Dolby Atmos Computer setup

[thevaudioguy]

Hi All. Hope you are all doing alright. Not too sure where to place this post as it has to do with PT/Atmos renderer setups, but has to do with both Windows and Mac.

I am currently in the process of moving back to Pro Tools coming from DaVinci Resolve. The reason for this is that I find myself doing more music based stuff as opposed to post-production recently. I have Pro Tools Studio and have purchased the Dolby Atmos Renderer V5.

I would like to know your guys opinion on how to setup my Dolby Atmos configuration. I am currently running a 7.1.4 system with DaVinci Resolve on Windows PC that is using the internal renderer ( I am in the process of upgrading to RTX3090 with 12th gen processor as I also do Color grading). Pro Tools needs to connect to the Dolby Atmos renderer which the audio bridge is not on Windows.

I can do one of two things.

OPTION 1: Get a Mac studio M1 Max with 64gb ram (second hand/refurbished) as that is in my budget, and run Pro Tools and renderer off of that as well as DaVinci Resolve, though the color grading will take a hit.
OPTION 2: Upgrade windows PC (for Pro Tools and DaVinci Resolve) and buy a 16gb mac mini to run the Dolby Atmos renderer. Then run DANTE virtual Sound card on the Windows machine and Mac Mini for 64 channels (10 for 7.1.2 bed, 1 for LTC and 53 for objects if I'm not mistaken) of 48kHz audio between the two machines (in the budget, no extra sound cards are possible at the moment) and run the renderer as an external renderer across the network. Mac mini would then run my speaker system and I can run other audio through Dante or Line inputs. This does mean I wont be able to use all 128 channels of audio to the renderer like with the Dolby audio bridge, but I can do with 64 channels just fine.

My question really is, will option 2 work well, as I would like to get the windows machine running for Color Grading, and I know pro tools works well on windows (as I am already running it there)?

Any other ideas will be great for those who have them. let know.

Thanks for the help!

[Led]

How many channels are you using in your atmos mixes? There is a way to run 64 channels with ProTools on a single Windows rig using the latest Dolby Atmos renderer and some software called Asiolink Pro. I did a vid of how I set it up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eARw4dZ2PxU