How many of you can play MC flac files directly?

[OdysseyMusik]

FACE is what prompted me to post my initial query. I can't play the 7.1. I have no idea whether or not it is supposed to be Atmos.

Well the 5.1 mix of FACE is the main mix. From that the 7.1 was made by taking those instruments that was placed in the center line (equally front and rear signals) and put them to the side channels. I think it will be hard to hear the difference between the 5.1 and 7.1 mix, but I have only used Asus Strix 7.1 headphones for the 7.1 mix

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Do you think all the future generations of 3D audio will be encode - decode formats, like early generation surround sound audio? SQ, QS, Pro Logic, ect.

I think it makes sense for the producer/vendor because only one format needs to be produced and distributed. It makes similar sense for the consumer because there are minimal concerns about whether the format he purchases is compatible with his equipment.

 

[wrat]

Dolby Atmos - Wikipedia

Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not rendered the same way as in cinemas. A spatially-coded substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus or is present as metadata in Dolby MAT 2.0, LPCM like format. This substream 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, it also can do up to 118 dynamical simultaneous objects with 10 bed channels[33][34] and uses the spatially-encoded object audio substream to mix the audio presentation to match the installed speaker configuration.

In order to reduce the bitrate, nearby objects and speakers are clustered together to form aggregate objects, which are then dynamically panned in the process that Dolby calls spatial coding.[35] The sound of the original objects may be spread over multiple aggregate objects to maintain the power and position of the original objects. The spatial resolution (and hence the strength of the clustering) can be controlled by the filmmakers when they use the Dolby Atmos Production Suite tools. Dolby Digital Plus has also been updated with Atmos extensions.[7]

 

[himey]

You mean data compression if you are referring to disc size, right?
There's the max size of the disc.
There are the recognized formats for existing playback devices. (Many of them being 2 audio channels. Hence the creative encoding schemes to use those.)
And there is the max data rate that can be read off the disc. Data compression is required to comply with this as well as disc size.


There are lossless encoding schemes too. DTS-MA is 1:1 with the raw original multi channel file, for one example. Encoded isn't just synonymous with lossy.


It sounds like a great idea to me. Quite simply... The only thing better than some number of channels in your system is more channels!
I'm just disappointed that there's an element of greed running wild with trying to force hardware sales with this at its introduction. Want another dead format? Actively preventing people from listening to it unless they duplicate a healthy chunk of their system over again is a good way to do that!

No I didn't mean data compression, I was talking about the delivery to the top channels (not being discreet, unlike the bed channels). The word encode and the words data compression and/or lossy are totally different from my perspective. As @wrat pointed out, Dolby calls it spatial coding. I called it encode - decode, sorry. To me this format reeks of first generation, not unlike the early generation, surround sound formats I mentioned earlier. Beyond 5 channels on top and 5 bed channels (10 channels), in an average living room, it becomes a money grab by the hardware companies.

 

[humprof]

When bluray came about, you paid $50 to either MakeMKV or (I forget the other one) and Sony got their cut. (I'm aware that you can workaround that now with perpetual demo mode and so on. That's how they handled that back on day 1 anyway.)

Restricting Atmos to hardware interface sales like they are at present suggests they don't believe they have a format that will sell unless they go for tying it to hardware and use 'copy protection gone wild' strategies. I don't know what the hell anyone involved is thinking. That's obviously how it appears though. If someone thought they had a new format to sell, their first move wouldn't be to restrict availability.

So, Dolby. If you have a product and want people to check this out, you need to... release it! Then you can sell music in the format that people might want to buy. Dolby Labs must be using Sony's old playbook or something.

Only partly related to Jim's post, but I too am interested in seeing whether Dolby is ever going to promote Atmos in any other way visible to us consumers besides supporting the occasional release for streaming on Tidal & Amazon and the very occasional optical disc release.

It seems like downloads are also becoming an increasingly "niche" market, but the only Atmos tracks I was ever able to purchase (before Acoustic Sounds 86'd all of their music downloads) were in mp4 containers.

Beyond that: I've, uh, come into the possession of Atmos tracks ripped as m4a (and yeah--I understand that m4a is just Apple's name for mp4), m4v mislabeled as m4a, mka, and mkv. The only "video" in the m4v's and mkv's, though, was a screen-sized still image.

It would be great if there were an open-source industry standard--any industry standard--for Atmos file distribution and playback.