What is Dolby Atmos? Everything You Need To Know

dolby atmos you see the logo everywhere but what does it actually mean [Music] hey there i'm caleb dennison and you've probably at least heard of dolby atmos by now you see the logo all kinds of places it's at your local theater it may be on your soundbar you see it on the tv boxes at costco i mean even apple music is getting into dolby atmos but what is dolby atmos and why should you care that's what i'm here to explain before i get into it though do you remember the first time you heard surround sound where was it do you remember what movie it was let me know down in the comment section so we can chat about that and if you like this video would you do me a favor and please click the like button so we can get this info out to more people also consider subscribing because we've got all kinds of great tech reviews and explainers on this channel that you might be interested in thanks so much for your time okay let's do dolby atmos [Music] so dolby atmos made its debut in a handful of commercial movie theaters in 2012 along with the release of disney pixar's animated movie brave i was lucky enough to go to one of those few theaters and hear dolby atmos myself and i was blown away to me dolby atmos is what i always felt like surround sound should have been and actually i think that may be the best way to describe dolby at most it's the surround sound you always thought you were getting but actually weren't to explain let's take a quick look at how surround sound in commercial theaters and home theaters has evolved over the past few decades let's start with 5.1 surround sound because i think that's something most folks are familiar [Music] with here's our home theater with 5.1 surround sound we get stereo channels up front on the left and the right then we add a center channel right in the middle then we get a surround channel on the left and a surround channel on the right then we need a subwoofer for the base that's the point one part there you go one two three four five point one notice though that i used the word channels not speakers because channels are not speakers in the representation of a home theater we have one speaker per channel of sound but in a commercial theater we might need like eight speakers on the right and eight speakers on the left so that everyone in the audience gets to hear those surround speakers equally well more on that in just a second 5.1 then expanded to 7.1 we have all the same channels as 5.1 but now we add rear channels on the back wall once around back left and once around back right and again in our home theater we probably just have space for one speaker per channel but if you look around in your local commercial theater there may be three or four speakers on each side of that back wall now count them up one two three four five six seven and point one makes seven point one here's the thing though as i mentioned before in a commercial theater there's just one channel of sound for all those speakers on the left wall one channel for all the speakers on the right wall and so on what does that mean exactly well let's say we have a helicopter because who doesn't love helicopters in an action flick unless of course you're the one clinging onto one for dear life anyway if the helicopter on the screen goes from right in front of you and flies off to the left and behind you then the sound will probably start in the center speaker move to the left front speaker and then move to the left surround speakers then move to the left surround back speakers and this way it more or less sounds like the chopper flew off behind you to your left but the thing is in 5.1 or 7.1 when the helicopter sound moved to the left surround speakers in the theater all of those speakers played the exact same sound same with the left surround back they all played the same sound at the same time so basically you're lighting up the entire left hand side of the room then the entire back left of the room all at once and you know what we loved it surround sound was awesome but atmos makes it better first off dolby atmos adds height channels to our theater room now at home that might be just two speakers or four speakers and we expressed this as 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 or if you have those surround back speakers in play it could be 7.1.2 or 7.1.4 okay now we get a top-down effect rain might sound like it's coming from above if our helicopter does a flyover we'll actually hear it fly over us because there are speakers over us in adobe atmos home theater now in a commercial theater there may be way more than just four speakers up on the ceiling if you ever get to look in one when the lights are on you may see 16 speakers up there depending on how big the room is there could be even more now lots of folks think that's what dolby atmos is and that it stops there but it doesn't there's another level here remember what i said with standard dolby surround i mentioned all the speakers on the left side of the room played the same helicopter sound at the same time well with dolby atmos they aren't restricted like that that's because dolby atmos is what is called object-based surround sound to explain we'll go with something smaller than a helicopter as our object let's go with a fly if a fly is buzzing around the room in adobe atmos theater that fly's buzzing sound can be represented by any speaker in the room at any given time independently or together that means if the fly moves like our helicopter did it can fly from the center speaker to the left front speaker to the first left surround then the second left surround then the third then the fourth then the fifth and so on then up onto one of the ceiling speakers buzz around any of those ceiling speakers then over to the right side of the room and so on you get it that fly buzz can be in any one speaker at a time or any multiples of speakers at a time and when you get that kind of independent control that means you can place any sound object that you want in three-dimensional space using coordinates and that's what dolby atmos is about it's about three-dimensional surround sound with immense control over where that sound is located no matter how many speakers you have up to 128 of them actually all based on sound coordinates i've been to dolby's labs down in california i've seen how dolby atmos sound is mixed and this is kind of a simplification but you can kind of use a joystick to steer sounds around in three-dimensional space it's really like that and it's so fun now in your home theater you don't have that many speakers maybe if you're fortunate you have a 7.1.4 system that's nine channels of sound and a subwoofer but the chip in an av receiver knows that and knows how to position surround effects so that you get surround sound very much like you would in a commercial theater adobe atmos surround sound can be small or scaled up huge so that's how dolby ammo started it started in theaters then made its way into our homes and to get it in your home you can use a receiver and speakers with up firing drivers that bounce sound off the ceiling for those height effects or you can install in ceiling speakers up there if you want sound bars now support those up firing speakers too so you can have a dolby atmos soundbar system that delivers something like you might get in a theater but then we start seeing dolby atmos logos on stuff that don't have up firing speakers in fact your tv may say dolby atmos sound on it or then there's apple music doing dolby atmos music what's that all about well to a certain extent that is technology licensing your devices need to support dolby atmos for you to get it with anything for starters but then there is scaled down dolby at most you can still get a dolby atmos effect from just two speakers it's virtual i mean it's kind of faked or it uses psychoacoustics to make it work but dolby atmos now takes many forms i think from one standpoint it's a brand move you can trust dolby atmos is going to provide great sound no matter how many speakers you have but from a technology standpoint there is processing involved and that processing is super smart it knows your device's capabilities and adapts sounds so that you can get surround sound from just about anything some dolby atmos implementations are more impressive than other atmos implementations obviously a virtual dolby atmos sound bar isn't going to sound as impressive as a full on dolby atmos home theater system and both of those are going to sound better than just a tv speaker claiming to offer dolby atmos but no matter how many speakers dolby atmos tends to sound bigger more expansive and more three-dimensional adobe atmos for games game changer dolby atmos music insanely fun now as with most tech topics dolby atmos goes much deeper than this but hopefully you understand now how dolby atmos aims to bring that enveloping 360 degree three-dimensional surround sound experience to us in a way that we've always hoped to have but never quite got before thanks as always for watching everyone if you like this video please smack the like and subscribe button so we can continue to grow this channel and here's two other videos i think you might like

Channel: Digital Trends

Views: 408,323

Keywords: what is dolby atmos, dolby atmos explained, dolby atmos, what is dolby audio, dolby atmos review, dolby, dolby atmos music, object based surround sound, dolby atmos sound, dolby atmos home theater, audio advice home theater, home theater ideas, home theater, surround sound system, dolby atmos soundbar, home theater sound system, surround sound, home theater setup, home theater system, home theater room, home theater speakers, home theater subwoofer

Id: XfSj4wIcLIY

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Abi1i]

Because I see a lot of people coming to this subreddit asking about Dolby Atmos, here’s a decent (and overly simplified) video that explains what Dolby Atmos is and it’s various flavors.