Thread: Dolby Atmos (for Home Theatre) : Opinions of How It Affects Us—Here

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Post by Links September 10, 2014 (51 of 57)
RECORD NEWS: 2l -
Kim André Arnesen: Magnificat -
is the first Blu-ray that contains both formats: Auro-3D and Dolby Atmos.

http://www.audiophile.no/music/record-news/item/1339-record-news-2l-magnificat-pure-audio-blu-ray-with-dolby-atmos-and-auro-3d

Post by dobyblue October 2, 2014 (52 of 57)
rammiepie said:

Yes, dobyblue, there are some caveats to owning a curved screen and LG/Samsung/et alia are now manufacturing UHDTVs but any hint at the "shootout" that OLED will be utilized for the newer 4Kx2K TVs?

Thanks for the input.

Absolutely, in fact LG had tried to get Robert to postpone the shootout for just 30 more days so they could bring their new 4K OLED set. They issued pricing at CEDIA on 09/11 - http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/lg-officially-prices-4k-oled-tvs-2014/#ixzz3D20vqXK7

Today at the CEDIA 2014 Expo in Denver, LG officially confirmed pricing for its 65- and 77-inch 4K OLED televisions, and the figures aren’t exactly what some may have expected. According to LG, the 65-inch 4K OLED (65EC9700) will be priced at $10,000 retail, and the 77-inch model (77EG9700) will be marked at a stiff $25,000. The former is due out this October and the latter in November 2014.

Post by Fitzcaraldo215 October 2, 2014 (53 of 57)
dobyblue said:

Absolutely, in fact LG had tried to get Robert to postpone the shootout for just 30 more days so they could bring their new 4K OLED set. They issued pricing at CEDIA on 09/11 - http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/lg-officially-prices-4k-oled-tvs-2014/#ixzz3D20vqXK7

Today at the CEDIA 2014 Expo in Denver, LG officially confirmed pricing for its 65- and 77-inch 4K OLED televisions, and the figures aren’t exactly what some may have expected. According to LG, the 65-inch 4K OLED (65EC9700) will be priced at $10,000 retail, and the 77-inch model (77EG9700) will be marked at a stiff $25,000. The former is due out this October and the latter in November 2014.

That is good news. I like the potential of 4k and of OLED, but I am quite happy to wait on the sidelines for now. Ditto with Atmos and Auro - I am rooting for Auro as it is a potentially much better platform for music. I still think we need more complete and finalized standards for 4k, established media sources and a clear market direction for these still developing technologies. And, of course, prices will come down for even more capable equipment than is available today.

Post by Three-D Audio Junky October 2, 2014 (54 of 57)
My modest Atmos/Auro report:

I was at the CEDIA Expo a couple weeks back and had the pleasure of hearing just about every demonstration of Dolby Atmos (from 5.1.4 to 9.1.4 configurations) and one with Auro3D 9.1. One of the Atmos events I attended was thanks to a private screening Dolby held for a select group of members from AVS Forum and Home Theater Forum, allowing "regular Joe's" to experience the new format first hand. It was a 7.1.4 layout using available retail Triad speakers (both "enabled" and in-ceiling speakers for the height "channels" for the A/B comparison portion).

For those of you who have experienced Atmos in the cinema, the home edition does a surprising and amazing recreation (I can't wait for "Gravity," the best Atmos mix so far). Of course, the better the original mix, the better the home version (as to be expected).

Due to the clever data packing technique Dolby employed with the old TrueHD codec (7.1 lossless channel beds + spatially compressed objects and metadata extension pack), all beds and objects from the cinema mix are available in the near-field home mix.

In order to further reduce the file size on the Blu-ray discs and the computational complexity of the various rendering blocks sent to the consumer electronics companies, the positional metadata instructions were maxed out at a 24.1.10 configuration. That's still up to 34.1 discrete outputs off of one Blu-ray soundtrack... even more than NHK's proposal.

Dolby's demo disc had one Latin pop music video included and Dolby also demoed an object-based mix of a local indie rock group that they did in-house to show what object based mixing could do for music recordings. The music video, except for the standard issues of modern pop recordings -- too hot treble and a squared off dynamic range --, really was an hear opening experience in terms of the 3D envelopment. That particular mix came to life at the Steinway/Lyngdorf presentation as they used a 9.1.4 configuration. The in-house Atmos music mix, played at the Dolby booth, was really spectacular. We all made the comment that Dolby should re-mix the whole album and put out a private label Blu-ray for the group!

Auro3D's music portion of their demo used more traditional classical music such as a pipe organ and orchestra. Their front height speakers truly recreated the scale of the organ, however their orchestral clip, at least in this venue, was very weird. The heights seemed to be recorded much too hot (rather than just creating a hall ambiance vibe), giving the impression the orchestra was as tall as the pipe organ in the previous clip rather than stretched out wide on the stage in front of you. The over all sound quality was superb due to the matching James Loudspeakers they employed.

Ambiance recordings of actual outdoor spaces were quite convincing and the best part of the Auro show- except for when there was a hard pan going over your head (like a scene with a jet airplane). Then the mono VOG speaker hot spotted like crazy and jarred me right out of the amazing illusion. The direct overhead sound was far too concentrated in one spot. I never ran across that problem in the Atmos demos, even when I moved to a less than ideal spot, as they use multiple stereo pairs of overheads... all individually addressable with discrete objects and not summed mono.

As for the Auro3D movie presentations, they sounded no better than a regular 5.1 mix (though they sounded great as far as clarity and bass extension went... again they used excellent speakers/subs). Either it was due to fact they chose extremely jumbled and busy mixes that made your brain not be able to pick out the individual sound elements, or because of Auro's limited channel based approach with no object panning available and no rear surrounds. It could also have been a mixture of the two. This, again, was only a demo of Auro 9.1.

Van Baelen, at a CEDIA talk I attended, seemed to think objects were only necessary when you had 15 or more speakers. I also heard little mention of Auro 13.1 (with a 7.1 channel base + height extensions) coming for home use. He really seemed to think Dolby's Atmos implementation was about quantity over quality (the heads of Dolby and Auro do not get along well, which was quite apparent at the discussion panel - little barbed swipes came from both Van Baelen and Brett Crockett - good thing they weren't brandishing knives!), though I had nothing to really complain about in that department when I heard Atmos.

One of the surprises was the Atmos "enabled" speakers, especially utilizing the Triad Bronze LR-H and Andrew Jones designed speakers from Pioneer Elite. The "Jones" speakers were easily the biggest bang for the buck speaker related item at the expo. They sounded very good considering their more "modest" price. Though it really was mix dependent, given a soundtrack or music mix with definite height information, the "enabled" upward firing speakers held their own and should make the average 3D audio buyer quite happy. Obviously, the use of timbre matched, overhead speakers gives you by far the best and most precise 3D effect.

Post by Fitzcaraldo215 October 3, 2014 (55 of 57)
There is an overly long, but otherwise informative interview with Van Baelen in the two most recent issues of Widescreen Review magazine. Not sure if you can get them online without a subscription.
He is either a great salesman or Auro really does have some technical advantages over Atmos. My sense is that Auro could be superior to Atmos for music, and Van Baelen has an extensive background in music mastering. Dolby is very movie oriented these days.

Auro now supposedly includes the object orientation introduced by Atmos, but that appears to be not that useful for music unless you want performers flying around the room. And, as the objects are panned, the air and space of their originally recorded mike positions are panned with them, distorting the overall spatial image, according to VB. So, while perhaps some creative, object oriented mixes could be created for rock, it would be a turn off for classical and other genres for discerning listeners who want a maximally realistic image. Sounds like object-orientation would be a return to the infamous DGG multiple mono mixes, but in 3D.

Still, I like the idea of spatially opening up the image on music with 3D. There is a long road ahead, including the Auro-Atmos battle, the battle to get them into more theaters, the battle for inclusion in BD media, the fight for the HT market, and, maybe someday after all that has settled down, a trickle of music recordings in one or the other formats.

Not sure, but it appears that DTS has cast its lot with Auro. Datasat is a DTS company and is a technology leader in ultra high end, Auro-enabled prepros.

Post by Three-D Audio Junky October 15, 2014 (56 of 57)
Fitzcaraldo215 said:

Not sure, but it appears that DTS has cast its lot with Auro. Datasat is a DTS company and is a technology leader in ultra high end, Auro-enabled prepros.

DTS has nothing to do with Datasat anymore as a business venture. They do license their audio decoding to them. However, I think DTS is seriously considering this to have been a company-wide mistake because they're trying like mad to get back into the cinema business with MDA to compete with Dolby Atmos.

Auro can use MDA object based mixing plug-in's because Barco (distributor of Auro3D) is an MDA partner. They decided that the open-architecture of MDA was more to their liking and made the formats interoperable. The consumer version of Auro3D has no objects since it's limited to 9.1 and maybe 11.1.

Dolby seems to want to keep Atmos proprietary and keep prices high... that, of course, will backfire and lead to the demise of 3D audio - even if it is superior - because the cinema chain owners would rather spend the money revamping auditoriums with butt-kicker enabled leather lounge chairs, adult-only dinner/beer and a movie enticements, and use that as a vehicle to upcharge ticket prices... extra profit the studios don't receive (like concessions).

There are problems with Auro's speaker configuration, as I found out at CEDIA. They really, really need front wide speaker channels to widen out the front sound stage for music. The emphasis on the front heights makes certain music recordings sound weird. I've never heard an orchestra sound TALL before. That can happen because there seems to be little room or hall ambiance to gain a feeling of 3D space in the performance(as there should be) and too much direct sound coming out of the heights.

Auro didn't sound all that impressive for movie soundtracks. Here, Atmos was the better product.

Post by Iain October 15, 2014 (57 of 57)
Three-D Audio Junky said:

DTS has nothing to do with Datasat anymore as a business venture. They do license their audio decoding to them. However, I think DTS is seriously considering this to have been a company-wide mistake because they're trying like mad to get back into the cinema business with MDA to compete with Dolby Atmos.

...

Dolby seems to want to keep Atmos proprietary and keep prices high... that, of course, will backfire and lead to the demise of 3D audio - even if it is superior - because the cinema chain owners would rather spend the money revamping auditoriums with butt-kicker enabled leather lounge chairs, adult-only dinner/beer and a movie enticements, and use that as a vehicle to upcharge ticket prices... extra profit the studios don't receive (like concessions).

...

Auro didn't sound all that impressive for movie soundtracks. Here, Atmos was the better product.

Thanks for the information.

IIRC, the reason DTS-HD Master Audio became the de facto standard over Dolby True HD is for the reason you list. Dolby wanted to keep it proprietary.

I've always favoured DTS over Dolby as LFE is consistently tighter and better integrated into the soundtrack.

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