Dolby Atmos talk
- Thread starter Harry
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newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
I have a Bose sound system at home that's not true 5 channel surround but it has a centre channel, bass and two rear speakers that separate out the TV audio feed to create a spatial sound that replicates true surround, which is great for movies and listening to music. That's good enough for me. I don't really have any interest in spending lots of time using audio programmes to extensively break down and separate audio tracks. I've dabbled in the past but quickly got bored with it and I've got better things to do with my time.
That said, it will be nice to hear ABBA in this format, especially albums like Super Trouper and The Visitors. The new releases will start with Gold and then each individual album in succession after that.
Bobberman
Well-Known Member
I totally agree Keeping it simple is Good enough for me.
Proper Atmos requires a setup with a lot of components to do it properly (and earbuds ain't even close). Atmos requires height as well as front-to-back speakers, and who wants all this stuff in their living space? (The electronics industry does as, since there is always some new video or surround format introduced, they get you to buy new equipment over and over.) Since I rarely watch movies anymore (and just about all are classic films, all in mono), there's no need for surround to watch anything.
I don't even know who would be buying surround music anymore--at best it's a very small niche format. Quad failed. DVD-Audio failed. SACD is used primarily for high-res stereo releases and the surround is mostly forgotten. I can't see Atmos lasting much longer either. Creating new mixes costs money, and the record labels really don't want to spend it.
It's all interesting to listen to, though. Just on someone else's system. 😁
I don't even know who would be buying surround music anymore--at best it's a very small niche format. Quad failed. DVD-Audio failed. SACD is used primarily for high-res stereo releases and the surround is mostly forgotten. I can't see Atmos lasting much longer either. Creating new mixes costs money, and the record labels really don't want to spend it.
It's all interesting to listen to, though. Just on someone else's system. 😁
Doing Atmos right is a big investment--at a minimum seven speakers but to do it right and create the "hemisphere" of sound, seven surround speakers (including center), four height speakers, and one or two subwoofers. So that's anywhere from 7 to 11 speakers, plus subwoofers, in a typical setup. Fine for those with dedicated home theater rooms but try that in an everyday living space.
There are some soundbars that claim to do Atmos and "surround" but they are nothing more than phasing tricks to make the sound appear elsewhere. Same with earbuds--it's a faux Atmos experience at best.
4K, though, is now a commodity, as all but the smallest screens are sold only as 4K. 8K only makes sense for really large screens in smaller rooms. That I believe will remain a fringe format for videophiles.
There are some soundbars that claim to do Atmos and "surround" but they are nothing more than phasing tricks to make the sound appear elsewhere. Same with earbuds--it's a faux Atmos experience at best.
Those with dedicated home theater rooms are into it, and will spend money with each new technology.
4K, though, is now a commodity, as all but the smallest screens are sold only as 4K. 8K only makes sense for really large screens in smaller rooms. That I believe will remain a fringe format for videophiles.
I'm convinced that the difference between 2K and 4K is so non-apparent that you'd need to sit a foot away from the screen to notice it - or have one of those ginormous screens of 80-100 inches or so. At the more practical sizes of 55-60-65, the difference is negligible. I suppose that's also arguable, but with my aging vision, 2K at normal sizes and distances is just fine.
But yeah, I know that whenever I get another TV, it'll have to be 4K.
But yeah, I know that whenever I get another TV, it'll have to be 4K.
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
Switching for a moment from sound to lighting, I invested in several Philips Hue lights which are designed specifically for the Philips Ambilight Smart TV. I have a few around my living room and the idea is that the lighting replicates every corner of what you're watching on TV, creating a 360 degree audio/visual sensory experience. These come in every size and shape. From small table-based pod lights, to lightbulbs that screw into a standard lamp, wall mounted lights and right up to concealed LED ceiling strip lights.
Which all sounds fine...until you start trying to configure the app to make them react the way you want them to. I ended up obsessing for two hours at a time, making tiny adjustments to the positioning of each bulb in the app to try and make the lights do what I thought they should be doing in the room.
I guess I'm predisposed to mild OCD and this stuff can take over your life if you let it. So I stopped at 6 bulbs and that was the end of that.
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I did something similar here. I have Kasa (made by TP-Link) smart bulbs in the family room, and have LED strips on the backs of the TVs here (which ease eyestrain). The rest of the regularly-used bulbs in the house are now all LEDs as well, and some of them are run through Kasa switches, partly for convenience but mainly for security. (Holiday lighting outdoors also uses Kasa switches.) I only went with the Kasa bulbs in the family room as I can set them for brightness and colors to help ease eyestrain. They've been a lifesaver (or sightsaver?). Even "warm" lightbulbs give me headaches. Later at night, when my eyes are pretty much shot for the day, I have a dark red glow in the room--it's better than total darkness, but still light enough to see things. (I have a few LED task lights in the room for reading or over at the turntable, to use as needed.)
I do see a clear difference between the two at 65 inches--it's like comparing a slightly out of focus lens to an in-focus lens. On videos where you can switch between the two, it's easy to compare. The difference between 30p and 60p is also apparent, especially in nature videos.
Without my glasses though...even 720x480 looks high tech. 😁
But what actually is more noticeable is when the TV kicks into HDR+ mode (some YouTube channels use it), where everything just looks more lifelike. Contrast is better, and colors are richer. It surprised me after I swapped TVs. I put the OLED in the family room, and moved the other TV from the family room to the living room; I didn't realize the old TV was capable of HDR+ when I tried a test video on it. (I typically use an NVidia SHIELD as the media player, which isn't HDR compatible...so I was using the apps built into the TVs to use HDR+.)
My feelings about Dolby Atmos are documented elsewhere here (I'm not sure where). Basically it started as a theatrical format, but it was too expensive/complicated to ever go mainstream. Apparently Dolby didn't think of that when they debuted it, because after it failed to be installed in every theater this side of the moon, they started slapping the name onto every kind of product from home speakers to headphones, none of which have the ability to do what Atmos promised in the theater: Allow the sound mixer to place a specific sound almost exactly where they wanted it in the sound field. To do this, Atmos supports up to 128 channels of audio and the sound is "mapped" to the place it's supposed to go, not to the specific speaker. Of course, in order to replicate this effect on other platforms, they needed to water down the process considerably to the point that the name Atmos is basically meaningless.
Call me a grouchy old guy if you want, but I never did understand the appeal of colorful lights reacting to the picture on the TV screen, or any lights behind the screen for that matter. It falls somewhere in my 'dumbest ideas of all time' top 20 list. Having color shifting lights in the room would be distracting to me. But, most people do their TV watching while being half-asleep (or fully asleep) in a recliner, so maybe the lights help keep them awake, I don't know.
Call me a grouchy old guy if you want, but I never did understand the appeal of colorful lights reacting to the picture on the TV screen, or any lights behind the screen for that matter. It falls somewhere in my 'dumbest ideas of all time' top 20 list. Having color shifting lights in the room would be distracting to me. But, most people do their TV watching while being half-asleep (or fully asleep) in a recliner, so maybe the lights help keep them awake, I don't know.
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
It has its uses. Great for live concerts, going some way to replicating the experience of being in an auditorium where there is a full light show in an arena to accompany the group on stage. Terriblly distracting when watching movies, with small bursts of light such as a table lamp in a movie scene being bouncing onto your walls around the room. I tend to use mine for "mood lighting" (one colour, dimmed) to suits the genre of the movie I'm watching.
One feature that I'm sure some find useful is that they can be programmed to mimic human presence when you're away from home for extended periods. For example a light going on now and then in different rooms, or flickering lights to mimic a TV being on in your living room. Personally I've never used the feature.
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Lighting behind the screen helps with eyestrain, especially in a darker room. It is also good, indirect lighting for other times. As one example, we use a dark red in the living room, at 2% brightness, as a nightlight of sorts. And being a color-adjustable LED strip, it does a lot better at providing the right kind of light when needed. I don't have a strip, but I've had two small lights behind my computer monitor for a decade or more now.
That is one reason I have most of our lights on switches, or use smart bulbs--I can put any of them on a "vacation" schedule and with the remaining cars in the driveway, it looks like someone is home.
That is actually how "stereo" sound works--nothing goes to only left/right, but (when done right, once sound got out of the archaic 1960s) it's mixed to somewhere in between. And in well-recorded stereo, with two or three mics (like RCA's Living Stereo classical recordings), you can also get a sense of depth behind the speakers, like with a full symphony orchestra (although you need a good system to hear it on).
Typical surround and especially Atmos tries to accomplish that by similarly mixing things between the channels but the fewer speakers there are, the more the system has to approximate where an individual sound should be located. (At bare minimum, Atmos seems to need, ideally, four height speakers in a home setup, and the logic can steer sounds approximately where they need to be within the space.) An Atmos soundbar just shoots some of the sound upwards towards the ceiling using phasing tricks--that can't be anywhere near correct. Similarly, soundbars that approximate surround (as mine does...I don't use it) can place a few sounds outside the plane of the speaker but again, it's an annoying phase gimmick like Q Sound was on recordings. And yeah...earbuds, two "speakers"...no way it's anywhere close to being proper Atmos.
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