Atmos News

[prerich]

Nismo,

 

My questions about the format war for me are more about that my receiver does Atmos, but not DTS-X.  Will future AVRs have support for both formats?  Maybe I can get another software update to bring DTS-X in support.  

 

I did read that you don't have to have Atmos speakers or specific setups to take advantage of the sound format.  I am sure that upfiring or ceiling speakers help with the sound field, but not having them doesn't exclude you.  They are object based and not channel based, we (or maybe just me) are all used to 5.1 or 7.1, etc.   (Channel based setups)  Add the Atmos speakers and use them as front heights when the Atmos format isn't available...That is my two cents.

 

Once I added the Onkyo Atmos speakers I have been much happier with my setup.  Either 5.2.2 or 7.2.  Now I have to work on upgrading those to the RP-140SA's.

Future receivers are supporting both - so the format war is out the window as far as the consumer is concerned. 

[Jay L]

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that during connection & configuration set-up, you will want to connect your Atmos speakers to the height terminals or the height pre-outs. Also, during calibration you will want to select "Front Height" with 5.1.2 &  "Rear Height" with 5.1.4 (do not select any of the other Dolby Surround, Dolby Front or Dolby Back configurations). Dolby Labs & (in my instance) Denon, both specify this connection & configuration for proper playback of an Atmos track.

 

 

Speaker connection & configuration with Atmos:

 

 

 

 

That is not a correct configuration when using Dolby Enabled Atmos Speakers. You should always use the "Dolby" + location with those speakers. The "TOP" selections are for in/on ceiling. The "Front Height", "Rear Height" are for legacy upmixers, or other 3D speaker layouts.

[Nismo]

Interesting. When speaking with Denon, they told me to select front & rear height with upward firing modules during the speaker recognition/assign. The rear modules assign did not have a Dolby + location option... only a rear height or Dolby Surround.

 

Thanks for the info Jay! I've had it set with front height since January (when using 1 front pair of upward firing modules). I assigned rear height when I added rear heights for the first time in July. I'm going to run set up again tonight with you configuration & see if I can see if Dolby rear is a selectable option. If not, I'll select Dolby Surround.

 

I just watched Insurgent with Atmos on Blu-ray tonight & it was incredible. Curious to hear how it sounds after I reconfigure set-up. I'll keep you posted with the results. And, safe to say I'll be calling Denon tomorrow. (lol)

[Zen Traveler]

Kudos to Nismo for venturing into the Atmos world and reporting those up-firing modules work well with the older RF-7 speakers!

 

That said, where are all of the others? Has anyone else purchased the RP-140SA to use with their speakers? This really seems like a big deal for not having more excitement on the forum and I have yet to read a person who has gone to an Atmos configuration not be really happy with the results.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Zen Traveler

[Nismo]

i spoke with Denon & during setup, they said with Amp assign you select Dolby Atmos (which I originally did).... then speaker type should have been automatic. That seems strange (not sure how its supposed to automatically perform that), In my case, I had to "select" which speaker was connected. Denon suggested I download the latest firmware.

 

While downloading... the 50 minute update turned into an hour & a half. Then 2 hours. After 3 hours... the firmware connection was obviously stuck in some loop. You lose the GUI (graphical user interface) during update & since it was stuck in some loop, you couldn't back out, or close out of it. I disconnected a hard wire ethernet & that didn't disconnect the update either (just offered a Connection failure read out screen). Denon said to do a hard reset of the receiver & start fresh. Hard reset did not work either. (lol) Tried hard reset several times (even unplugged it  prior to double button reset, no luck). Right now my display is blank, the remote will not video switch to any source & the set up menu does not activate. They issued me  case # & I'm sending my Denon in for service. First issue I ever had with a Denon since the early 90's. Go figure a stupid  firmware update shut it down. It's going to be a long 10-14 days.

 

At least I got to watch Insurgent last night, despite having "height speakers" selected for front & rear modules, it still sounded excellent. One of the best Atmos tracks yet. Can't wait to hear it with "Dolby Front" & "Dolby Surround" selected during setup. That should be even better. At least I now have something to look forward to.

 

Thanks again Jay for the info. Although, a little info like that would have been nice along with the Atmos speakers (manuals, info etc). Pretty sure others might like that info with upward firing modules as well. Learning something new everyday is a good thing.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Nismo

[Sancho Panza]

Some have had good results from letting firmware update run all night with Denon.

[Jay L]

Nismo, that sucks your Denon went down. With any AVR you want the verbiage Dolby when selecting height channels. Onkyo calls them out correctly, they use Dolby Enabled Speaker. Obviously location is followed in parenthesis in the menu. I used a Denon 5200 when I was at Dolby labs. I was confused for a minute, until I thought about the options. Dolby folk hanging round confirmed what I had picked so I am very confident that is correct. I just read the Denon manual and it even contradicts itself about 4 pages apart.

We considered putting something about this in our manuals. It was just to exhausting to cover every single name from every AVR.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

[Jay L]

Also unless your rear DEAS channels are on the side surrounds, you want Dolby REAR, not Dolby Surround. The Denon manual does call that out.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

[Nismo]

Awesome good information for sure. If you think Atmos is new now... rewind to last September when my Atmos capable X4100W came out. Speaking with Denon back then, the logic was since the physical connection for the DEAS was to the heights—the speaker layout was also to be assigned heights (mimicking a ceiling speaker). At the time it was determined that any designation with "Dolby" (for speaker layout) was reserved for traditional wall mount heights, since Dolby Surround was also the sound format to send legacy source material when using non-Atmos speakers. There was plenty of opportunity for confusion, but it made sense at the time. And... it did sound pretty dayum good.

 

The 313 page Denon manual is a bit chaotic, the Atmos & speaker info jumps all over the place. Looking forward to getting my Denon back & running the new set up. Its already good... running the upward firing RP-140SA's as you & your Dolby Reps specified will be something else. You really need to pick up Insurgent, the Atmos track is the best I've heard to date. Demo worthy throughout from start to finish, but there's a scene inside a house & a train goes by in the far distance (very much a low rumbling background effect). It was so convincing, I actually turned around to look out the window to see "what was that?" Only to realize... oh... its the movie. That was insane. Thank again for the info Jay.

 

Hey, we all learned a new acronym today. DEAS. Dolby Enabled Atmos Speaker.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Nismo

[Nismo]

Opposite of "What did you get today?"

 

Sending my 4100 out today... hopefully she will return soon. Real soon.

 

I actually have 2 other (older) Denon's, but I'm not even going to hook them up.

 

Once you go Atmos.... you don't wanna go backwards.   Headphones for the next couple weeks.

 

Man, TV Speaker suck. Might have to check A4L for a  quick fix (lol) 4200??

 

 

[Nismo]

There are many speaker options with an Atmos configuration. Overhead speakers play a key role, but the Atmos mix is not limited to overhead speakers. Legacy channel based formats are 2D, Atmos is a 3D object based format, allowing the sound to be placed anywhere, including overhead (with DEAS/ Dolby Enabled Atmos Speakers). The use of your existing 5.1 or 7.1 speaker set-up, including LFE, combined along with DEAS is what delivers the immersive 3D sound stage. Your existing speakers & Atmos Speakers compliment each other when objects (not channels)  are placed anywhere in a 3D environment.

 

Atmos also supports Speaker Wide (traditionally, prior to Atmos, that was offered as front wide, front left). The addition of Speaker Wide, designates that Atmos spec officially supports up to a full 24.2.10 set up (that's 24 floor speakers)!! So that helps to indicate that all of your speakers utilize an Atmos track (not just overhead). In addition to placing objects in a 3D environment, panning also plays a crucial role when moving sound around.

 

Here are some excerpts from sound designer "FilmMixer" that might help explain the new format, specifically how "objects" are implemented with the 3D audio experience that Atmos provides. And specifically how Atmos object based audio differs from traditional channel based authoring.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2015 by Nismo

[Nismo]

Here a few more excerpts from "Filmmixer" that touches on how panning works with Atmos. And, how panning makes use of all your speakers, not just overhead. The precise 3D object placement & specific use of panning, has me thinking of adding a Front Wide L & R to my Atmos set up for:  7.2.4.

 

 

 

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Also, I recall reading awhile back, where a panel of sound engineers were discussing Atmos, stating that it was an incredibly flexible & very forgiving format. Heres the quote:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2015 by Nismo

[Nismo]

Not Atmos news per say, but my (locked-up) Denon is finally returning home from service. 18 days without HT, 18 long days without Klipsch & Atmos. Tracking puts it here Monday. Can;t wait to hook it back up & calibrate per Jay's spec, perfect timing as Mad Max with Atmos comes out Tuesday.

 

Also got another tracking # for Monday delivery of this little beast. Gonna change TGIF to TGIM.  Atmos is back in the house soon.

 

 

[DrWho]

The power of Atmos is in how the spatial positioning is achieved. Instead of creating five independent tracks and requiring ideal speaker configurations, the Atmos encoding identifies the desired location, and then the system processor generates the tracks on the fly based on your specific speaker configuration.

Along the way they added a height speaker too, but I think the marketing focuses on that way too much. The height stuff is more of a gimmick that may have a few artistic advantages, but the real benefit is in the post processing approach.

I have no doubt this will be the future of surround sound. Content creation is way easier, consistency of results is leap years better, and it sounds better.

I'm just bummed they stripped down the home version from what you get in the theater.

Edited August 30, 2015 by DrWho

[Nismo]

Earlier, I touched based on Atmos authoring, today I thought I'd post some additional authoring info. This helps to show how the 10 beds (channel based content) works together with the 118 Object based content & the Metadata (panning paths) via the Dolby Atmos Plug-ins (specific to the Authoring system). Hope you find it interesting. I really find the 3D virtual "room" pretty cool & flexible when placing Atmos audio in a "3D space" (vs. authoring it to a speaker). 

 

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The content is broken into two types: Bed Audio (traditional fixed channels) & Object Audio (panning throughout a 3D space via metadata). Object paths are mapped in a 3D virtual room with Atmos Panning Plug-ins (& metadata to designate pan position). That includes: x-axis (left/ right), y-axis (front/ back) & z-axis (top/ bottom). Each Object can be assigned a location/position/distance value (-100 to +100) for x & y.... and (0 to +100) for z (elevation). In addition, each Object can be assigned a "size" which determines how much the Object fills the room... ranging from  0" being smallest, to "100" being largest, spreading content to all active speakers.

 

Here's a really cool aspect of Atmos authoring with the z-axis (top/ bottom), the z-axis has 2 elevation zones in the virtual room. And each elevation zone has 3 modes: Ceiling = Flat (elevation drops as Object moves away); Sphere= Dome (highest part of the Dome is in the center of the room, elevation drops as you move from the center); Wedge= Peaked (follows a virtual line left-to-right. Elevation drops as you move away from that line).  Each of the virtual Ceiling, Sphere & Wedge authoring modes provide a lot of control when creating distinct positioning & panning to reproduce precise & realistic Object paths.    

[Nismo]

Here's a few depictions of the Object authoring in the virtual 3D room.

 

 

[busht4169]

Hey NISMO, my four RP-140SA's have shipped.  Ground shipping of course, so I guess late next week I will get them.  The Marantz amp is on the way too.  I am so excited!

[Nismo]

Hey NISMO, my four RP-140SA's have shipped.  Ground shipping of course, so I guess late next week I will get them.  The Marantz amp is on the way too.  I am so excited!

Excellent !! Movies, music & games will benefit with the new set up. You'll have a fun week calibrating & dialing in the new set up. Immersive & convincing are just 2 words that come to mind with Atmos. Look forward to hearing another members thoughts on the RP-140SA set up. I've had Mad Max (Atmos) since release day... but haven't had time to watch it yet. Wednesday night is the night. By all accounts... it's supposed to be the new Atmos Demo disc. Looking  forward to finally watching it.

[Scrappydue]

Hey NISMO, my four RP-140SA's have shipped. Ground shipping of course, so I guess late next week I will get them. The Marantz amp is on the way too. I am so excited!

Excellent !! Movies, music & games will benefit with the new set up. You'll have a fun week calibrating & dialing in the new set up. Immersive & convincing are just 2 words that come to mind with Atmos. Look forward to hearing another members thoughts on the RP-140SA set up. I've had Mad Max (Atmos) since release day... but haven't had time to watch it yet. Wednesday night is the night. By all accounts... it's supposed to be the new Atmos Demo disc. Looking forward to finally watching it.

not action movie but age of Adeline came out today. Read it was atmos

[Nismo]

A lot of tech talk tonight (good stuff). Time for some eye & ear candy (even if you're probably just viewing / hearing on your laptop).

 

Click the vimeo logo (lower right) & you will jump to the actual vimeo page (video is much better there, than embedded here on the forum).