Who’s Really Controlling What you Hear ATMOS

[405x5]

Jul 22, 2021 10:16:10 GMT -5 405x5 said:

youtu.be/Nx4vve3UGUg

One of the toughest things to do regarding Dolby Atmos is to find objective evaluations on the web from folks who have configured it as it was optimally intended with at least 4 installed overheads.

I have done searches on this periodically as far back as the pre release of the XMC1.

I liked this one because it brings to light the responsibility the industry has to the consumer after we have invested considerable time, money and effort in order to bring it all home.
.

[KeithL]

If you look between the proverbial lines you will find that...

- Dolby Atmos is intended to enable the producer to deliver more precisely crafted immersive content to the consumer.

- Dolby Atmos is intended to allow the listener to hear truly immersive content exactly the way the producer of the movie intended it to be heard.

Note that this does NOT mean that it is intended to give you, the listener, the most CONTROL over what you hear.

The purpose of Dolby Atmos is to enable them to make better sounding content and then deliver that content to you more precisely as they intended it to sound.

To restate that:

The purpose is to do a better job of ensuring that you hear exactly what they want you to hear.

It also puts a lot of tools at the producer's disposal that enable them to create audio that better fits their artistic vision.

But nobody ever said that it was intended to give you a lot of flexibility to make it sound the way YOU want it to.

(They actually assume that you really want to hear exactly what the producer wants you to hear as accurately as possible.)

With Atmos Dolby has provided movie producers with better tools to produce better content...

And they have provided you, the consumer, with better tools to ensure that you get to hear that content exactly as it was intended to be heard...

And they expect you to be willing to follow their instructions if you want the benefits that they're offering you...

The movie industry has no "obligation" to consumers...

(No more that a food manufacturer has "an obligation to sell food you like"...)

We all assume that, thanks to the laws of supply and demand, they will WANT to deliver a product that their customers will want to purchase...

(And they, in turn, are going to base their decisions on "what everything costs and what they believe most of their customers really care about".)

[mgbpuff]

Hollywood has always been slow to adapt new technology; they continued to make silent movies long after talkies were introduced; they made black and white films long after color was introduced; small aspect ratio was retained long after wide aspect ratios film was developed; etc. The excuse was always the artistic predilections of the directors / producers. Christopher Nolan, for instance, has directed some of our latest and greatest block busters, but he does not like, and won't use, Atmos sound. James Cameron is a high tech adopter but he takes decades to make a single film. We who have Atmos installations will be ready for the next properly done blockbuster. Until then we can use enhancement codecs if we so desire.

[marcl]

Jul 23, 2021 9:42:41 GMT -5 mgbpuff said:

Hollywood has always been slow to adapt new technology; they continued to make silent movies long after talkies were introduced; they made black and white films long after color was introduced; small aspect ratio was retained long after wide aspect ratios film was developed; etc. The excuse was always the artistic predilections of the directors / producers. Christopher Nolan, for instance, has directed some of our latest and greatest block busters, but he does not like, and won't use, Atmos sound. James Cameron is a high tech adopter but he takes decades to make a single film. We who have Atmos installations will be ready for the next properly done blockbuster. Until then we can use enhancement codecs if we so desire.

Good point ... in movies, photography, music ... when new technology emerges there are always those who cling to the idea that in the past creators chose their media and formats for artistic reasons, even though they actually had no choice.  Similarly, 24fps in film ... was it an artistic decision or was it actually that 24fps used a lot less expensive film than 30 or 48 or 60fps?  So now we live with blurry motion because it's "artistic".

So yes, Atmos ... it really is funny that somehow Dolby Digital 5.1 is now an artistic decision.  And what about all this "spacial" music?  Is it upmixed? Was it really created by the artist?

Would be nice if we were given the best technology, and then people could dumb it down if they really need to.  Like ... shoot with my Sony 50Mp camera, then use DxO FilmPack to throw away 6 stops of dynamic range, screw up the colors ... POOF! Fuji Velvia 50!

[DYohn]

"Dolby Atmos was created as a mechanism for Dolby Labs to create a new license schedule they can sell" is the correct answer. And equipment manufacturers were quick to recognize the hardware sales potential and jump on the bandwagon.

/cynical_realism

[KeithL]

On the plus side the Dolby Atmos mastering software really does make it much easier to do cool and complex things with surround audio.

For example, rather than the old way of positioning sounds with channel levels and pan sliders, you can now simply place a red ball that represents your sound into a 3D representation of a room.

You can then move that ball around, or make it larger or smaller, much as you would move an object in a 3D drawing program.

And you can even do things like program that sound to "move from low back left to front right, in a straight line, over a time interval of three seconds, while getting gradually louder".

Of course, while this is very cool, it's also a bit different than before, so it's going to take engineers a while to get used to it.

(And, at the moment, the number of studios that are set up to handle this sort of thing is somewhat limited.)

The other thing to keep in mind is that it's not easy at all to convert old "non-immersive content" into "full immersive content".

For example lets say we're starting with a nice old WW II action movie - with an aerial dogfight.

Odds are the original movie had a two-channel sound track.

This means that, when it was remastered into surround, they added one or two tracks of "planes zooming around overhead" and mixed that into the surrounds.

But, if we now want to reissue that movie with an Atmos sound track, we're faced with a choice.

Either we simply place those two tracks into one of our pairs of height speakers...

(We won't really gain much if we place those same two tracks in six height channels instead of two.)

Or we expend a LOT of effort to create a whole new mix of individuals planes, moving overhead, in different directions.

While that cool Atmos mastering software will make doing so a lot easier...

It's still going to require a significant amount of work - and cost - to "do it right"...

We can safely assume that, as more studios become Atmos-capable, and more engineers become familiar with the technology, it will become much more prevalent.

(Remember how, in the beginning days of color TV, a lot of shows remained in B&W .... but, once color became popular, it caught on rather quickly.)

Jul 23, 2021 9:42:41 GMT -5 mgbpuff said:

Hollywood has always been slow to adapt new technology; they continued to make silent movies long after talkies were introduced; they made black and white films long after color was introduced; small aspect ratio was retained long after wide aspect ratios film was developed; etc. The excuse was always the artistic predilections of the directors / producers. Christopher Nolan, for instance, has directed some of our latest and greatest block busters, but he does not like, and won't use, Atmos sound. James Cameron is a high tech adopter but he takes decades to make a single film. We who have Atmos installations will be ready for the next properly done blockbuster. Until then we can use enhancement codecs if we so desire.

[mgbpuff]

Jul 23, 2021 10:31:52 GMT -5 DYohn said:

"Dolby Atmos was created as a mechanism for Dolby Labs to create a new license schedule they can sell" is the correct answer. And equipment manufacturers were quick to recognize the hardware sales potential and jump on the bandwagon.

/cynical_realism

It's called capitalism. Isn't it great? And you don't have to buy in to it if you don't want.

/ rational individualism

[DYohn]

Jul 23, 2021 10:53:43 GMT -5 mgbpuff said:

Jul 23, 2021 10:31:52 GMT -5 DYohn said:

"Dolby Atmos was created as a mechanism for Dolby Labs to create a new license schedule they can sell" is the correct answer. And equipment manufacturers were quick to recognize the hardware sales potential and jump on the bandwagon.

/cynical_realism

It's called capitalism. Isn't it great? And you don't have to buy in to it if you don't want.

/ rational individualism

Absolutely!

[marcl]

Jul 23, 2021 10:51:45 GMT -5 KeithL said:

On the plus side the Dolby Atmos mastering software really does make it much easier to do cool and complex things with surround audio.

For example, rather than the old way of positioning sounds with channel levels and pan sliders, you can now simply place a red ball that represents your sound into a 3D representation of a room.

You can then move that ball around, or make it larger or smaller, much as you would move an object in a 3D drawing program.

And you can even do things like program that sound to "move from low back left to front right, in a straight line, over a time interval of three seconds, while getting gradually louder".

Of course, while this is very cool, it's also a bit different than before, so it's going to take engineers a while to get used to it.

(And, at the moment, the number of studios that are set up to handle this sort of thing is somewhat limited.)

The other thing to keep in mind is that it's not easy at all to convert old "non-immersive content" into "full immersive content".

For example lets say we're starting with a nice old WW II action movie - with an aerial dogfight.

Odds are the original movie had a two-channel sound track.

This means that, when it was remastered into surround, they added one or two tracks of "planes zooming around overhead" and mixed that into the surrounds.

But, if we now want to reissue that movie with an Atmos sound track, we're faced with a choice.

Either we simply place those two tracks into one of our pairs of height speakers...

(We won't really gain much if we place those same two tracks in six height channels instead of two.)

Or we expend a LOT of effort to create a whole new mix of individuals planes, moving overhead, in different directions.

While that cool Atmos mastering software will make doing so a lot easier...

It's still going to require a significant amount of work - and cost - to "do it right"...

We can safely assume that, as more studios become Atmos-capable, and more engineers become familiar with the technology, it will become much more prevalent.

(Remember how, in the beginning days of color TV, a lot of shows remained in B&W .... but, once color became popular, it caught on rather quickly.)

Jul 23, 2021 9:42:41 GMT -5 mgbpuff said:

Hollywood has always been slow to adapt new technology; they continued to make silent movies long after talkies were introduced; they made black and white films long after color was introduced; small aspect ratio was retained long after wide aspect ratios film was developed; etc. The excuse was always the artistic predilections of the directors / producers. Christopher Nolan, for instance, has directed some of our latest and greatest block busters, but he does not like, and won't use, Atmos sound. James Cameron is a high tech adopter but he takes decades to make a single film. We who have Atmos installations will be ready for the next properly done blockbuster. Until then we can use enhancement codecs if we so desire.

Many people will be happy enough if the mix says it's Atmos, even if the implementation doesn't do much of anything.  Like for example, HBO Max made a big deal of that Wonder Woman movie being UHD/Atmos.  But someone used a tool that's available with one of the very expensive processors, and demonstrated that the height speakers were almost never actually playing any sound ... even in the big opening stadium and competition scenes.

And then there are those soundbars!!  Has anyone heard one of these things play Atmos?  I would love to (also would like to hear a properly set up system with bouncy heights) but I have no idea where I could actually hear them set up properly.

Similarly, people buy a UHD TV and hang it on a wall 15ft away. Barely within range to distinguish 720 from 1080. But they're happy. 

[405x5]

Jul 23, 2021 11:02:55 GMT -5 marcl said:

“Many people will be happy enough if the mix says it's Atmos, even if the implementation doesn't do much of anything. Like for example, HBO Max made a big deal of that Wonder Woman movie being UHD/Atmos. But someone used a tool that's available with one of the very expensive processors, and demonstrated that the height speakers were almost never actually playing any sound ... even in the big opening stadium and competition scenes.
And then there are those soundbars!!  Has anyone heard one of these things play Atmos?  I would love to (also would like to hear a properly set up system with bouncy heights) but I have no idea where I could actually hear them set up properly.

Similarly, people buy a UHD TV and hang it on a wall 15ft away. Barely within range to distinguish 720 from 1080. But they're happy.  “

Lol!

A friend once brought me down to his HT setup (Just when HDMI) was the new thing.
He is a sweetheart of a guy and an attorney, but knew VERY little about gear.
He had a receiver (don’t recall which) that illuminated “HDMI” if that input was used.
The system was a configuration DISASTER but he was happy as a clam (like your ATMOS example) so long as the logo lit up…..everything else be dammed. Just had to have that newest thing.

[davidl81]

I’m a big Atoms fan, but like any mix it varies a lot from movie to movie. The Marvel movies barely have any Atmos content. The John Wick movies really make great use of it.
Overall I don’t think I would miss it tremendously if I didn’t have it, but I am very happy I do have it.

[novisnick]

Jul 23, 2021 21:08:15 GMT -5 davidl81 said:

I’m a big Atoms fan, but like any mix it varies a lot from movie to movie. The Marvel movies barely have any Atmos content. The John Wick movies really make great use of it.
Overall I don’t think I would miss it tremendously if I didn’t have it, but I am very happy I do have it.

I too really enjoy Atmos but wish more movies took advantage of it. It really does add to the experience. Most nature videos use it very well.

[thezone]

Not sure if this adds constructively to this conversation but, I have found that by turning up the volume of the atmos/ceiling speakers "In general" I hear more material through it and it definitely "connects" the rears/surrounds with the fronts. May not be "What the engineers intended" but it certainly takes advantage of upmixed material and I have to say, the Dolby Surround upmixer works extremely well even with 2ch sound including music. In fact, I have found I now actually prefer 2ch music played back this way. In fact I have 5ch mixed SACD versions of albums and I prefer the 2ch ones upmixed using the XMC-2! (I have put on my flame suit).

[marcl]

Jul 24, 2021 2:23:51 GMT -5 thezone said:

Not sure if this adds constructively to this conversation but, I have found that by turning up the volume of the atmos/ceiling speakers "In general" I hear more material through it and it definitely "connects" the rears/surrounds with the fronts. May not be "What the engineers intended" but it certainly takes advantage of upmixed material and I have to say, the Dolby Surround upmixer works extremely well even with 2ch sound including music. In fact, I have found I now actually prefer 2ch music played back this way. In fact I have 5ch mixed SACD versions of albums and I prefer the 2ch ones upmixed using the XMC-2! (I have put on my flame suit).

I agree that having the top speakers a little hot can improve the experience.  In my case I just dink them up 1db, but I think it depends on the room too.  The upmixer definitely makes a difference with 2-channel.  Movies and series in 2-channel benefit tremendously and it's astounding sometimes how the upmixer places sounds around the room from 2-channel.  I find with music it depends on the recording.  Sometimes the upmixer can pile too much in the center and sometimes it spreads things nicely.  Maybe recordings made in a "live" space with minimal microphones benefit more than close-mic'ed studio recordings where there was never any "there, there".

Since the upmixer won't work with multichannel sound at a higher sample rate than 48KHz, I have tried using JRiver to convert some DSD or high res FLAC files to Dolby Digital.  The upmix sounds pretty good ... but again, with recordings made in a live space.

I highly recommend the Atmos Blu-ray Demo disc to really hear how well a good Atmos mix steers the sound.  I especially like the Audiosphere track because it distinguishes the surround speakers with sounds around the room, from the use of the tops to place sound directly around your head.

[thezone]

Oh also, with up-mixing 2ch music, you don't need to sit square in the middle to appreciate the sound, it seems to spread the mix better. I actually prefer how it focuses on the center speaker more, especially vocals and kick drum, they seem to punch better from the center so you can really hear the vox but without compromising the music. For the first time in as long as I can remember technology is actually improving sound rather than detracting from it.

Actually I have a annoyance. Sometimes from some sources (cable TV, and some programs on some streaming platforms) they will give you 2ch sound contained within a 5.1 ch container so the XMC-2 reports the sound as 5.1 but you can not upmix it into actual surround due to the way its encapsulated in a 5.1ch container so you end up with just 2ch anyways.

Is there a way around this? 

[ttocs]

Adding 4 ATMOS Tops to the system brought more enjoyment to my experience, but not as much as going from 5.1 to 7.1. I'm happy I did it, and I would do it again knowing what I know. I realize that it's definitely a movie by movie issue where some are better than most. When I first got the Tops going, I turned off all the other speakers and ran through a bunch of movies so I would know how much activity there would be, and I was surprised at both how much there was in some movies and how little in others. Some movies have pretty continuous sound in the Tops at a very low volume, music mostly and other stuff as well, but if the other speakers aren't turned off you would never know - but it's there. While I'm disappointed with some aspects of the audio in Ford Vs Ferrari, when the plane flies overhead the Tops are definitely working hard!

Blade Runner is the best I've heard so far, even though they deleted Harrison Ford's narration track.

[thezone]

For me DTSX neural seems to work the tops harder than Dolby Surround.

[405x5]

Thank you all for your input on this ongoing topic!


youtu.be/Nx4vve3UGUg


For anyone who missed opening this link from the first post, it’s an excellent video segue into where we are at present with all of this.
Following below it are other intriguing discussions on the pros and cons.



Bill

[adaboy]

Jul 24, 2021 16:55:19 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Thank you all for your input on this ongoing topic!


youtu.be/Nx4vve3UGUg


For anyone who missed opening this link from the first post, it’s an excellent video segue into where we are at present with all of this.
Following below it are other intriguing discussions on the pros and cons.



Bill

Jet Li's dad was right! Made me sick with the level of rediculousness of Atmos. Now I have to go and perform the same tests.

Thanks for the video Bill.

[jbrunwa]

Jul 24, 2021 21:01:43 GMT -5 adaboy said:

Jul 24, 2021 16:55:19 GMT -5 405x5 said:

Thank you all for your input on this ongoing topic!


youtu.be/Nx4vve3UGUg


For anyone who missed opening this link from the first post, it’s an excellent video segue into where we are at present with all of this.
Following below it are other intriguing discussions on the pros and cons.



Bill

Jet Li's dad was right! Made me sick with the level of rediculousness of Atmos. Now I have to go and perform the same tests.

Thanks for the video Bill.

I've been disappointed in general with a lot of blu-ray discs that I have purchased that turn out to be no better and sometimes worse than DVD's or streaming versions. I do think there is a need for objective third party reviews of releases of both the video and audio production. I have been planning to add 6 Atmos speakers, which it turns out is going to be a lot of work with my high ceiling and this really has me rethinking the upgrade.