Dolby Atmos HT Certification-Is it worth it?

[paulo m]

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.:)