Dolby Atmos Music on Blu-ray

[MagnumX]

Binaural would be awesome if it worked correctly. I have sound effects discs where it sounds like real life wearing headphones, all outside your head. Getting a haircut or having bees land in your ears makes you wince at times (especially the bees!)

However, I've found music mixes never work for me (even tracks on the sane CD like my Aldebaran one). There might be some sounds outside my head here and there, but never as far or anywhere near as believable as the sound effects. I don't know if my head/ears are too different from the dummy head or computer model they used to generate the sounds that puts music mostly still inside my head or it's some other factor.

How well do binaural mixes work for others on here? Many Atmos discs come with them these days (e.g. Both recent Booka Shade Atmos albums for example as well as this Gordian Knot album, although that one makes it harder to get to).

 

[AYanguas]

MagnumX said:
(Apparently, they're meant to be accessed with the address of a Network connected Blu-Ray player from a Web Browser, but you can just copy them as files from a computer BD drive without having to Rip/Dump like the primary Atmos/Auro/DTS content.

Interesting, I'll have to take a second look at mine.
I only have a conventional 5.2.4 Atmos speaker layout so can't really comment on the Atmos vs Auro files.

That is the mShuttle technology:
mShuttle — Pure Audio

 

[MagnumX]

MagnumX said:
(Apparently, they're meant to be accessed with the address of a Network connected Blu-Ray player from a Web Browser, but you can just copy them as files from a computer BD drive without having to Rip/Dump like the primary Atmos/Auro/DTS content.




That is the mShuttle technology:
mShuttle — Pure Audio

Yes, but I don't have a network connected bluray player, but as I said, it's actually jus stored on the Bluray in the data section, accessible from any computer Bluray drive, Mac, PC or Linux.

I've confirmed the FLAC files are 24/96 lossless stereo versions of the album including the bonus track "Cannonball Run" and the binaural tracks are lossless WAV files at 24/48.

Hopefully, I'll have time to listen to the album tonight.

I also recently found out that KODI V19 Matrix can read .BDA files directly now in music mode, so you can use MKVToolnix to extract just the audio and save some space even if it's just blank video anyway and this then lets the visualizer function as well. I'm not a fan of the bright white pictures on Steven Wilson's The Future Bites (washes out my starry sky/cloud projector) so this will let me play the Atmos album without visuals.

 

[HomerJAU]

I also recently found out that KODI V19 Matrix can read .BDA files directly now in music mode

Kodi 19 will play tagged m4A files with Atmos from its audio library, so these just appear as ‘normal’ audio files just like FLAC files. Music Media Helper will convert the MKV file to tagged m4a files pretty quickly.

M4A is an mpeg container that can hold a copy of the BD audio stream.

 

[Sal1950]

Yes, but I don't have a network connected bluray player, but as I said, it's actually jus stored on the Bluray in the data section, accessible from any computer Bluray drive, Mac, PC or Linux.

I'm surprised the record labels allowed it ???
We all know ripping CD's is childs play today, but still --------------------

 

[MagnumX]

I'm surprised the record labels allowed it ???
We all know ripping CD's is childs play today, but still --------------------

They're meant to be played on mobile or your computer. They're essentially like unprotected CDs, although slightly better quality (not that 24/48 or 24/96 means jack on the playback side). They didn't offer the Atmos mix like that or anything.

 

[MagnumX]

Kodi 19 will play tagged m4A files with Atmos from its audio library, so these just appear as ‘normal’ audio files just like FLAC files. Music Media Helper will convert the MKV file to tagged m4a files pretty quickly.

M4A is an mpeg container that can hold a copy of the BD audio stream.

Since when is there broad support for storing Atmos in m4a files outside of Apple's MAT + DD Plus? This is the first I'm hearing about it.

Handbrake won't put TrueHD inside M4A and KODI takes 3-4x longer to start an M4A movie than a MKV one in general in my experience. I used M4V to keep compatibility with iTunes fo a long time (1st gen ATV) and I regret it now. The Zidoo X9S won't play even DTS stored inside M4V from its own player.

Atmos Blurays can have the chapter names stored in MKV easily enough and then stripping out BDA shows up the same in KODI as a cue-wav combo, but without the delays in changing tracks (or you can leave them as video files and use the bookmark button to switch tracks instantly for Bluray music.

I see no obvious advantage to going back Apple's lame format when they refuse to support standards other than their own home brew formats.

I've also never heard of the program you mentioned. Is it free? Is it supported on Macs?

Edit:

From what I've read, there's no simple Mac software to do M4V with TrueHD/Atmos except command line FFMpeg. There's also the question of gapless playback (MKA being one file is gapless). I've got two tagging capable programs for MKV so it's not much of an issue. Some of my Atmos music has video as well so it's a pain either way. Fortunately, with only 45 multichannel albums total, they're not that hard to keep track of. I don't do playlists at home, only in the car. Now Atmos support in the car would be nice...

 

[MagnumX]

I'll say one thing that disappoints me with KODI is that after all these years it still cannot play a visualizer with pass-through material (i.e. DTS, TrueHD/Atmos, Auro-3D, etc.) It seems it either has to be a stereo format or FLAC (or converted by KODI to something like AC3) to get a visualizer. You'd think they'd have some cheap/dirty decoding thing that could just get enough information to run the visualizers, but no. No. NO. You get a black screen. That was SO worth converting all my immersion albums to MKA only to get a black screen. I guess it's still better than Steven Wilson's blazing white screen on The Future Bites, but not by much. 2021 and no visualizers for surround sound. Amazing.

Another limitation of converting Immersion albums to either MKA or M4V is you cannot have more than one format stored in them like you can an MKV file (i.e. I can have Atmos, Auro-3D, DTS 5.1, AC-3 6.1 EX and FLAC 24/96 2.0 version of The Gordian Knot all in one file and just push the up direction on the Nvidia Shield remote to swap between them while playing.... I dunno. I save very little space getting rid of a recompressed black screen (instead of just dumping MKV I run Pure Audio Blu-Rays through Handbrake and use a ridiculous compression number for the video, so the black screens take up only a 100-300MB at most anyway.

 

[MagnumX]

I did comparisons on two tracks from Gordon Goodwin's The Gordian Knot, namely T.O.P Adjacent and Kneel Before Zod between Stereo, 5.1, Auro-3D and Atmos including some upmixers.

The album is 7.1+4 in Auro-3D which my Auro decoder doesn't support with rear surrounds except in Auro-2D mode, which I tried as well to verify what the rear surrounds were doing.

The bottom line is this. The only thing noticeably different at the MLP between Atmos and Auro was the lack of rears in Auro (which 2D mode verified is there for those with V2.0 Auro decoders and/or Auro 13.1).

I'm sure some Atmos systems would get even better support with more speakers than 7.4.1 compared to Auro, but overall hey sounded otherwise pretty similar. I'm sure they use the same master and convert. Surround 5.1 and 7.1 sounded slightly less airy (upmixers helped but Neural X put much of the band parts on the ceiling...too much. Sometimes Neural X is awesome with 5.1 surround music and sometimes there's too much up high). But it appears to be mostly reverb/room cues up high, at least on those two tracks (No crazy Yello synths up there). Frankly, 5.1 with DSU sounded almost as good as Atmos or Auro.

Even what is discrete in the rear surrounds is limited and a judgment call whether it sounded better closer by with a true 5.1 bed (e.g. My Auro presentation) as the room almost seemed too big (mine is 24' long) to have instruments back there and still pretend to be a live circle (The surround versions present like you're standing in the middle of the group arranged more or less as a circular pattern by the sounds of it).

Overall, the sound quality is fantastic and from what I've previewed thus far, I like the music selections more than straight jazz. It has more of a somewhat modernized 1930s style big band (some strings, synth and bass guitar thrown in that gives more of a modern take, but still has a big band sound more than a jazz ensemble, but then I'm hardly an expert on that style of music, but I do watch a lot of movies from the 1920s, '30s and '40s, which often feature big bands.

 

[AYanguas]

MISTER MOTO – The J.B. Experience – Dolby Atmos – Auro-3D

I received it today.

A good Dolby Atmos mix. Not as aggressive as Yello-Point, but it has a balance between the traditional and the discrete.

Almost all songs start with the traditional main sound at the fronts and ambience, echo, reverberation at the rears and tops. BUT then, as the songs evolve, you get a discrete placement of the instruments and chorus voices that gives a very high immersion and instruments separation.

Sometimes you hear an echo at the end of the voice in the rears and top rears, enough delayed, that seems either a repetition or an echo in a very large room. I like that effect.

What I like most is that it has a great use of the Wides. Sometimes you hear a guitar ‘only’ from the two Wides, very loud, and putting my ear next to the fronts, I only hear like a very small echo of that guitar. So, all that guitar sound is coming only from the Wides. It gives a really great wide and deep sound stage, and it is one of the few albums that locate much Atmos objects at the Wides position. Other being Big Phat Band – The Gordian Knot.

The main vocals are always exclusively at the Center speaker. Although the voice is good and clear enough, I miss a more expansive vocals, either stereo or using more speakers. Only in the middle of the last song, the slowest part of the song, there is a great main vocal that expands to more speakers and make the sonic bubble.

Why so many Atmos mixers consider that only instruments and not main vocals can be located and moved everywhere? I like very much when I hear voices, even only the main vocal, coming from different locations. The conservative way of only main vocal in the center and chorus in the rears is boring.

I only did a single complete listening yet. But I can conclude that I like enough the Atmos effects to enjoy this album, considering that this Rock, Alt. Rock is not one of my preferred music styles.

 

[MagnumX]

My Kraftwerk 3-D box set appears to have arrived today from North Carolina. I didn't have time to open it, but I'll hopefully have time tonight to check it out. I'll have to dump all the discs for Xidoo X9S playback, first though. That might take awhile.

Edit:

Wow. That box weighs probably over 10 pounds. Big-arse-book...of pictures. English or German, what difference does it make? It's a picture book.

Actual disc set, tiny by comparison. 4 discs.

 

[MagnumX]

So, it turns out two of the four discs are pretty much duplicates of the exact same songs (both sets of discs have the exact same tracks and Atmos, 5.1, stereo and stereo binaural audio tracks on them). The only difference between the two sets is instead of cutting to the live concert views of the guys on stage pretending to do things on their computers, it just shows the cheesy low quality, almost wireframe at times video renderings straight up instead. THAT is what I paid $216 for? The book is great for huge Kraftwerk fans, but it's just photos of the concert (you bought the disc to watch the concert, right?) and honestly, I don't need two versions of the same songs as the videos aren't that interesting.

My point is they could have sold the entire catalog on a 2-disc Blu-ray set (say the live concert only) for $30-45 and that would have been GREAT (both discs of the concert contain 70 tracks total and they're in 3D!) Instead they offered a 1-disc concert set with 18 tracks (which isn't even the equivalent of even one of the discs from the catalog box set and doesn't have a 3D video option). I feel like I paid about $150 too much so far and haven't even watched it yet. They didn't even throw in a CD copy like The Gordian Knot did. You have to buy that separate (I already have it, but for $175-200+ it just seems like it should have everything but the kitchen sink included). I wonder if I can find a buyer for two of four discs plus the book and recoup half my money....

 

[H.A.L.]

So, it turns out two of the four discs are pretty much duplicates of the exact same songs

There are multiple editions of this box set. I didn't get the book and mine cost a lot less. Scout around for a smaller box and then sell your big box a few years from now for a profit .

 

[CINERAMAX]

It turned out my John Williams disc is warped like DSOTM. Is this a German QC thing? Is the replacement disc going to be warped too?

 

[MagnumX]

It turned out my John Williams disc is warped like DSOTM. Is this a German QC thing? Is the replacement disc going to be warped too?

Warped? Like physically not flat? I don't think I've ever seen that before and I've ordered a lot of discs from Germany (and even more from the UK, some which were already imported from Germany as most Auro-3D titles seem to be made in Germany.

Certainly, my John Williams discs aren't warped, but I forget where I ordered mine from offhand. I'd have to double check my orders...

Edit: It appears I ordered John Williams Live in Vienna from Amazon USA, so I can't comment on the German one.

 

[CINERAMAX]

Well, it plays ok on the oppo but on my LG external USB, you can hear the disc clunking as it spins, the DSOTM disc that is notoriously defective behaves like that too. I believe the John Williams Disc as the DSOTM are both manufactured in Germany.

 

[MagnumX]

Well, it plays ok on the oppo but on my LG external USB, you can hear the disc clunking as it spins, the DSOTM disc that is notoriously defective behaves like that too. I believe the John Williams Disc as the DSOTM are both manufactured in Germany.

All I care about here is getting a clean dump of the disc. It can then rot in a box or on a shelf somewhere as I no longer have any need for it except legal backup reasons.

 

[CINERAMAX]

My sentiments exactly but no dump with John.

 

[MagnumX]

My sentiments exactly but no dump with John.

I thought Johns were for dumping.

 

[CINERAMAX]