Dolby Atmos HT Certification-Is it worth it?
 

Hi,

would like to hear opinions from those who applied or already have a Dolby Atmos approved room for Home Entertainment. Europe in particular.

Is it worth it, from the economic point of view, in terms of investment return? I know this varies from country to country, but I see HT deliverables as either Bluray or streaming. Bluray is on a decline in terms of sales, streaming is great, but the biggest part of the catalogues of streaming platforms are non Atmos and even those are only available in selected markets. Then there´s Atmos Music, but it´s just in it´s infancy.

So, considering that you can buy the RMU with the Atmos Mastering Suite without certification and even now that the newly announced version of PT will allow Dolby Bridge without the 32 channel limitation, even for HDX users, what´s the point? Is it just to impress clients? Is for the Dolby (expensive) expertise?

Do you think that the RMU is also worth having, taking into consideration the power of some CPU´s nowadays, that can handle a heavy PT session and the AVID Production Suite on the same machine? Excluding the need for room equalization and calibration provided by the Mastering Suite of course.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.:)

Re: Dolby Atmos HT Certification-Is it worth it?
 

So I can't speak for Europe but let me offer a few thoughts in general about the rest of your questions.

We are going for Certification (in the application & build process atm). The main reasons being marketing and client 'trust'. It's certainly not necessary but could distinguish you and provide exposure for clients looking for only certified studios via Dolby's website.

Yes an RMU is worthwhile. The main reason is live re-renders and a lower latency round-trip as well as eliminating any issues with delay compensation.

More specifically, don't buy an off-the-shelf RMU (e.g. windows based rack-server). One accepted configuration is running on a Mac Pro and using Dante instead of MADI as the link between machines. Not only cheaper, but the physical hardware is going to be FAR more quiet. We currently own one purchased from a reputable vendor and we will likely be implementing this alternate solution ourselves for a second room shortly.