Ten things you must know about Dolby Atoms Home Theatre
The Dolby Atoms Home Theatre system has been creating a 3D aural experience in theatres since June 2012. Now the company that brought us surround sound is bringing its object-based audio experience into the home and on mobile devices.
The weird thing about audio is that it’s incredibly important to film, but when done well you don’t even notice. You’ve probably already heard Dolby’s Atmos technology in movies like Star Trek Into the Darkness or the best film of the Summer, Guardians of Galaxy. But when you do notice what’s going on with the audio, it’s spectacular.
So Atmos is coming to your TV and phone, but what does it mean exactly? We’ve broken down how Atmos will change home theatre and mobile audio and what it means for you and your ears.
What is Dolby Atmos?:The Dolby Atmos system places speakers above the audience. But it’s more than just shoving a few speakers in the ceiling. The actual Atmos system lets film makers place sound elements in a 3D space. With 5.1 and 7.1 systems, when you want to create the illusion that someone is behind the audience you just throw that sound to those speakers. It’s a speaker based system. With Atmos, instead of pushing a sound to a particular speaker, it’s pushed to a place in a 3D space. For example, to create the illusion of a helicopter flying overhead the sound engineering doesn’t pick which speaker the sound of the helicopter will come out of. Instead, the engineer picks a point in a 3D space and the Atmos system automatically adjusts the sound coming of the appropriate speaker.
The tiny white line at the top of the cube represents a helicopter flying in a 3D space. The dots on the left represent the speakers. The subwoofer and two left overhead speakers are enabled at this point.
The result is an audio experience that pulls the sound up from the ear-level speakers of 7.1 and 5.1 systems. With Atmos it sounds like water is falling on a canopy above you in a scene with a storm. When something goes whizzing by your ears it “feels” like it’s actually happening in the theatre. You can hear the system in action in Atmos-certified theatres with recent movies like Guardians of the Galaxy, Star Trek Into the Darkness and The Life of Pi.
How does it work in my house?
An A/V receiver with an Atmos renderer first takes a room calibration. During that initial setup, the space is mapped out to best create an audio 3D landscape. Whether you use the Atmos-enabled ceiling mounted speakers or Atmos-enabled speakers that point up and bounce the sound off the ceiling, it’s the same result and it recreates the same 3D audio environment found in certified theatres.
How does it work on Mobile? :A hardware encoder in a mobile device takes Atmos-certified content and recreates the object-oriented soundscape with your headphones. Fortunately, you won’t need to buy new headphones, but because it’s simulating the sound coming from speakers above your head, it’s not as impressive as the home theatre system. Still, it sounded pretty cool in the demo.
Do I need to buy stuff?:Yes. For the home you’ll need a new Atmos-enabled receiver with a renderer that takes the meta-data found in audio of supporting movies and pushes it to not only to the ceiling speakers, but also the rest of your home theatre speakers. You’ll also need to purchase at least two new Atmos-enabled speakers.
