoring. Less can be done as streaming providers seem to want to do to reduce bandwidth, but the movie sound engineers will, if they use Atmos, always provide the max for the largest of commercial theaters. Arrays are something else altogether. If the space is large enough you can parallel amps and add arrayed speakers in any of the 34 home channels or 64 movie channels making the actual number of amps and speakers very large even though the independent channels are limited to 34 home and 64 commercial. I'm sure I made some mistakes or created some misunderstandings so fire away!  Such a great explanation that some people are having trouble understanding. Atmos wise there is no such thing as 7.1.4, that is just a way to explain your speaker setup. Best I can tell you could take an Atmos disc right now and have a 20.2.10 setup if a processor for such a set up existed. The “number of channels” supported is mearly a function of processor power, not info on the disc. The only actual hard channel data is the 7.1 base. Those sounds are going to specific channels. The object sounds will go to what ever speaker or speakers you have in your setup based on where the mixer placed it in 3D space. As you add more speakers to you setup then you get better spacial awareness in regards to the object sounds. |
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Post by Gary Cook on May 10, 2018 0:39:26 GMT -5
How is there the ability to not have the inclination to not keep talking when we are still referencing 7.1.4 on the back of a disk as the Atmos limit rather than understanding it’s just the bed content meant to be expanded on. My understanding is that in Atmos for cinemas 9.1 is the "bed content". For HT it's Dolby TrueHD 7.1 that is the "bed content". For HT Atmos over Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 is the "bed content". Atmos over Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 is commonly utilised for the non English track, plus it is also used in some Atmos streaming to save bandwidth. With the above in mind I'm not sure how the .4 could be considered "bed content". Cheers Gary |
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Post by Gary Cook on May 10, 2018 0:48:40 GMT -5
For completeness Dolby TueHD 7.1 (as the bed for Atmos) has multiple sampling rates, including 48 and 96 kHz and bit depths of 16 and 24. As a comparison Dolby TrueHD on its own can be 48, 96, or 192 kHz with bit depths of 16, 20, or 24. This is necessary to allow for backwards compatibility with legacy Blu-ray Discs. Although it is a subject they seem to avoid, I suspect it is so that they can fit the data onto the disc.
Cheers
Gary
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Post by cwt on May 10, 2018 7:15:03 GMT -5
So dig out your BD's flip them over and let us know what they quote for Atmos. Cheers Gary It seems to be a recent trend for only some studios to be slightly more precise Gary ; they may think that 7.1.4 is very popular as its been the dsp limit for so long.. so they use those terms. Batman vs Superman ;dolby atmos & truehd mentioned Deadpool - dolby atmos & dts hdma only on the 2nd 2d bluray Fantastic Beasts; dolby atmos & dts hdma on the uhd disc Expendables 3;dolby atmos & truehd King Arthur 3d ; uniquely; dolby atmos on the 2d bluray but the 3d disc gets 5.1 dtshdma only  [ if you can believe the slipcover] Suicide squad 3d ;dolby atmos for both discs X Machina ; dts-x & dtx headphone & dtshdma the only disc of any of my older UHD [ I wait for price drops] or 3d atmos discs is Jupiter Ascending Which lists 7.1.4 dolby truehd . All my others are conspicuously lacking any detail on 'channel" assignments . Kudos to Warner bros for doing better for my majority Aus sourced discs even if its only one  I wonder what a trinnov altitude with its 32 channel discrete processing would make of some of these early discs with supposedly more than 7.1.4 encodes..which is counter intuitive to objects being available from the bed channels. Any 9.1.6 or 7.1.6 discs discovered is certainly relevant to setting up the RMC1 was thinking ; and to whether someone may go with a 7.2.4 solution instead. |
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 8:33:24 GMT -5
Just read this Dolby Labs technical document about Dolby Atmos Home - www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-atmos/dolby-atmos-for-the-home-theater.pdfin particular this - "The flexibility of Dolby Atmos object-based sound makes it incredibly adaptable. A Dolby Atmos movie can be played back on nearly any speaker configuration in the home. You’ll be able to hear the placement and movement of sound in a Dolby Atmos movie whether you have a system with five speakers on the floor and two overhead or 24 speakers on the floor and 10 overhead (the current maximum for a Dolby Atmos supersystem) or any variety between. The more speakers you have, the more precise the audio positioning becomes. And you have lots of flexibility to upgrade your system. Adding more speakers to the system will provide a higher level of object resolution and even more detailed, richer sound." |
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 8:34:06 GMT -5
Quick question. Does anyone even know if the cinema 9 channel bed layer is what we like to think as 9 channel? Are they really separating the signal for more speaker arrays up front or are they breaking up the length and back of the room by adding another to accommodate for the seating distances without losing that angular separation between arrays for the beds? I get the feeling no one is keen on going past the discrete bed channels which to me seems strange because that from my understanding is just demanding more directionality with the crowd talking ambient type of material which is usually more like just white noise when there should really be no down side in expanding.
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 9:49:11 GMT -5
So dig out your BD's flip them over and let us know what they quote for Atmos. Cheers Gary It seems to be a recent trend for only some studios to be slightly more precise Gary ; they may think that 7.1.4 is very popular as its been the dsp limit for so long.. so they use those terms. Batman vs Superman ;dolby atmos & truehd mentioned Deadpool - dolby atmos & dts hdma only on the 2nd 2d bluray Fantastic Beasts; dolby atmos & dts hdma on the uhd disc Expendables 3;dolby atmos & truehd King Arthur 3d ; uniquely; dolby atmos on the 2d bluray but the 3d disc gets 5.1 dtshdma only [ if you can believe the slipcover] Suicide squad 3d ;dolby atmos for both discs X Machina ; dts-x & dtx headphone & dtshdma the only disc of any of my older UHD [ I wait for price drops] or 3d atmos discs is Jupiter Ascending Which lists 7.1.4 dolby truehd . All my others are conspicuously lacking any detail on 'channel" assignments . Kudos to Warner bros for doing better for my majority Aus sourced discs even if its only one I wonder what a trinnov altitude with its 32 channel discrete processing would make of some of these early discs with supposedly more than 7.1.4 encodes..which is counter intuitive to objects being available from the bed channels. Any 9.1.6 or 7.1.6 discs discovered is certainly relevant to setting up the RMC1 was thinking ; and to whether someone may go with a 7.2.4 solution instead. It sounds like there is just a bed channel overlay that separates objects from the beds. So when no Atmos pre pro is present object sounds maintain their base bed placement for channel audio but when Atmos is present it reads their correlating xyz data and moves the related bed overlay audio to processing for your speaker arrangement. Objects are never effected by bed structure. The debate seems to be when those additional speakers are also tasked with the bed content on top of object does moving past the bed channel numbers with speaker result in the intended sound or is it damaged by adding non discrete channels. I’m under the assumption if there is a sound that is adversely effected by this expansion then it should of been used as an object noise and left out of the bed channels. |
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 9:56:23 GMT -5
And I should add out of all my Atmos Blu-ray s and uhd’s I’ve never seen channels written. Only Atmos. I’d imagine that’s the case because if it is dealing with bed layers it’s information we don’t really need to know because it probably is just confusing the inner workings of Atmos and how it is broken down over the actual intended system playback.
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 10:00:11 GMT -5
The 7.1.4 designation for Dolby Atmos on a UHD BD is a recent development. There is speculation that it is being done to conserve bandwith for streaming and AC-4. At any rate, according to FILMIXER a professional movie mixer engineer who posts on AVS, the mixing tools for Atmos movies have not changed but authoring tools for creating Atmos discs or files may now have the ability to remix to a fixed no. of speakers (like 7.1.4). Studios make this decision. There is no need for the bandwidth to be reduced on the discs - they have more than enough capacity. But some power houses such as Disney who is developing its own streaming company and some others may be pushing this as a way to have material suitable for streaming that includes a minimum acceptable Atmos soundtrack. We don't know how far this recent development is going to invade the UHD BD industry as of this moment. Here is the most informative post I saw on AVS by FILMIXER trying to describe what he knows about the issue -
"Since it must be backwards compatibly you can reasonably assume that you would simply take the 4 overhead rendered channels and then “pan” them to the appropriate location.
I am only working on limited knowledge about what has happened and how some shows have been delivered.
So a lot of what I have said is speculation on my part (I hope I have made that clear in my posts...)
I am not sure of the reasons why Disney, or WB, or (name the studio) have produced these tracks.
As I mentioned in one of my follow up posts there new software that allows software channel rendering and it isn’t “done” yet...
So some of the people I spoke with have ended up recording the 7.1.4 output of the RMU...
I am working on a few facts.
1. There are indeed titles that are “locked” 7.1.4 (not only are some labeled as such, but some users have confirmed the static object activity on processors that support greater than 11 channels and have meters to confirm that.)
2. There is indeed the new ability to wrap the .atmos file into a new container and these new files can be dragged directly onto a Pro Tools session timeline. This is a big step forward in workflow from a “post mix” perspective.
3. AC-4 is around the corner. Streaming Atmos is gaining traction. Channel based workflow makes sense for this (channel renders are much easier to work with). In addition reducing the object count to four could potentially reduce artifacts when using lossy encoders..
4. I know that colleagues have been delivering 7.1.4 channel renders of their Atmos mixes. I cannot confirm that those same renders are what have been encoded into an Atmos stream and broadcast/authored/used.
There has been no fundamental change to Atmos.
Not in the mixing workflow, or bed size.
There has not been an option to encode a track with less than 12 objects. Obviously if there is no audio in 8 of the objects it significantly reduces the bandwidth needed. I am not exposed to much use of the authoring software, so while I state that as fact, it could have indeed changed, but it would still have to produce content that is full compatible with the codec as it launched years ago.
Like everyone else, I’m working on a lot of anecdotal information and working backwards.
I hope to have some informed and concrete answers about why it appears some content creators have decided to release content in 7.1.4 over the next few weeks.
MY OPINION (AND MY SPECULATION) ONLY is that the people in change of what gets released on home video, in certain situations, see a 7.1.4 encode as sufficient for having an satisfactory immersive experience for their customers and in reaching that conclusion have decided to streamline the workflow to accommodate that (and in doing so you create one master that is easily transportable and hard to mess up (having objects with static metadata allows for much easier ending and conforming, leaving little room for error.... it could also theoretically lead to a less artifact prone decode (although that hasn’t really been a problem it COULD be seen as a benefit).
In the end we all need to see if this is indeed that way forward and then consumers (and CEs) will need to decide if greater than 11 channels is viable and or necessary for them individually."
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 10:19:50 GMT -5
Static objects at 7.1.4 should mean either the absence of the xyz data in the bed overlay or maybe the pre pro limits at computing its own speaker layout. And the bed channel content not expanding could be pre pro dependent as well. But yeah I’d say it is very important to know if most mixers begin to abandon the object mixing process that embeds the xyz. If that is never a problem shouldn’t it then be the pre/pro’s ability to expand as per Atmos’ intent? I don’t understand how that could not be the case if nothing fundamental has changed.
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 11:18:25 GMT -5
I remember the first 1080p tv I bought. It was a Panasonic. I was super excited to have that format as it was highest resolution back then. Low and behold a year or two later directv begins to support native 1080p. Only problem was is my tv didn’t actually support native 24 frame 1080p. It was limited to the 60 frame 1080p so needless to say I felt cheated and wondered how they could market their tv as a blanket statement 1080p when it didn’t even support the native format. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something similar with Atmos. Choose your pre pro carefully because it really might make or break the Atmos mixes intent.
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Post by mfeust on May 10, 2018 11:33:48 GMT -5
I tapped out long ago. Every time I look at this thread my head hurts. Go 2 channel. Mark |
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 11:56:24 GMT -5
I am not going to let a headache stop this 77 year old brain from getting a grasp on the latest technology and I have come far far away from 2 channel in my HT with an investment of many thousands of dollars in speakers, televisions, porjectors, and audio components to let go now. My predicament now is that I currently have a very nice 7.1.4 Atmos setup and I have been planning my move to a 7.1.6 setup which seems to be the maximum complexity my size room could handle. I already have the additional 2 ceiling speakers. But if Atmos rendered discs and streaming is going to backtrack and stick at 7.1.4 max, then what do I have to gain in spending more money on an RMC-1 (which I have been planning to buy)? I'm sure Big Dan is not happy with this new movement in disc authoring as well as Trinnov and many other equipment manufacturers who were planning to go beyond 11 channels.
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Post by novisnick on May 10, 2018 12:03:54 GMT -5
I tapped out long ago. Every time I look at this thread my head hurts. Go 2 channel. Mark I have a delightful two channel and a HT that will do just fine till the RMC-1 shows up. ,,,,,,,,,,someday,,,,,,,,,, |
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 12:15:53 GMT -5
Trinnov has been doing 32 speakers since the beginning of the Atmos implementation. I would bet anything they care nothing about these bed layer or speaker combination numbers because they are actually utilizing the entire code as intended and have been since nothing else would ever have satisfied 32 speakers. That should be enough proof as we haven’t been jumping around more than 7.1.4 to 9.1.6 with what Has been said the discs say they support and all the while Trinnov keeps on rolling along because higher bed numbers don’t correlate with the ability to expand to 24.1.10. Are we claiming significant brakes have been put in place now vs how Atmos was first implemented?
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 13:59:07 GMT -5
Why wouldn't Trinnov be worried? They do not produce consumer source material any more than does Emotiva.
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 14:03:48 GMT -5
Because consumer source material is still Atmos and if bed layer limits mattered trinnov wouldnt have a 32 speaker system. If Atmos stopped embedding the xyz then they’d be screwed but then again that wouldn’t be Atmos. That’s why I ask did something fundamentally large happen where Atmos is no longer object based with xyz? As far as the beds there have never been content that would suggest discrete 32 speaker content was ever desired for 32 speakers. The only reason a 16 channel pre pro should have to limit itself to 7.1.4 is if it was designed not to take the Atmos and compute the system but only to mirror the beds which might save on processing demands but it sounds like the RMC-1 isn’t taking this route. Otherwise it should have a system that actually processes to do what trinnov does only with fixed speaker positions rather than trinnov’s flexibility. If a system doesn’t process and only mirrors it is a faux Atmos system. Not a true Atmos system that incorporates its speaker flexible selling point.
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 14:47:45 GMT -5
Until recently BD discs were encoded with the full range of Atmos home (24.1.10). It was up to the renderer to extract the objects to the number of channels they chose to support. None of the object sound is lost with less than 24.1.10 but the accuracy of the position tracking may not be quite as good with fewer speakers. Now discs are being re-authored (if that is a word) to 11 fixed channel streams. The original object coding has been extracted and translated into the 11 fixed channels to reproduce the original spacial effect. The object renderer in the decoder is no longer required now as the objects are pre-recovered and inserted within 11 fixed channels. That's fine for those wishing to go no further than 11 or 13 speakers (there are 7.1.6 discs reported to have been released). it is bad news for those wanting to go the whole 34 speaker route. The situation is made more complicated for the pre-pro manufacturer, who now may see little demand for a system that supports more than 11 speakers because source material may become increasing limited in scope.
Remember that Atmos mixing for the movies has not changed. It is only BD authoring software that has changed to allow incorporation of object oriented sound back into 11 fixed channels (o.k. maybe 13 - who the hell knows).
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Post by lrobertson on May 10, 2018 14:50:22 GMT -5
I have never once in my life read that a bed layer was ever 24.1.10. Where did you get that info? Does anyone in this forum know a sound mixer that has created a movie with a discrete 24.1.10 bed layer for even a cinema or are we really mixing up what is Atmos capabilities with the new bed layer standards that are coming in? So you basically are claiming the xyz is lost out of the object code.
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Post by mgbpuff on May 10, 2018 14:56:50 GMT -5
I have never once in my life read that a bed layer was ever 24.1.10. Where did you get that info? Does anyone in this forum know a sound mixer that has created a movie with a discrete 24.1.10 bed layer? I never said that! Home Atmos has the possibility of 7 beds max and movie Atmos has up to 9 beds max. |
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[ if you can believe the slipcover] 
