Dolby Atmos: This is how the sound system works
Related Videos: How Dolby Atmos In Cinemas Works & The History Of Dolby Surround Sound (April 2024).
More and more blockbusters are being produced in Dolby Atmos. In this practical tip, we explain what exactly that is and how it works.
This is Dolby Atmos
After the success of Dolby Surround and Dolby Digital, Atmos is the latest audio format that Dolby should secure its outstanding position in the cinema market:
- Dolby Atmos is an immersive audio format that promises the listener even more involvement in the sound process.
- Dolby Atmos is currently battling Auro-3D, DTS: X and 22.2 for audio supremacy in cinemas. Above all, the height dimension comes into focus.
- The format relies on object-oriented audio coding: many cinemas have twenty or more speakers. Nevertheless, all speakers on the left wall play only channel "L", the right ones play channel "R".
- With new hardware and software, Dolby Atmos enables all cinema speakers to be controlled individually. It also provides speakers in the ceiling.
- In addition to the standardized loudspeaker layout, each cinema can adapt the sound to the room individually.
- Dolby is aiming to combine Dolby Atmos with your Dolby Vision video system, which can already be seen on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Information on this can be found on the Dolby website.
- Since 2012, many blockbusters have been produced in Dolby Atmos or prepared for Dolby Atmos. A list of films can be found on the Dolby official website.
This is how Dolby Atmos works
Dolby Atmos is a hybrid audio format that is primarily intended for cinemas. Such hybrid formats have advantages and disadvantages. This is how the approach works:
- Dolby Atmos combines channel-based and object-oriented audio source material.
- "Channel-based" means that a separate audio track is supplied for each speaker. Stereo, Dolby Digital, DTS and Auro-3D are channel-based, for example.
- The disadvantage here is that the playback system must have exactly the same speaker layout as that of the person who created the audio content. Otherwise, localization and realism can suffer greatly.
- "Object-oriented" means that a sound source receives its own audio tracks. Metadata then indicate the desired position or movement of this sound source. In this way, a mixer in the playback system can itself generate the necessary loudspeaker signals.
- There are many small disadvantages here: On the one hand, the sound must either be calculated in real time or calculated individually for each cinema.
- On the other hand, the data to be transmitted is very large if, for example, instead of 7 discrete channels, 128 objects are now to be played simultaneously.
- For this purpose, Dolby Atmos continues to rely primarily on lossy AC-4 compression, which is also used in Dolby Digital.
- Dolby Atmos provides for a special home cinema variant in which directional speakers cover the ceiling. The reflection should then give the listener the impression of increased sound sources.
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