"We look at home": Dolby Atmos and his friends

Photo by Christian Collins / CC

In the 31st edition of the Sound podcast, we return to the topic of home cinema with Kerim Tatevian , an expert in home theater systems design.
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Alina: Let's start with new interesting technologies. The article, which was recently published in the Audiomania blog, was a vivid phrase that Dolby Atmos is a breath of air in an industry where there has been nothing new for a long time. Was the theater industry, or perhaps the home theater sound industry, stagnated for a while before Atmos appeared?

Kerim: Right. This is exactly what can be said - this is a breath of fresh air, because about 30 years have passed since the surrounding formats appeared. We all know them, these formats have long been in theaters and many at home in systems.

Their essence is such that the columns are located around [the listener]. In everyday life, this is called "sound around." And now there is a new dimension. The sound came from above. That is, now he really completely surrounds the person.

We live in a world in which sound comes from everywhere. And earlier in cinemas, it was distributed only in the horizontal plane. Now the atmosphere is created in the cinema hall, very close to the live sound. Therefore, of course, this is a breakthrough.

For almost 30 years [in the field of cinema sound], only the number of channels has been increased. In the end, this tendency came to a logical conclusion: everyone understood that it makes no sense to increase the number of channels anymore, because there are no such rooms where all this can be installed.

For home receivers, the maximum number of channels is 9. Several films came out in 9.1 or 9.2 format. The last sensational premiere in this format is Gladiator. You can imagine how many years ago it was.

Alina: About 15 years.

Kerim: During this time, the sound became better in terms of its reproduction, the bit depth increased. And in atmospheric manifestations there was stagnation. And now Dolby ... in fact, several companies released new [immersive] formats at once, which added a vertical dimension. But Dolby is now leading the market, of course. They are all overtaken.

The principle of creating a sound atmosphere is different from what it was before. Previously, it was a discrete system: the sound director assigned which sound from which speaker to go. If the soundtrack was recorded in 5.1 format, it was optimal to listen to it on the 5.1 system.

Dolby Atmos for cinema halls is written on the basis that there are 64 speakers, for home theaters their number decreases, but the number of speakers itself does not matter. There are sound objects. And no matter how many speakers are on top, the sound, if the plane on the screen takes off from the bottom left and flies right overhead, it still “flies” through the number of speakers you have. The processor built into the receiver will recalculate everything as needed.

Alina: That is, conditionally, the sound engineer now does not say where the sound should come from, does he operate with some more vivid concept?

Kerim: Yes, he simply assigns to the objects that the sound appears at the bottom left and goes through from the top to the right. The processor recounts everything itself. Therefore, these processors are quite powerful. This became possible due to the general development of the entire microprocessor industry.

Alina: What other interesting breakthrough technologies are appearing along with Dolby Atmos? What else should I pay attention to?

Kerim: There is now practically nothing in the sound [except immersive formats] ... These formats are still so new - people don’t really know about them. Market professionals are just starting to pay attention to this.

Honestly, I have been working in this industry for a long time. We’ve been talking about immersing formats for a couple of years, but I’m hard to remember for projects like personal cinemas at Dolby Atmos. Many still prefer the usual configuration.

Nevertheless, as it was written in the Audiomania blog, an upgrade of existing technologies to Dolby Atmos is possible in principle, it should be provided for. This is a future from which one cannot escape.

If you have a serious system, and you do not want it to become outdated over time, and maybe you don’t have enough money, or you don’t understand why you need it in the ceiling, it’s better to throw the wires there anyway. When you understand, you have to do much less, just drill holes, insert columns and change the receiver to a modern one.



The complete set for creating a home theater Onkyo HT-S5805 allows you to play sound in Dolby Atmos, in configuration 5.1.2. The supplied receiver is equipped with a 4K Ultra HD output.

Alina: Has the interest in the cinema theme as a whole changed in the last 10-15 years? Based on the number of publications in popular literature, this topic was at its peak in the 2000s: it was fashionable to write about home theaters, they were talked about a lot in some design programs about home improvement, provided for these things [during repair].

Then the amount of information began to decrease. From the point of view of users, has the interest in home theaters changed and changed at all?

Kerim: I can say that at first it was an interest related to the need to saturate the market. The market was saturated, it was scarce. We never had a home theater system. And now people began to receive funds, premises that could be equipped for cinema halls. Of course, it all became massively covered in the media. Special magazines covered it widely. And not special, as you said.

Now home theater has become a phenomenon more or less trivial, people have become accustomed. This makes no informational occasion. By the way, the story of Dolby Atmos has strongly fueled interest in the theatrical theme. Appeared about what to write. It’s not interesting to write about two additional channels of surround sound, of course, but about a whole new sound change is much more interesting.

Previously, there was a fashion for cinemas, it was believed that if a person has a house, there should be a cinema hall. Ticked, and then people did not go there and did not watch the movie, they did not need it. But there was a cinema. Now there are fewer customers of cinema halls, but those who order approach this consciously. They are enthusiasts.

Their demands are growing. Cinemas have become less, but they are more expensive, and not just due to more expensive equipment, but due to the constructive, acoustic processing, design. They are getting closer to the "big" cinema halls.

Alina: The audience, perhaps, has slightly changed quantitatively, but also qualitatively it has changed, and for the better.

Kerim: Yes, of course. Even now, many people want to have a surround sound at home, but not everyone has a place to place the speakers. Therefore, top manufacturers produce various life-friendly devices, for example, sound bars.

This is a device that combines three speakers, and you just need to add a pair of rear speakers, or do without them, and a subwoofer, and get the additional sound quality of the film.

Alina: We started talking about the sound in the house, apartment. One of the most painful issues is soundproofing of the room in which the home theater is located. Is there any minimum, for example, for an apartment to be provided for?

Kerim: I now do not remember the number in decibels - how much noise should spread outside the apartment, but we must very seriously address the issue of sound insulation in the apartment. Because if you install a serious system in your own, then you will listen to it loudly anyway. Quiet movie no one is watching. Quiet movies are watched only on the phone with headphones in the subway. And so always cut in loudly.

Neighbors will be unhappy. Therefore, it is necessary to provide for the amount of work on sound insulation. And it is better to do it at the repair stage. It is necessary, however, to sacrifice some part of the area, because this is a three-dimensional construction - the room will decrease by several centimeters around the perimeter. On the other hand, if this is a special room, this should be done.

Alina: First of all, it would be nice to see the standards for sound insulation.

Kerim: Yes. If you yourself do, then you yourself must attend to. And installers, professionals who work in the market, are familiar with all these regulations.

Alina: Even the installer knows in advance where the wires should be and provide all these questions.

Kerim: Of course, at the design stage. Work on the installation of a cinema system, wherever it is, in the living room or in a separate room, naturally requires some kind of project. Without a project, everything is degrading, you can not get what you wanted.

Alina: The first task of a person who has become interested in this topic is to attend to the project.

Kerim: Yes. When we talk about some serious systems, when a person wants to get some definite result, of course, design is necessary.

If we say that people are often called "home cinema" - a set of equipment from one box - then, of course, no design is necessary. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the simplest things: so that “the sound was around,” as we say, so that the TV does not stand in front of the window and does not glare. And if we are talking about a personal cinema, of course, there should be an architectural, engineering project.

Alina: Regarding the sets out of the box: if a person is only interested in the topic of home theater and good sound, how much is a set out of the box a good option to get started?

Kerim: Of course, we have to start with something. Naturally, this is better than just watching TV. Surround effects will be transmitted on this set of speakers. You will find yourself inside some kind of action, inside a virtual scene. Another thing - the quality and requirements. But if you just want to join the movie, this is most likely what you need to start.

Alina: Maybe it is better to buy a minimum set of expensive equipment at once, and then gradually increase it? Or is it better to first try some kind of boxed version, and then update it completely?

Kerim: The question is how interested people are in this. If a person already knows what he needs, if he likes the surround sound in a movie, then you can go the first way. First, purchase high-quality components, then increase them, if there is no money for everything at once.

If a person wants to simply join and understand whether he needs it or not, then it is better to immediately buy a complex system in order to immediately feel the “environment”. And then take her to the country house and, if you realized that you need it, buy something more expensive, better.

Alina: Is there a place in the showroom of Audiomania where you can come and listen to how it sounds?

Kerim: In Audiomania prepared showrooms where you can listen to completely different systems. There is a screen and a projector. You can collect any columns of any configuration.



Listening room in Audiomanya salon (St. Petersburg)

Alina: That is, a person who is theoretically interested, can not just imagine in his head how it will be, but come and listen to the result.

Kerim: Naturally, yes. You can come and listen to everything in the cabin of Audiomania. If you live in another city - from a dealer who sells home theaters and electronics. The main thing - to understand yourself, you need it or not.

It often happens that a person comes to the store. For a long time he still does not sit there, he will listen to a couple of fragments - he seems to like it, bought it. At home, he is already thinking: “Why do I need this?” And disappointment comes. To avoid this, you can try to experiment on some simple system - “live” with it. I do not know if this is correct from a marketing point of view, but from a household, everyday life, this is more correct.

Alina: So you have to live with the cinema first?

Kerim: Of course. Maybe you do not need it. You know, there are a lot of people who don’t have a cinema at all, they watch themselves on a cinema laptop and are happy.

Alina: There is another option, when a person thinks that he needs a cinema, he sees it as an attribute of his better life, and then it turns out that he has no time to watch a movie.

Kerim: Right. There are years of non included systems. Familiar installers told me that they were called to objects and said: "They turned on and did not work." The installer enters the hardware room, and there is a layer of dust as thick as a finger. He asks when was the last time they turned on, and they answered him: “So you turned it on when you installed it.”

That is, people have never been there for 3 years, maybe. This is what happened before when the cinema halls were made “for the sake of a tick”. And so, of course, before you invest significant funds, you must try for yourself. Because if you aspire to the cinema, you need to talk about the screen, the projector, the large diagonal of the TV. This is a significant investment. Therefore, it is better to start with a budget option.

Alina: In general, it is important to understand how the cinema and this type of leisure activity in general fit into the lifestyle of a particular person.

Kerim: Yes. It’s good that the technology now allows in almost any room to arrange a home theater, multichannel sound. I looked at the American project: a man made a cinema in his bedroom. He has a hidden projector installed there, the screen is retractable. He lies and watches the movie. All acoustics are built in, nothing distracts from sleep. It looks like an ordinary bedroom. However, it has multichannel sound.



Screen for projector Digis Electra

Alina: When we were preparing one of the materials about sound in general, we got a rather interesting discussion about the philosophy of listening to music or watching a movie in the bedroom. This is a completely different experience compared to, for example, from the living room.

Now the question is about such a “non-sound” component of the cinema as a screen. It is clear that it is necessary that the screen does not shine, that it is somewhere where it will be dark enough for the picture to be bright. Considering that in Russia in summer, the sun shines for quite a long time, how can we make it so that in summer we can watch movies in high quality?

Kerim: Reflect screens at TVs. It is better not to put the TV in front of the window, so that what is happening in the window is not reflected in it, because the surfaces of television displays are glossy. If there is no such possibility, and you want to watch a movie on TV, then you need to come up with some kind of blackout, not as significant as with a projector, but still.

Naturally, you need to lower and draw the curtains when watching a movie, so that there is no glare. Glare annoying. They make it difficult to enjoy the brightness, contrast of the TV. In the case of the screen and the projector, this is a serious blackout, because the external light strongly affects the beam of the projector. This should be avoided.

Alina: So the projected picture itself changes?

Kerim: Yes. It becomes less bright, and you do not get the full amount of what you would like to receive. When using the projector is the most important. It is necessary to black out.

Alina: We need to attend to some kind of blackout. It does not have to be any special systems?

Kerim: There are curtains, there are roller blinds, there are special curtains for blackouts, which are lowered along the guides so that there are no gaps at all. If the funds allow, it is convenient to do this in a motorized manner so that the curtains are lowered from the console. There are drawn curtains with a special substrate that does not let in light.

Alina: We have dealt with the curtains. It is interesting now to move from the equipment and the technical part of the issue to the content. How often do people who buy cinemas buy them not for cinema, but for watching mass sports events? Are the wishes of such people different?

Kerim: Wishes are different. There is a question in screen formats. The format we are used to is 16: 9, which broadcasts on it. If people are more likely to watch television programs than movies, it makes sense to use such a screen as the main one. If a person wants to watch a movie, he needs to buy another screen, a cinema format, the ratio is 2.35: 1.

Alina: That is, different screen sizes are responsible for their purpose.

Kerim: Yes. Films are shot in a wide format. Television programs - in a format that is more familiar to us, more “stretched out” upwards.

Alina: Then another point for those who want to think about watching a video with a home theater effect is to understand what content you prefer: TV shows or movies.

Kerim: In principle, people want to get, of course, a universal system and use as a source either a server that plays high-resolution content from a file, or a Blu-Ray player that plays Blu-Ray-discs.

In this case, there is usually a set-top box, which allows you to play high-definition television. It rarely happens when users say they don’t need to watch television.

Alina: Are there any common alternatives to Blu-Ray discs? Or is this the only best quality format for a home cinema?

Kerim: There are still high definition broadcasts. But in Russia they are not. There is a high-definition television, it is in standard high definition, but super-high definition is not.

Alina: So for now, we are looking at Blu-Ray discs and what comes out to them.

Kerim: Blu-ray discs too little, but with Russian content and they do not. I mean 4K format.

Alina: How do film fans come then?

Kerim: Kinomans are waiting for such discs to start coming out. The fact is that in the West 4K format is already actively used. In Japan, the 2020 Olympic Games will be broadcast in 8K resolution.

Alina: I, frankly, can not even imagine how much it will be different.

Kerim: This is so that you can increase the screen size. The 8K format will broadcast some mega-screens.

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• : « »
• Home Cinema: An Alternative to the Big Cinema Screen
• How audio equipment gets on store shelves
• Dolby Atmos: The Future of Cinemas