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110-600: Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories . It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations. Following the release of Atmos for the cinema market, a variety of consumer technologies have been released under the Atmos brand. The initial cinema Atmos systems used in-ceiling speakers, then upward-firing speakers (e.g. for soundbars ) were introduced as an alternative for consumer products. Atmos

220-507: A home theater or hi-fi system. Its purpose is to receive audio and video signals from a number of sources, and to process them and provide power amplifiers to drive loudspeakers , and/or route the video to displays such as a television , monitor or video projector . Inputs may come from a TV, FM, or AM tuner , satellite receiver , DVD players , Blu-ray Disc players , VCRs or video game consoles , among others. The AVR source selection and settings such as volume, are typically set by

330-425: A plug-in for Pro Tools and Cubase ) or a suitably equipped large format audio mixing console such as AMS Neve 's DFC or Harrison 's MPC5. The Dolby Atmos sound system consists of a compatible speaker system, a TV or AV media player, and an AV receiver (or preprocessor ), with a Dolby Atmos object audio renderer. During playback, each theater's Dolby Atmos system renders the audio objects in real time based on

440-620: A remote controller . The term " receiver " basically refers to an amplifier , typically at least a two-channel stereo model, that has a built-in radio tuner . With A/V receivers, the basic functionality is to receive an audio signal, amplify the audio signal to drive multiple speakers and allow pass-through of the corresponding video signal to a display device such as a projector or a television. The receiver performs tasks that would otherwise require numerous separate pieces of equipment, such as preamplifiers, equalizers, multiple power amplifiers, and so on. As home entertainment options expanded in

550-441: A 3-channel setup (LCR), as many of these techniques already contain a center microphone or microphone pair. Microphone techniques for LCR should, however, try to obtain greater channel separation to prevent conflicting phantom images between L/C and L/R for example. Specialised techniques have therefore been developed for 3-channel stereo. Surround microphone techniques largely depend on the setup used, therefore being biased towards

660-409: A 9.1 (commonly referred to as 7.1.2) channel-based "bed" channels for ambience stems or center dialogue, leaving 118 tracks for objects. Atmos for home in film, television, and music uses a technique called "spatial coding" to reduce the audio to up to a maximum of 16 concurrent "elements" or audio location clusters, that adapt to the content dynamically. In Atmos games ISF ( Intermediate Spatial format )

770-455: A Decca Tree and two surround microphones. Two additional omnidirectional outriggers can be added to enlarge the perceived size of the orchestra or to better integrate the front and surround channels. The L, R, LS and RS microphones should be placed in a square formation, with L/R and LS/RS angled at 45 degrees and 135 degrees from the center microphone respectively. Spacing between these microphones should be about 1.8 meters. This square formation

880-408: A baffle is used for separation between the front left and right channels, which are 30 cm apart. Outrigger omnidirectional microphones, low-pass filtered at 250 Hz, are spaced 3 meters apart in line with the L and R cardioids. These compensate for the bass roll-off of the cardioid microphones and also add expansiveness. A 3-meter spaced microphone pair, situated 2–3 meters behind front array,

990-624: A full-frequency range and, as such, there is no need for an LFE in surround music production, because all the frequencies are available in all the main channels. These labels sometimes use the LFE channel to carry a height channel. The label BIS Records generally uses a 5.0 channel mix. Channel notation indicates the number of discrete channels encoded in the audio signal, not necessarily the number of channels reproduced for playback. The number of playback channels can be increased by using matrix decoding . The number of playback channels may also differ from

1100-414: A halls, side reflections are essential. Appropriate microphone techniques should therefore be used, if room impression is important. Although the reproduction of side images are very unstable in the 5.1 surround setup, room impressions can still be accurately presented. Some microphone techniques used for coverage of three front channels, include double-stereo techniques, INA-3 (Ideal Cardioid Arrangement),

1210-520: A higher resolution such as 720p (720 lines per frame with all lines in normal sequence 0,1,2...719). AV receivers though primarily used for amplification may or may not have an inbuilt AM/FM radio tuner among other features such as LAN connectivity for various Internet applications and some with multi-room audio solutions. Even though some AVRs may have an AM/FM tuner it is not a primary or mandatory function as an AVR still remains an amplifier. Some models have HD Radio tuner. Also some models may have

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1320-531: A home theater format and is the audio component of Dolby Cinema . Electronic devices from 2016 onwards, along with smartphones starting in 2017, have included support for Dolby Atmos recording and mixing capabilities. The full set of technical specifications for Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos are standardized and published in ETSI TS 103 420. In 2016 Power was the first television show natively mixed and broadcast in Atmos for its third season, though in

1430-465: A listener location ( sweet spot ) where the audio effects work best and presents a fixed or forward perspective of the sound field to the listener at this location. Surround sound formats vary in reproduction and recording methods, along with the number and positioning of additional channels. The most common surround sound specification, the ITU 's 5.1 standard , calls for 6 speakers: Center (C), in front of

1540-399: A live performance may use multichannel techniques in the context of an open-air concert, of a musical theatre performance or for broadcasting ; for a film , specific techniques are adapted to movie theater or to home (e.g. home cinema systems). The narrative space is also a content that can be enhanced through multichannel techniques. This applies mainly to cinema narratives, for example

1650-406: A master of We Were Soldiers which featured a Sonic Whole Overhead Sound soundtrack. This mix included a new ceiling-mounted height channel . Ambisonics is a recording and playback technique using multichannel mixing that can be used live or in the studio and which recreates the soundfield as it existed in the space, in contrast to traditional surround systems, which can only create illusion of

1760-530: A mixing board specially designed in cooperation with Solid State Logic , based on 5000 series and including six channels. Respectively: A left, B right, C centre, D left rear, E right rear, F bass. The same engineer had already achieved a 3.1 system in 1974, for the International Summit of Francophone States in Dakar , Senegal. Surround sound is created in several ways. The first and simplest method

1870-407: A monophonic power amp for their subwoofer or obtains a powered subwoofer cabinet containing an integrated power amplifier. Audio amplifier power, normally specified in watts, is not always as significant as it may seem from the specification. Due to the logarithmic nature of human hearing, audio power or sound pressure level (SPL), must be increased by ten times to sound twice as loud. This is why SPL

1980-558: A new sound bar with built-in Dolby Atmos technology named AMBEO sound bar at the 2019 CES in Las Vegas. The sound bar utilizes analysis of a room's reflective characteristics to enable a single-unit 5.1.4 setup. On May 17, 2021, Apple Music announced the addition of spatial audio with support for Dolby Atmos and lossless audio. The feature was introduced to Apple Music users on Apple devices starting from June 7, 2021. Dolby Atmos

2090-596: A similar technology, Neo:6 . These decoders have become common on most current receivers. As the number of playback channels was increased on receivers, other decoders have been added to some receivers. For example, Dolby Labs created Dolby Pro Logic IIx to take advantage of receivers with more than five channels of playback. With the introduction of high definition players (e.g. Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD ), yet more decoders have been added to some receivers. Lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoders are available on many receivers. While Dolby Digital has been

2200-411: A single RCA plug on each end. Composite video is standard on all AV receivers allowing for the switching of video devices such as VHS players, cable boxes, and game consoles. DVD players may be connected via composite video connectors although a higher bandwidth connection is recommended. S-Video connections offer better quality than composite video. It uses a DIN jack. SCART connections generally offer

2310-646: A special agreement between EA and Dolby Laboratories . This game uses HDMI bit streaming from the PC to deliver Atmos audio to consumer Audio-Visual Receivers. Overwatch and Battlefield 1 for PC also have Atmos audio. On the Xbox One , Crackdown 3 and Gears of War 4 support Atmos. Dolby Atmos for Music, an audio-only iteration of the format was adopted by streaming music services Tidal (uses E-AC3) and Amazon Music in December 2019. Sennheiser launched

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2420-415: A square, ideally placed far away and high up in the hall. Spacing between the microphones should be between 1–3 meters. The microphones nulls (zero pickup point) are set to face the main sound source with positive polarities outward facing, therefore very effectively minimizing the direct sound pickup as well as echoes from the back of the hall The back two microphones are mixed to the surround channels, with

2530-408: A stereo recording to parse out individual sounds to component panorama positions, then positions them, accordingly, into a five-channel field. However, there are more ways to create surround sound out of stereo, for instance with the routines based on QS and SQ for encoding Quad sound, where instruments were divided over 4 speakers in the studio. This way of creating surround with software routines

2640-477: A subwoofer for the Low Frequency Effects (LFE) channel, that is low-pass filtered at 120 Hz. The angles between the speakers have been standardized by the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) recommendation 775 and AES (Audio Engineering Society) as follows: 60 degrees between the L and R channels (allows for two-channel stereo compatibility) with the center speaker directly in front of

2750-415: A turntable with a magnetic cartridge, although many receivers are lacking this input. In the last years, since vinyl players are gaining popularity, there are some manufacturers of A/V receivers which are offering a phono input on some models. Some receivers also have a selector for either MM/MC cartridge type, or even an impedance selector for cartridge, or some may have more than one phono input. This feature

2860-488: A two-dimensional (2-D) sound field with headphones. A third approach, based on Huygens' principle , attempts reconstructing the recorded sound field wave fronts within the listening space; an "audio hologram" form. One form, wave field synthesis (WFS), produces a sound field with an even error field over the entire area. Commercial WFS systems, currently marketed by companies sonic emotion and Iosono , require many loudspeakers and significant computing power. The 4th approach

2970-417: A variety of different types of encoding formats. The first common soundtrack format was Dolby Pro Logic , a surround sound processing technology. This format contains a center channel and a surround channel mixed into the left and right channels using a process called matrixing, providing a total of four channels. Receivers with Dolby Pro Logic decoders can separate out the center and surround channels from

3080-456: A virtual source, based on level differences between two loudspeakers to the side of a listener, shows great inconsistency across the standardised 5.1 setup, also being largely affected by movement away from the reference position. 5.1 surround is therefore limited in its ability to convey 3D sound, making the surround channels more appropriate for ambience or effects. ) 7.1 channel surround is another setup, most commonly used in large cinemas, that

3190-452: Is a compromise between the ideal image creation of a room and that of practicality and compatibility with two-channel stereo. Because most surround sound mixes are produced for 5.1 surround (6 channels), larger setups require matrixes or processors to feed the additional speakers. The standard surround setup consists of three front speakers LCR (left, center and right), two surround speakers LS and RS (left and right surround respectively) and

3300-717: Is also used on some devices that do not have a height channel, such as headphones , televisions , mobile phones , and tablets . The first Dolby Atmos installation was in the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles , for the premiere of Brave in June 2012. Throughout 2012, it saw a limited release of about 25 installations worldwide, with an increase to more than 300 locations in 2013. As of October 2022, there were over 10,000 Dolby Atmos enabled cinema screens, installed, or committed to. Dolby Atmos has also been adapted to

3410-431: Is an improvement on the previous Dolby Headphone technology, allowing infinite channels of sound to be processed into a virtual surround experience. Windows 10 version 1703 ("Creators Update") added platform-level support for spatial sound processing, including Windows Sonic for Headphones and Dolby Atmos for Headphones. Dolby Atmos for headphones requires a license to function which can be purchased or redeemed inside

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3520-779: Is being considered for merging .›   In June 2014, Dolby Laboratories' hardware partners announced the introduction of Dolby Atmos technology for home theaters Following this announcement, Dolby Atmos-enabled movies became accessible through Kaleidescape 's movie players. A public demonstration of Dolby Atmos in a home theater setting took place during the CEDIA Expo 2014, utilizing a Trinnov Audio Altitude 32 processor. Several audio equipment manufacturers, including Denon , Marantz , Onkyo , Pioneer , and Yamaha introduced products compatible with Dolby Atmos, ranging from high-end home cinema receivers and preamplifiers to mid-range home-theater-in-a-box (HTiB) packages. On June 4, 2018, it

3630-466: Is commonly called upconversion or transcoding . A smaller number of receivers provide for de-interlacing of video signals. For example, a receiver with upconversion, deinterlacing and upscaling can take an interlaced composite signal at 480i (480 lines per frame sent as a field of 240 even numbered lines 0,2,4,8...478 followed by a field of 240 odd numbered lines 1,3,5,...479) and convert it to component video while also deinterlacing and upscaling it to

3740-515: Is compatible with 5.1 surround, though it is not stated in the ITU-standards. 7.1 channel surround adds two additional channels, center-left (CL) and center-right (CR) to the 5.1 surround setup, with the speakers situated 15 degrees off centre from the listener. This convention is used to cover an increased angle between the front loudspeakers as a product of a larger screen. Most 2-channel stereophonic microphone techniques are compatible with

3850-515: Is currently common). The Apocalypse Now encoder/decoder was designed by Michael Karagosian, also for Dolby Laboratories . The surround mix was produced by an Oscar-winning crew led by Walter Murch for American Zoetrope . The format was also deployed in 1982 with the stereo surround release of Blade Runner . The 5.1 version of surround sound originated in 1987 at the famous French Cabaret Moulin Rouge . A French engineer, Dominique Bertrand used

3960-458: Is effective for the pickup of audience and ambience. All the above-mentioned microphone arrays take up considerable space, making them quite ineffective for field recordings. In this respect, the double MS (Mid Side) technique is quite advantageous. This array uses back to back cardioid microphones, one facing forward, the other backwards, combined with either one or two figure-eight microphone. Different channels are obtained by sum and difference of

4070-458: Is mainly offered to allow people owning a turntable to connect it and listen to their vinyl collection. Most receivers will only play in stereo, either front or main speakers, but some receivers may play on all speakers depending on the manufacturer and model. Digital connections allow for the transmission of PCM , Dolby Digital or DTS audio. Common devices include CD players, DVD players, or satellite receivers. Composite video connections use

4180-672: Is measured on a logarithmic scale in decibels (dBs). An increase of 10dBs results in a perceived doubling of loudness. Another complication with human hearing is that as the SPL decreases the perceived volume of the low and high frequencies decreases faster than the central frequencies around 2 kHz. There are different standards for rating amplifier power depending on country, manufacturer, and model. Other factors also come into play: distortion, headroom, and speaker efficiency. Some lower-price point manufacturers advertise an amplifier's peak power, rather than its root mean square (RMS) power. Thus, it

4290-572: Is normally referred to as "upmixing", which was particularly successful on the Sansui QSD-series decoders that had a mode where it mapped the L ↔ R stereo onto an ∩ arc. There are many alternative setups available for a surround sound experience, with a 3-2 (3 front, 2 back speakers and a Low Frequency Effects channel) configuration (more commonly referred to as 5.1 surround) being the standard for most surround sound applications, including cinema, television and consumer applications. This

4400-448: Is now fully supported on Android with Windows support coming in the future. Streaming services like Netflix , Disney+ , Vudu , Apple TV+ , Amazon Prime Video and Max stream movies and TV shows in Dolby Atmos. The application of Atmos in home theatres differs from cinemas primarily because of restricted bandwidth and a shortfall in processing power. A spatially-coded sub-stream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus or

4510-430: Is possible for an amplifier with a specified lower power to sound louder than an amplifier with a specified higher power. Because of these factors, it is not easy to compare the perceived loudness of amplifiers solely from their specified power in watts. AV receivers usually provide one or more decoders for sources with more than two channels of audio information. This is most common with movie soundtracks, which use one of

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4620-621: Is present as metadata in Dolby MAT 2.0, an LPCM-like format. This sub-stream is an efficient representation of the full, original object-based mix. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital signal with panning metadata. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channels and uses the spatially-encoded object audio sub-stream to mix the audio presentation to match the installed speaker configuration. There are programs from Dolby that handle 128 objects (including 118 dynamic objects and 10 beds) for macOS and Windows. To reduce

4730-474: Is responsible for the room impressions. The center channel is placed a meter in front of the L and R channels, producing a strong center image. The surround microphones are usually placed at the critical distance (where the direct and reverberant field is equal), with the full array usually situated several meters above and behind the conductor. The NHK (Japanese broadcasting company) developed an alternative technique also involving five cardioid microphones. Here

4840-467: Is standard on current AV receivers. When Dolby Labs and DTS introduced technologies to add a rear center surround channel, these technologies found their way into AV Receivers. Receivers with six amplifiers (known as 6.1 receivers) will typically have both Dolby and DTS's technologies. These are Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES . Dolby introduced Dolby Pro Logic II to allow stereo sources to play back as if they were encoded in surround sound. DTS introduced

4950-421: Is typical for 2-channel stereo, due to phase differences at the two ears of a listener. The centre channel is especially used in films and television, with dialogue primarily feeding the center channel. The function of the center channel can either be of a monophonic nature (as with dialogue) or it can be used in combination with the left and right channels for true three-channel stereo. Motion Pictures tend to use

5060-452: Is used for the surround channels. The centre channel is again placed slightly forward, with the L/R and LS/RS again angled at 45 and 135 degrees respectively. The OCT-Surround (Optimum Cardioid Triangle-Surround) microphone array is an augmented technique of the stereo OCT technique using the same front array with added surround microphones. The front array is designed for minimum crosstalk, with

5170-422: Is used to distinguish the multi-channel audio/video receiver (home theater receiver) from the simpler stereo receiver, though the primary function of both is amplification. AV receivers may also be known as digital audio-video receivers or digital media renderers . The AV receiver is classified as an audio frequency electronic amplifier . But with the addition of several features in the 2000s, AV receivers in

5280-408: Is used, which supports 32 total active objects (using a 7.1.4 bed, 20 additional dynamic objects can be active). Each object specifies its apparent source location in the theater as a set of three-dimensional rectangular coordinates relative to the defined audio channel locations and theater boundaries. Dolby Atmos home theaters can be built upon conventional 5.1 and 7.1 layouts. For Dolby Atmos,

5390-431: Is using a surround sound recording technique—capturing two distinct stereo images, one for the front and one for the back or by using a dedicated setup, e.g., an augmented Decca tree —or mixing-in surround sound for playback on an audio system using speakers encircling the listener to play audio from different directions. A second approach is processing the audio with psychoacoustic sound localization methods to simulate

5500-494: Is using three mics, one for front, one for side and one for rear, also called Double MS recording . The Ambisonics form, also based on Huygens' principle , gives an exact sound reconstruction at the central point; however, it is less accurate away from the central point. There are many free and commercial software programs available for Ambisonics, which dominates most of the consumer market, especially musicians using electronic and computer music. Moreover, Ambisonics products are

5610-941: The Beats brand. Dolby Atmos has smartphone implementations for devices including but not limited to the iPhone XS / XR and later (when running iOS 13 or later) and almost all Samsung smartphones and tablets released after the Samsung Galaxy S9 . Other smartphones and tablets with Dolby Atmos include the Razer Phone and Razer Phone 2 , the ZTE Axon 7, Sony Xperia 1 , Lenovo K4 Note , Lenovo Vibe K5 Note , Lenovo K8 Note , Huawei P20 , Huawei P30 , Poco F3 , Realme XT , Realme X2 Pro , Realme 6 Pro , Realme X7 Max , Realme Pad, Nokia 6 , OnePlus 7 , OnePlus 7T , OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8T , and Moto G8 , Moto G32 , and Redmi Note 13 Pro . Implementations in phone use both

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5720-657: The Decca Tree setup and the OCT (Optimum Cardioid Triangle). Surround techniques are largely based on 3-channel techniques with additional microphones used for the surround channels. A distinguishing factor for the pickup of the front channels in surround is that less reverberation should be picked up, as the surround microphones will be responsible for the pickup of reverberation. Cardioid, hypercardioid, or supercardioid polar patterns will therefore often replace omnidirectional polar patterns for surround recordings. To compensate for

5830-547: The Iannis Xenakis -designed Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair , also used spatial audio with 425 loudspeakers used to move sound throughout the pavilion. In 1957, working with artist Jordan Belson , Henry Jacobs produced Vortex: Experiments in Sound and Light - a series of concerts featuring new music, including some of Jacobs' own, and that of Karlheinz Stockhausen , and many others - taking place in

5940-600: The 1950s, the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen experimented with and produced ground-breaking electronic compositions such as Gesang der Jünglinge and Kontakte , the latter using fully discrete and rotating quadraphonic sounds generated with industrial electronic equipment in Herbert Eimert 's studio at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Edgar Varese 's Poème électronique , created for

6050-423: The 1980s and 1990s, so did the role of the receiver. The ability to handle a variety of digital audio signals was added. More amplifiers were added for surround-sound playback. Video switching was added to simplify changing from one device to another, though this role diminished again once TVs began supporting multiples of the same type of input connector. The term audio/video receiver (AVR) or Home Theater Receiver

6160-439: The 2010s generally have significant additional functionality. Stereo receivers have two channels of amplification (thus two separate amplifiers), while AV receivers may have more than two. The standard for AV receivers is five channels of amplification (thus five separate amplifiers), usually referred to as 5.1 receivers. This provides for a left, right, center, left surround sound and right surround sound speaker to be powered by

6270-431: The 5.1 surround setup, as this is the standard. Surround recording techniques can be differentiated into those that use single arrays of microphones placed in close proximity, and those treating front and rear channels with separate arrays. Close arrays present more accurate phantom images, whereas separate treatment of rear channels is usually used for ambience. For accurate depiction of an acoustic environment, such as

6380-529: The Disney studio's animated film Fantasia . Walt Disney was inspired by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 's operatic piece Flight of the Bumblebee to have a bumblebee featured in his musical Fantasia and also sound as if it was flying in all parts of the theatre. The initial multichannel audio application was called ' Fantasound ', comprising three audio channels and speakers. The sound was diffused throughout

6490-625: The Dolby Access app. Some branded headphones designed explicitly to deliver better audio quality exist, but users can use their normal headphones or earphones so long as the decoding device uses Atmos, or the audio track itself has been previously downmixed. With the release of third-generation AirPods in October 2021, Apple added support for Dolby Atmos, branded Spatial Audio , to all AirPods (including earlier hardware generations), AirPods Pro , AirPods Max , and most headphones marketed under

6600-621: The ITU Rec. 775. Dimensions between the front three microphone as well as the polar patterns of the microphones can be changed for different pickup angles and ambient response. This technique therefore allows for great flexibility. A well established microphone array is the Fukada Tree, which is a modified variant of the Decca Tree stereo technique. The array consists of five spaced cardioid microphones, three front microphones resembling

6710-531: The ITU-R BS. 775-1, with 5.1 surround. The 3-1 channel setup (consisting of one monophonic surround channel) is such a case, where both LS and RS are fed by the monophonic signal at an attenuated level of -3 dB. The function of the center channel is to anchor the signal so that any central panned images do not shift when a listener is moving or is sitting away from the sweet spot. The center channel also prevents any timbral modifications from occurring, which

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6820-416: The L, R and LS, RS channels. The disadvantage of this approach is that direct sound pickup is quite significant. Many recordings do not require pickup of side reflections. For Live Pop music concerts a more appropriate array for the pickup of ambience is the cardioid trapezium. All four cardioid microphones are backward facing and angled at 60 degrees from one another, therefore similar to a semi-circle. This

6930-406: The LFE channel is not the subwoofer channel ; there may be no subwoofer and, if there is, it may be handling a good deal more than effects. Some record labels such as Telarc and Chesky have argued that LFE channels are not needed in a modern digital multichannel entertainment system. They argue that, given loudspeakers that have low frequency response to 30 Hz, all available channels have

7040-421: The LFE channel. Also, if there is no subwoofer speaker present then the bass management system can direct the LFE channel to one or more of the main speakers. Because the low-frequency effects (LFE) channel requires only a fraction of the bandwidth of the other audio channels, it is referred to as the .1 channel; for example 5.1 or 7.1 . The LFE channel is a source of some confusion in surround sound. It

7150-476: The Lucid Air sedan from Lucid Motors . Dolby Atmos is adaptable and can be played back on various speaker setups. As well, many audio products provide additional support for Dolby Atmos. The technology has been licensed to other brands by Dolby. Since its launch, the Dolby Atmos format has been used by/affiliated with several companies in consumer technology as well as major film productions. This has added to

7260-671: The Morrison Planetarium in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Sound designers commonly regard this as the origin of the (now standard) concept of "surround sound." The program was popular, and Jacobs and Belson were invited to reproduce it at the 1958 World Expo in Brussels. There are also many other composers that created ground-breaking surround sound works in the same time period. In 1978, a concept devised by Max Bell for Dolby Laboratories called "split surround"

7370-455: The best quality video at standard-definition, due to the use of pure RGB signalling (although composite and S-Video may alternatively be offered over a SCART connector). SCART provides video and audio in one connection. Component video has become the best connection for analog video as higher definitions such as 720p have become common. The YPbPr signalling provides a good compromise between resolution and colour definition. HDMI has become

7480-514: The binaural headphone technology and the dual loudspeaker virtual surround sound implementation, similar to that used in Dolby Atmos TVs and Soundbars. NIO ET7 comes standard with Dolby Atmos. On November 16, 2021, NIO announced that Dolby Atmos will be standardized on all NIO ET7s, the smart flagship electric sedan of the company, combined with a 7.1.4 immersive sound system. Dolby's first implementation of Atmos in an automobile will be

7590-407: The bit rate in Dolby Atmos, nearby objects and speakers are grouped into clusters known as aggregate objects, which are then dynamically panned through a process referred to as spatial coding by Dolby. The audio from the original objects can be distributed across multiple aggregate objects to preserve the original objects' sound power and position. Filmmakers have control over the spatial resolution and

7700-399: The center channel for monophonic purposes with stereo being reserved purely for the left and right channels. Surround microphones techniques have however been developed that fully use the potential of three-channel stereo. In 5.1 surround, phantom images between the front speakers are quite accurate, with images towards the back and especially to the sides being unstable. The localisation of

7810-442: The cinema, controlled by an engineer using some 54 loudspeakers. The surround sound was achieved using the sum and the difference of the phase of the sound. However, this experimental use of surround sound was excluded from the film in later showings. In 1952, "surround sound" successfully reappeared with the film "This is Cinerama", using discrete seven-channel sound, and the race to develop other surround sound methods took off. In

7920-550: The content would typically be synthetic noise produced by the computer device in interaction with its user. Significant work has also been done using surround sound for enhanced situation awareness in military and public safety application. Commercial surround sound media include videocassettes , DVDs , and SDTV broadcasts encoded as analog matrixed Dolby Surround compressed Dolby Digital and DTS , and lossless audio such as DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD on HDTV Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD , which are identical to

8030-434: The conventional 5.1 arrangement, for a total of four surround channels and three front channels, to create a more 360° sound field. Most surround sound recordings are created by film production companies or video game producers; however some consumer camcorders have such capability either built-in or available separately. Surround sound technologies can also be used in music to enable new methods of artistic expression. After

8140-412: The de facto standard for passing video and audio on AV receivers. Features supported through HDMI may include pass-through of 4K , 8K , and HDR video, audio return channel (ARC) , enhanced audio return channel (eARC) , variable refresh rate (VRR) , and pass-through of object-based audio formats such as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X . Some AV Receivers can convert from one video format to another. This

8250-586: The degree of clustering when using the Dolby Atmos Production Suite tools. Additionally, Dolby Digital Plus has been updated to include Atmos extensions. Dolby Atmos also has headphone implementations for PCs, the Xbox One , the Xbox Series X/S , and mobile phones. They work by using audio processing algorithms to convert the Atmos object metadata into a binaural 360° output using the usual two headphone speakers. This technique

8360-420: The failure of quadraphonic audio in the 1970s, multichannel music has slowly been reintroduced since 1999 with the help of SACD and DVD-Audio formats. Some AV receivers , stereophonic systems, and computer sound cards contain integral digital signal processors or digital audio processors to simulate surround sound from a stereophonic source (see fake stereo ). In 1967, the rock group Pink Floyd performed

8470-510: The figure-eight and cardioid patterns. When using only one figure-eight microphone, the double MS technique is extremely compact and therefore also perfectly compatible with monophonic playback. This technique also allows for postproduction changes of the pickup angle. Surround replay systems may make use of bass management , the fundamental principle of which is that bass content in the incoming signal, irrespective of channel, should be directed only to loudspeakers capable of handling it, whether

8580-482: The first-ever surround sound concert at "Games for May", a lavish affair at London ’s Queen Elizabeth Hall where the band debuted its custom-made quadraphonic speaker system. The control device they had made, the Azimuth Co-ordinator , is now displayed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum , as part of their Theatre Collections gallery. The first documented use of surround sound was in 1940, for

8690-410: The front array. If echoes are notable, the front array can be delayed appropriately. Alternatively, backward facing cardioid microphones can be placed closer to the front array for a similar reverberation pickup. The INA-5 (Ideal Cardioid Arrangement) is a surround microphone array that uses five cardioid microphones resembling the angles of the standardised surround loudspeaker configuration defined by

8800-401: The front left and right microphones having supercardioid polar patterns and angled at 90 degrees relative to the center microphone. It is important that high quality small diaphragm microphones are used for the L and R channels to reduce off-axis coloration. Equalization can also be used to flatten the response of the supercardioid microphones to signals coming in at up to about 30 degrees from

8910-426: The front of the array. The center channel is placed slightly forward. The surround microphones are backwards facing cardioid microphones, that are placed 40 cm back from the L and R microphones. The L, R, LS and RS microphones pick up early reflections from both the sides and the back of an acoustic venue, therefore giving significant room impressions. Spacing between the L and R microphones can be varied to obtain

9020-544: The front two channels being mixed in combination with the front array into L and R. Another ambient technique is the IRT (Institut für Rundfunktechnik) cross. Here, four cardioid microphones, 90 degrees relative to one another, are placed in square formation, separated by 21–25 cm. The front two microphones should be positioned 45 degrees off axis from the sound source. This technique therefore resembles back to back near-coincident stereo pairs. The microphones outputs are fed to

9130-439: The intent to create the 3-D stereo experience of being present in the room with the performers or instruments. The idea of a three dimensional or "internal" form of sound has developed into technology for stethoscopes creating "in-head" acoustics and IMAX movies creating a three dimensional acoustic experience. AV receiver An audio/video receiver ( AVR ) or a stereo receiver is a consumer electronics component used in

9240-403: The known locations of the loudspeakers present in the target theater, such that each audio object is heard as originating from its designated set of coordinates. By way of contrast, conventional multichannel technology essentially burns all the source audio tracks into a fixed number of channels during post-production. This has conventionally forced the re-recording mixer to make assumptions about

9350-538: The latter are the main system loudspeakers or one or more special low-frequency speakers called subwoofers . There is a notation difference before and after the bass management system. Before the bass management system there is a Low Frequency Effects (LFE) channel. After the bass management system there is a subwoofer signal. A common misunderstanding is the belief that the LFE channel is the "subwoofer channel". The bass management system may direct bass to one or more subwoofers (if present) from any channel, not just from

9460-548: The left and right channels. With the introduction of the DVD , the Dolby Digital format became a standard. Dolby Digital ready receivers included inputs and amplifiers for the additional channels. Most current AV receivers provide a Dolby Digital decoder and at least one digital S/PDIF input which can be connected to a source which provides a Dolby Digital output. A somewhat less common surround sound decoder called DTS

9570-435: The listener. The Surround channels are placed 100–120 degrees from the center channel, with the subwoofer's positioning not being critical due to the low directional factor of frequencies below 120 Hz. The ITU standard also allows for additional surround speakers, that need to be distributed evenly between 60 and 150 degrees. Surround mixes of more or fewer channels are acceptable, if they are compatible, as described by

9680-600: The listener; Left (L) and Right (R), at angles of 60°; Left Surround (LS) and Right Surround (RS) at angles of 100–120°; and a subwoofer , whose position is not critical. Though cinema and soundtracks represent the major uses of surround techniques, its scope of application is broader than that, as surround sound permits creation of an audio-environment for all sorts of purposes. Multichannel audio techniques may be used to reproduce contents as varied as music, speech, natural or synthetic sounds for cinema, television , broadcasting, or computers. In terms of music content for example,

9790-412: The lost low-end of directional (pressure gradient) microphones, additional omnidirectional (pressure microphones), exhibiting an extended low-end response, can be added. The microphone's output is usually low-pass filtered. A simple surround microphone configuration involves the use of a front array in combination with two backward-facing omnidirectional room microphones placed about 10–15 meters away from

9900-427: The nomenclature differs slightly by an additional number at the end, that represents the number of overhead or Dolby Atmos enabled speakers: a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system is a conventional 7.1 layout with four overhead or Dolby Atmos enabled speakers. The simplest Dolby Atmos setup is 3.1.2, the most complex one is 24.1.10. Dolby Atmos content is authored using compatible digital audio workstation software (Dolby supplies

10010-429: The number of full-range channels in front of the listener, separated by a slash from the number of full-range channels beside or behind the listener, with a decimal point marking the number of limited-range LFE channels. E.g. 3 front channels + 2 side channels + an LFE channel = 3/2.1 The notation can be expanded to include Matrix Decoders . Dolby Digital EX, for example, has a sixth full-range channel incorporated into

10120-441: The number of speakers used to reproduce them if one or more channels drives a group of speakers. Notation represents the number of channels, not the number of speakers. The first digit in "5.1" is the number of full range channels. The ".1" reflects the limited frequency range of the LFE channel. For example, two stereo speakers with no LFE channel = 2.0 5 full-range channels + 1 LFE channel = 5.1 An alternative notation shows

10230-404: The original movie theater implementation, the LFE was a separate channel fed to one or more subwoofers. Home replay systems, however, may not have a separate subwoofer, so modern home surround decoders and systems often include a bass management system that allows bass on any channel (main or LFE) to be fed only to the loudspeakers that can handle low-frequency signals. The salient point here is that

10340-416: The overall availability of content for Dolby Atmos' users. Surround sound The technique enhances the perception of sound spatialization by exploiting sound localization : a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance. This is achieved by using multiple discrete audio channels routed to an array of loudspeakers . Surround sound typically has

10450-447: The playback environment that may not apply very well to a particular theater. The addition of audio objects allows the mixer to be more creative, to bring more sounds off the screen, and be confident of the results. The first-generation cinema hardware, the "Dolby Atmos Cinema Processor", supports up to 128 discrete audio tracks and up to 64 unique speaker feeds. The technology was initially created for commercial cinema applications, and

10560-441: The receiver. In the 2010s, 7.1 receivers became more common and provided for two additional surround channels, left rear surround and right rear surround. The .1 refers to the LFE (low-frequency effects/bass) channel, the signal of which is usually sent to an amplified subwoofer unit. 5.1 and 7.1 receivers do not usually provide amplification for this channel. Instead, they provide a line level output. The user then either buys

10670-413: The required stereo width. Specialized microphone arrays have been developed for recording purely the ambience of a space. These arrays are used in combination with suitable front arrays, or can be added to above mentioned surround techniques. The Hamasaki square (also proposed by NHK) is a well established microphone array used for the pickup of hall ambience. Four figure-eight microphones are arranged in

10780-548: The reverb as if the audio were being played in the places through use of surround sound and echo effects. There are a variety of possible connections on an AV receiver. Standard connectors include: Analog audio connections usually use RCA plugs in stereo pairs. Inputs and outputs are both common. Outputs are provided mainly for cassette tape decks. Analog audio connections using XLR (Balanced) connectors are uncommon, and are usually found on more expensive receivers. Some receivers are also equipped with phono inputs, for connecting

10890-640: The same year, Game of Thrones up-mixed their previous 5.1 presentations for the Blu-ray reissue. R.E.M. 's 1992 album Automatic for the People was the first major music release with its 25th anniversary reissue in 2017. In 2022, Dolby Atmos partnered with NetEase to offer spatial audio to the Chinese music streaming market. The partnership will entail NetEase to implement Atmos support on compatible smartphones and vehicles. Dolby Atmos technology allows

11000-445: The soundfield if the listener is located in a very narrow sweetspot between speakers. Any number of speakers in any physical arrangement can be used to recreate a sound field. With 6 or more speakers arranged around a listener, a 3-dimensional ("periphonic", or full-sphere) sound field can be presented. Ambisonics was invented by Michael Gerzon . Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with

11110-495: The speech of the characters of a film, but may also be applied to plays performed in a theatre, to a conference, or to integrate voice-based comments in an archeological site or monument. For example, an exhibition may be enhanced with topical ambient sound of water, birds, train or machine noise. Topical natural sounds may also be used in educational applications. Other fields of application include video game consoles, personal computers and other platforms. In such applications,

11220-545: The standard for television and video games, Dolby Digital Plus has been adopted for online streaming services such as Netflix, and adds a much higher bit rate and can support more channels. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X adds in ceiling height channels. Most receivers offer specialized digital signal processors (DSP) made for handling various presets and audio effects. Some may offer simple equalizers and balance adjustments to complex DSP audio field simulations such as "Hall", "Arena", "Opera", etc. that simulate or attempt to replicate

11330-469: The standard in surround sound hardware sold by Meridian Audio . In its simplest form, Ambisonics consumes few resources, however this is not true for recent developments, such as Near Field Compensated Higher Order Ambisonics. Some years ago it was shown that, in the limit, WFS and Ambisonics converge. Finally, surround sound can also be achieved by mastering level, from stereophonic sources as with Penteo , which uses digital signal processing analysis of

11440-399: The storage and distribution of 128 audio tracks with metadata describing sound properties such as position and volume (and their variation over time). The audio mix is rendered specifically for the theater's setup using the loudspeakers available. Each audio track can be assigned to an audio channel, the conventional format for distribution, or to an audio "object". Dolby Atmos in theaters has

11550-513: The studio master. Other commercial formats include the competing DVD-Audio (DVD-A) and Super Audio CD (SACD) formats, and MP3 Surround . Cinema 5.1 surround formats include Dolby Digital and DTS . Sony Dynamic Digital Sound (SDDS) is an 8 channel cinema configuration which features 5 independent audio channels across the front with two independent surround channels, and a Low-frequency effects channel. Traditional 7.1 surround speaker configuration introduces two additional rear speakers to

11660-521: The two rear channels with a matrix . This is expressed: 3 front channels + 2 rear channels + 3 channels reproduced in the rear in total + 1 LFE channel = 3/2:3.1 The term stereo , although popularised in reference to two channel audio, historically also referred to surround sound, as it strictly means "solid" (three-dimensional) sound. However this is no longer common usage and "stereo sound" almost exclusively means two channels, left and right. In accordance with ANSI/CEA-863-A In 2002, Dolby premiered

11770-419: Was announced by Apple that tvOS12 for Apple TV 4K would support Dolby Atmos when released in fall 2018. Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers are available in two configurations: The first movie to be released on Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos was Transformers: Age of Extinction , at least for its original English-language audio presentation. The first video game to use Dolby Atmos was Star Wars: Battlefront with

11880-417: Was later adapted to home cinema . In addition to playing back a standard 5.1 or 7.1 mix using loudspeakers grouped into arrays, the Dolby Atmos system can also give each loudspeaker its own unique feed based on its exact location, thereby enabling many new front, surround, and even ceiling-mounted height channels for the precise panning of select sounds such as a helicopter or rain. ‹The template How-to

11990-440: Was originally developed to carry extremely low sub-bass cinematic sound effects (e.g., the loud rumble of thunder or explosions) on their own channel. This allowed theaters to control the volume of these effects to suit the particular cinema's acoustic environment and sound reproduction system. Independent control of the sub-bass effects also reduced the problem of intermodulation distortion in analog movie sound reproduction. In

12100-490: Was tested with the movie Superman . This led to the 70mm stereo surround release of Apocalypse Now , which became one of the first formal releases in cinemas with three channels in the front and two in the rear. There were typically five speakers behind the screens of 70mm-capable cinemas, but only the Left, Center and Right were used full-frequency, while Center-Left and Center-Right were only used for bass-frequencies (as it

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