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Dolby Atmos
Good evening everyone:
Tonight I was at Dolby Labs in San Francisco for a private demo of their new proprietary Atmos System, and all I can say is this: it is AWESOME. Basically what it does it take 5.1 or 7.1 to the next level and translate it to a fully immersed experience, tailored to individual theaters and even individual sections within theaters. No matter where you sit, you will get the best experience. Presenters were Kevin Perry, John Luse and Scott Wood (Avid). The way this works technically, is that you mix everything in Pro Tools, but Pro Tools is closely integrated with Atmos. In Pro Tools / Atmos you create separate 'object' tracks which can then be automated in a 3D environment. You have a graphical display of the theater plus where individaul 'objects' (sound FX) are going to. Advantages for the theater experience: 1. No loss of audio fidelity when sounds are traveling from front to rear / sideways / overhead 2. Full range response from all directions I asked a lot of questions, and I am still digesting tonight 's event after a long day, but this is totally cool. First feature film this was used on is Brave (Pixar), but we saw remixed scenes from a major feature film and a feature animation, and a 20 sec demo by Erik Adaahl (the fellow who did the sound design for Transformers). Totally sick. |
#2
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Hi Peter,
can you be a bit more specific on the integration with Pro Tools? Is is it a plug-in solution? Can you move the audio objects with a hardware controller like a joystick? |
#3
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Yes there is a Dolby Panner Plugin and yes it is controllable via a hardware panner.
__________________
Eric Lalicata C.A.S. Supervising Sound Editor Re-Recording Mixer Anarchy Post 1811 Victory Blvd Glendale, CA 91201 818-334-3300 www.anarchypost.net |
#4
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Sorry if I was a bit too 'gushy' - the Dolby screening room was quite something, not a place I get to everyday.
Anyways, here is how it works:
Actually I have a few follow up questions myself:
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#5
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Hi, Peter-
Glad you had a good time - I had a good time putting things together, and hosting. To answer your questions, 1. Usually, theater surrounds are calibrated to 82dB, to account for the fact that you're feeding an array of speakers - Dolby Atmos has changed this to the same calibration level (85dB) as the screen channels, so you can smoothly pan between the screen and any of the surrounds. Also, theater surrounds generally didn't previously produce full-range sound - so there was a major shift between the screen and surround speakers. In that room, we've added extra subs in the rear, with bass management from the surrounds, to take care of that issue. It's true that it's difficult for people to accurately localize sound below about 80 Hertz - but a lot of older surrounds built for cinema don't even reproduce well that low... 2. All of the panning of the sound objects are done in the Dolby Atmos panner plugins that send their pan metadata and timecode straight to the Dolby Atmos RMU (Rendering Mastering Unit) - we're bypassing the Pro Tools panners in this case. There's a good explanation in the PDF at: http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/A...for-Cinema.pdf You can also watch the instructional video we showed at: http://www.dolby.com/us/en/professio...mos-video.html The presenter was John Loose - the manager of our Creative Services department... (Since he's my boss, I'm pretty sure he'd want his name spelled right ) -Kevin
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Kevin Perry Post-Production Systems Engineer Dolby Laboratories San Francisco, CA |
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Thanks for the feedback Kevin ... it is fascinating.
I have two more follow up questions:
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#7
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Re: Dolby Atmos
What for stands the specification 9.1? It is mentioned all over the Dolby Docs.
Is it right that the "big start" for Atmos is 2013 (sales launch of the RMU and cinema processors)? |
#8
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Hi, Peter-
I'm just the tech engineer in the Creative Services department, I don't (and can't, because I don't know) really speak publicly for the company on product development and future features - but I'll try to answer you as best I can. Quote:
Quote:
And for Alexander - Quote:
I definitely can't speak to full release dates, or what bit's coming out exactly when - that's well above my rank (I generally help making shiny tradeshow videos)... I'm sure there will be official company communiques forthcoming. Sorry for all the disclaimer text, I want to be totally helpful, but clear where I'm coming from.
__________________
Kevin Perry Post-Production Systems Engineer Dolby Laboratories San Francisco, CA |
#9
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Thank you Kevin Perry for the useful info.
Cheers Alexander |
#10
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Re: Dolby Atmos
Thanks for the info Kevin and Eric,
however, going through the Dolby Atmos PDF and gathering bits of information about this new technology, some questions are coming up. Maybe some of you, who have had a demo, can give some answers. From my understanding the panner plug-in and the RMU are being needed to define the spacial position of "objects". I also understand, that the RMU will be the successor to the current CPs, at least on Atmo dubbing stages. So what about the sound edit/design phase? Dolby Atmos projects will undoubtedly take extra time and effort in preparation and an RMU will not be present in every edit suite. Will there be a smaller solution for sound designers? Maybe reflecting the mentioned 9.1, maybe a plug-in only solution? The second question goes towards deliveries. How will a typical Dolby Atmos M&E look like, how an FX stem? My guess is that you basically will have to deliver a PT session containing the particular beds and object tracks together with some metadata from the Dolby RMU. But maybe I misunderstood something here. |
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