A Quick 101 on Surround Sound and 'Atmos

[KevWind]

I stumbled on this quick 7 min. Vimo video by Dolby about Atmos the new apparently "objects" based surround sound format. thought it was interesting

http://vimeo.com/40699179

[Ty Ford]

Overhead surrounds aren't new. People have been talking about them for some time now. I like the idea that meta data can be used to simplify the deliverables, but there's still the problem of creating a proper sweet spot for 300 individual people in a theater. And, of course, the problem of jerks who take cell phone calls during the playing of the film. And how much will the new playback gear cost the theater owner. Lemme see….so popcorn will cost $25 a bucket now, right?

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Bob Womack]

However, "Object-based" delivery in broadcast is very promising. It is already happening: A Nascar race is sent to the internet via a multichannel, multi video stream bundle. You've got your choice of streaming the broadcast show as cut by the director or only the view from the wide camera in the first turn or pit row or the ground level shot on turn three. In audio, you can choose the mixed show or just the mics on pit row or the back stretch or entering turn one or exiting turn two or... All the sources are there, you are just switching via selecting which metadata you want to allow. Of course, as things get more sophisticated, you can take the whole show minus the mic on the exit of turn three where there's a particularly noisy guy who bothers you.

From a mixing perspective in either stereo or 5.1 it is amazing what can be done. Think of a concert situation: You can set the band's panning in the forward sound field by metadata info and then encode the handling for the reverse angle camera that is shooting from behind the drummer towards the crowd. If you want the audio to reverse pan to match the perspective, it is simply a matter of a routine that says whenever the reverse camera is selected, the panning reverses.

There are lots of opportunities for object-based mixing other than the multi-speaker Dolby Atmos format.

By the way, the very first purpose-built surround cinema is located near me and has retained its configuration. It was designed to handle a film premiered in 1957 that was filmed in the short-lived VistaVision format and featured a unique six-channel surround format called Todd AO Sound. That format features five speakers across the front behind the screen and one channel routed to speakers set above each seat in the audience. That channel was used only for the portrayals of the thoughts of the protagonist, played by a very young Jack Lord. The film is Williamsburg-The Story of a Patriot and it has run continuously in the two rooms of the theater since its premier.*

Bob

* Star Wars Fans: The film was eventually converted to standard 70mm format and the VistaVision projectors were sold to Lucasfilm, LTD, where they were used to create the effects for the first three Star Wars films.