Bought Atmos only Mac last December, now have to pay for it!?

[atticmike]

On the 18th of December last year, I bought Dolby Atmos for Pro Tools because it was discounted (through my special offers), hoping it will come out to Windows soon. Now that V 5.0 is out, it's apparently finally available for Windows but since I bought it before February of 2023 I have to pay for it!?

I was eagerly we waiting to finally use Dolby Atmos and bought it before it was even available on Windows and now I have to pay for it again?

That's only 6 months ago, I'm shocked. Unbelievable.

I'm not even an Apple user and bought it to hopefully use it soon...

The funny thing is, the same special offer is still available to me to spend another 100 on the same product I have yet to use.

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by atticmike

On the 18th of December last year, I bought Dolby Atmos for Pro Tools because it was discounted (through my special offers), hoping it will come out to Windows soon. Now that V 5.0 is out, it's apparently finally available for Windows but since I bought it before February of 2023 I have to pay for it!?

I was eagerly we waiting to finally use Dolby Atmos and bought it before it was even available on Windows and now I have to pay for it again?

That's only 6 months ago, I'm shocked. Unbelievable.

I'm not even an Apple user and bought it to hopefully use it soon...

The funny thing is, the same special offer is still available to me to spend another 100 on the same product I have yet to use.

Hi Mike,

Sorry about that. This is what I found in the Dolby KBs

Existing customers: (those that do currently own the Dolby Atmos Production or Mastering Suites) can purchase an upgrade to the new Dolby Atmos Renderer for only $50 USD.

Why is there a cost for this upgrade?
The cost of the upgrade covers the development of several new features and performance enhancements.

How do I get the Dolby Atmos Renderer application?

Existing customers: Upgrades from the Dolby Atmos Production Suite and Mastering Suite upgrades are available here. To activate the new Dolby Atmos Renderer license, you will need to surrender your existing iLok license via the iLok License Manager application. A full license must be surrendered, not an NFR or trial. Please view this article for more detailed instructions.

You can check https://professionalsupport.dolby.co...-Now-Available for more info

Hope this helps.

-Tope

[atticmike]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

Hi Mike,

Sorry about that. This is what I found in the Dolby KBs

Existing customers: (those that do currently own the Dolby Atmos Production or Mastering Suites) can purchase an upgrade to the new Dolby Atmos Renderer for only $50 USD.

Why is there a cost for this upgrade?
The cost of the upgrade covers the development of several new features and performance enhancements.

How do I get the Dolby Atmos Renderer application?

Existing customers: Upgrades from the Dolby Atmos Production Suite and Mastering Suite upgrades are available here. To activate the new Dolby Atmos Renderer license, you will need to surrender your existing iLok license via the iLok License Manager application. A full license must be surrendered, not an NFR or trial. Please view this article for more detailed instructions.

You can check https://professionalsupport.dolby.co...-Now-Available for more info

Hope this helps.

-Tope

I understand, it's just unfair for me since I could've now bought Atmos 5 which finally works now on Windows, for the same special offer price (it's showing me 100 again) as it did in December last year, which is only half a year ago.

My point is I couldn't even use it when I bought it, i got it for the prospect of using it soon. Now that it's out, I still have the special price for my account as last year and still have to pay an upgrade which means I could've just waited till now and gotten it for the same special offer price to me.

I just don't understand why you exclude people who only bought their license half a year ago of a version that was quite old to begin with at the time of my purchase.

[DigiTechSupt]

Originally Posted by atticmike

I understand, it's just unfair for me since I could've now bought Atmos 5 which finally works now on Windows, for the same special offer price (it's showing me 100 again) as it did in December last year, which is only half a year ago.

My point is I couldn't even use it when I bought it, i got it for the prospect of using it soon. Now that it's out, I still have the special price for my account as last year and still have to pay an upgrade which means I could've just waited till now and gotten it for the same special offer price to me.

I just don't understand why you exclude people who only bought their license half a year ago of a version that was quite old to begin with at the time of my purchase.

The pricing you see (100) are for Pro Tools Subscribers.

You can go to https://www.avid.com/plugins/Dolby-A...enderer#show-2
https://shop.avid.com/ccrz__ProductD...oduction+Suite
for $50 the upgrade option.

More info on this can be found at https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...er-Upgrade-FAQ

Thank you,
-Tope

[atticmike]

Originally Posted by DigiTechSupt

The pricing you see (100) are for Pro Tools Subscribers.

You can go to https://www.avid.com/plugins/Dolby-A...enderer#show-2
https://shop.avid.com/ccrz__ProductD...oduction+Suite
for $50 the upgrade option.

More info on this can be found at https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/ar...er-Upgrade-FAQ

Thank you,
-Tope

I paid for the upgrade and now see i can't use it on the same machine as on Mac, can you please make that happen? I don't understand why you can't host it on the same machine as on an Apple system. That's just stupid politics, last dime I spent on this unless it gets implement.

Seriously, I don't want to sound like an imbecile ranting but not having it on Windows first of all was unacceptable, which wasn't Avids fault to begin with but Dolby's and now that it is available, I have to host it on a MacOS? Possibly even ARM chips which are heavily inferior when it comes to multitasking?

Unless I'm wrong, there is no guide out there on Avids channel to set it up.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by atticmike

Possibly even ARM chips which are heavily inferior when it comes to multitasking?

"Heavily inferior"? Uh no. Whatever problems you are having is not an excuse to just spread misinformation. Multi-user/multithreaded comparisons need to be careful to compare actual systems performance, like if you want to look at the high end available today, compare a high-end config Mac Studio vs. whatever Intel based system you want to compare to. And tests should include allowing thermal throttling effects, which is still a relatively frequent concern with x86 processors.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

... high-end config Mac Studio vs. whatever Intel based system you want to compare to. And tests should include allowing thermal throttling effects ...

Cinebench R23 Single-core and Cinebench R23 Multi-core are pretty good benchmark tests. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-list/cinebench-scores

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by atticmike

I paid for the upgrade and now see i can't use it on the same machine as on Mac, can you please make that happen? I don't understand why you can't host it on the same machine as on an Apple system. That's just stupid politics, last dime I spent on this unless it gets implement.

Seriously, I don't want to sound like an imbecile ranting but not having it on Windows first of all was unacceptable, which wasn't Avids fault to begin with but Dolby's and now that it is available, I have to host it on a MacOS? Possibly even ARM chips which are heavily inferior when it comes to multitasking?

Unless I'm wrong, there is no guide out there on Avids channel to set it up.

I'll go ahead and say this isn't exactly Avid's fault.

The core issue is that Apple made it much simpler to create multichannel virtual audio devices for MacOS. Doing so reliably in Windows has proven a challenge for most developers. That's why single machine is Mac-only so far.

However there are reports of users doing it "unofficially" with a third party solution. I can't recall the details but I think it was 64 channels? ASIOLink maybe? If you search around you can find it.

[atticmike]

Originally Posted by EGS

Cinebench R23 Single-core and Cinebench R23 Multi-core are pretty good benchmark tests. https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-list/cinebench-scores

You have to be careful with these benchmarks, manufacturers tend to optimize these because they know it'll be used for referencing.

It does look good yes on paper and it is undeniably due to it's AI cores and chip based video features the best machine for a video editor, outperforming most Windows machines in video editing.

But in other tasks, in reality it's not, for audio production for example.

Watch this video, it's a pro tools session, it's German though, comparing the Intel Mac Pro 20 core vs the M1 Ultra duplicating the demo session till playback isn't possible anymore.

In Geekbench, the M1 Ultra has almost twice the performance than the Intel 20 core, but in Pro Tools in this test the Mac Pro is more than twice as fast:

https://youtu.be/YsQNerWQftg

See what I mean? Which means in audio daw tasks, the M1 Ultra has more the performance a 9900k or Ryzen 3800x and half the performance of a 20 core Intel Mac Pro.

Since this test was done prior to native compatibility, just add another 10% to the Mac Studio and you know where it is performance wise.

[atticmike]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

I'll go ahead and say this isn't exactly Avid's fault.

The core issue is that Apple made it much simpler to create multichannel virtual audio devices for MacOS. Doing so reliably in Windows has proven a challenge for most developers. That's why single machine is Mac-only so far.

However there are reports of users doing it "unofficially" with a third party solution. I can't recall the details but I think it was 64 channels? ASIOLink maybe? If you search around you can find it.

Thank you I will try that. I wish Avid / Dolby would communicate more with Microsoft to solve this problem.