Dolby Atoms Home Theatre
Dolby Atoms Home Theatre continued…..If you’re the kind of person who enjoys drilling holes in your ceiling, you can buy overhead stand-alone speakers. For the rest of us, you can purchase either new surround-sound speakers that have speakers on top that point at the ceiling. Or, you can buy module speakers that sit atop the speakers you already own. Dolby says you’ll need a minimum of two of these ceiling-facing speakers, but suggests four speakers or modules for optimal sound. If you’re already buying the new receiver, you might as well get all four speakers.
As for Blu-ray and streamers, as long as the device supports Dolby Digital Plus and can pass that information to the receiver, you won’t need to buy a new device. Most new Blu-ray players support the standard. Just make sure to enable bit-stream out. The current Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV all support Dolby Digital pass through.
What about for mobile?:For mobile, you can either buy a tablet or smartphone with a hardware Atmos renderer inside. There’s nothing on the market right now, but Dolby did say that software companies could license the technology to put in their apps. So you might be able to enjoy Atmos on your current smartphone in the future.
What content is available?:There are over 150 Atmos-enabled movies. In addition to the movies mentioned above, The Hobbit trilogy, Brave, Gravity, Ender’s Game, Frozen, Pacific Rim, and the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron are all Atmos-mixed movies. Of course, the studios need to release a home-video version of those movies with Atmos audio enabled in order for the home theatre system to create the same soundscape at home. Fortunately, the same mix used for a theatre can be used at home. So it’s really just a matter of updating the audio mix.
Will there be streaming options?:That’s up to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and the rest of the companies that stream video to our homes. According to Dolby, a 5.1 audio stream takes up 384kKbps and an stream with Atmos meta-data takes up the same space. So all studios need to do is give the Netflix’s and Hulu’s of the world a new audio stream for their movies. Netflix told TNW it has “no plans at present” and Hulu and Amazon haven’t replied to our queries yet. But if Atmos gains wide adoption, expect them all to support the audio feature in the future.
When can I buy this stuff? A majority of the gear will be available this fall in time for holiday shopping. This includes speakers, speaker modules and receivers from company’s like Denon, Integra, Marantz, Onkyo, Pioneer, and Yamaha. There’s even an all-in-one home theatre set coming from Onkyo.
As for mobile devices, that’s a tougher call. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon Kindle Fire tablet refresh this fall includes Atmos support. The Kindle Fire line has been powered by Dolby technology for two years and frankly it’s made the tablets (and Fire Phone) sound spectacular.
How much?The Onkyo all-in-one system will set you back $899 and the prices just climb up from there.
Worth it?:If you’re a movie buff and early adopter with a pile of cash lying around, it’s worth checking out the system. It’ll never sound as nice as the theatre, but it’s pretty damn close. But like all technologies the prices will drop as the market matures.
Author:Roberto Baldwin
