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modorlofsky

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Registered: 2013-08-23

Posts: 275

New Encoding Attribute for Dolby Atmos

Transformers Age of Extinction is the first DVD to contain the Dolby Atmos encoding.

Catalog Update 236 adds "Dolby Atmos" to the list of choices for Audio Encoding.  John Roberge offerred the following remarks about whether Atmos would need to be cataloged to indicate the number of channels that are present in the disc:

This is a very good question that has a rather complex answer. THe reason the answer is complex is that Dolby Atmos is not a fixed channel approach like other prior codecs have been.
Background

Dolby Atmos has been available for commercial theaters since June, 2012 and the release of the film Brave by Pixar. The hallmark of this new audio regime is that a Dolby Atmos Cinema Processor will support up to 128 simultaneous independent audio objects and up to 64 independent speaker outputs. In addition to playing back a standard 5.1 or 7.1 mix the Dolby Atmos software can automatically scale itself to the speaker layout of any particular commercial theater installation (up to 64 discrete speaker locations).
Home Theater Version

Dolby Atmos is now available for home theaters but it is a little unclear how it will exactly work in that iteration as no equipment to play it is yet available - a Dolby Atmos A/V Receiver or Preamp/Processor will be needed. Transformers is the first blu-ray disc to contain the Dolby Atmos surround sound technology. The Dolby website says that in the home version Advanced Dolby codecs and their sophisticated rendering process will adapt the original cinema experience to the home theater from 7 speakers to as many as 34, recreating the intent of the filmmaker. Dolby simply states that "Dolby Atmos content is fully compatible for playback on conventional stereo and on 5.1 and 7.1 channel systems".
This audio codec system (unlike any other) is designed to be flexible and provide for numerous channels - created on the fly if you will by the software - from the recorded audio - based on metadata provided by the source and some sort of input as to how many channels any given system has been built to accept. Overhead speakers are a key ingredient for Dolby Atmos.Dolby says you will need at least two overhead speakers (or use speakers referred to as Dolty Atmos enabled speakers that reflect off the ceiling when placed on the floor). For Dolby Atmos, the nomenclature differs slightly: a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system is a traditional 7.1 layout with four ceiling or Dolby Atmos enabled speakers.
For the time being I think just using "Dolby Atmos" as a generic descriptor without specifying the # of channels may be necessary since this codec is flexible in that regard. Alternatively, you could use "7.1.4" but that in itself does not describe the maximum capability of the Dolby Atmos system.

Last edited by modorlofsky (2014-11-04 01:10:49)