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DOLBY ATMOS... Can you tell me what this is all about?


rasputin1963

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I wish Craig wasn't kidding. Though I recall hearing of a theater recently that had a promotion that gave a discount to patrons who sat through the movie without using their phone. I wonder how it works. Does an usher who sees you using a phone chop off a finger, and they ask to see your hand on the way out?

Atmos is a surround system that supports up to 64 speaker channels. The idea behind it is that with more speakers, they can be closer together, allowing more precise location of a sound regardless of where you're sitting in the theater. The Dolby trick (there's always a trick when it's Dolby) is that not every theater has to be wired for 64 channel sound. If they have the Atmos decoder, an Atmos encoded film will play back as good as the theater speaker setup allows. The same distribution will play in a theater with just center, left, and right speakers as well as one with speakers all over the place (in the prescribed layout, of course).

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Quote Originally Posted by scarecrowbob View Post
Sorry to be off topic, but I think that this is more interesting than higher-res surround audio...

you don't need to jam phones, just have standards:

OMG... That is too damn funny. I lived in Austin for awhile: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE is an arthouse cinema. haha... They're proud, I guess, of a certain snootiness...
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Quote Originally Posted by MikeRivers View Post
I wish Craig wasn't kidding. Though I recall hearing of a theater recently that had a promotion that gave a discount to patrons who sat through the movie without using their phone. I wonder how it works. Does an usher who sees you using a phone chop off a finger, and they ask to see your hand on the way out?

Atmos is a surround system that supports up to 64 speaker channels. The idea behind it is that with more speakers, they can be closer together, allowing more precise location of a sound regardless of where you're sitting in the theater. The Dolby trick (there's always a trick when it's Dolby) is that not every theater has to be wired for 64 channel sound. If they have the Atmos decoder, an Atmos encoded film will play back as good as the theater speaker setup allows. The same distribution will play in a theater with just center, left, and right speakers as well as one with speakers all over the place (in the prescribed layout, of course).
Thanks, Mike. I notice that my local cinema-- Santikos PALLADIUM at The Rim in San Antonio--- is apparently participating in this new ATMOS thang. Let's hope ATMOS is more thrilling than the two 3D flicks I saw there at $18 a pop. The first 3D movie I saw there broke down mid-showing. I never did find out how the damn thing ended. The second one, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, was projected in a brightness so very, very dark and low-contrasty... That I swear I couldn't make out half of what was on the screen. I guess ATMOS means louder SFX during inscrutable 3D...?


Don't you wonder who is doing the Sound Mixing on 64 different channels? And using what app? And exporting to what kind of file?
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Quote Originally Posted by rasputin1963

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OMG... That is too damn funny. I lived in Austin for awhile: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE is an arthouse cinema. haha...

 

Yah, AD is pretty damn cool from what I hear (I've worked on more movies in San Antonio that I have seen there; we don't get out much biggrin.gif ). Apparently, you can get a beer and some food whilst watching movies, and they show older films in addition to current films. I have a lot of love for businesses built on providing a better experience for people.
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Quote Originally Posted by scarecrowbob View Post
Yah, AD is pretty damn cool from what I hear (I've worked on more movies in San Antonio that I have seen there; we don't get out much biggrin.gif ). Apparently, you can get a beer and some food whilst watching movies, and they show older films in addition to current films. I have a lot of love for businesses built on providing a better experience for people.

They yearly screen 1939's THE WIZARD OF OZ.... with the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. Austin's pierced and tatted and black-clad set line up for miles to see this {censored}...
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Quote Originally Posted by scarecrowbob View Post
Sorry to be off topic, but I think that this is more interesting than higher-res surround audio...

you don't need to jam phones, just have standards:

Flippin' hilarious. I haven't been to a conventional cinema since the early 90s, and I don't expect to any time soon. But if I get the bug, I'm goin' out to Austin to the Drafthouse. (BTW, what's with the name -- is it a theatre attached to a brew bar?)
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Quote Originally Posted by rasputin1963 View Post
Thanks, Mike. I notice that my local cinema-- Santikos PALLADIUM at The Rim in San Antonio--- is apparently participating in this new ATMOS thang. Let's hope ATMOS is more thrilling than the two 3D flicks I saw there at $18 a pop. The first 3D movie I saw there broke down mid-showing. I never did find out how the damn thing ended. The second one, ALICE IN WONDERLAND, was projected in a brightness so very, very dark and low-contrasty... That I swear I couldn't make out half of what was on the screen. I guess ATMOS means louder SFX during inscrutable 3D...?

[...]
That's a darn shame. I was a little wary putting in the DVD of Alice in Wonderland, since it was a contrived sequel with reinvention on its mind and had all the Big Movie trappings (obligatory Johnny Depp appearance -- just kidding, he was great as the Hatter)-- but I found it to be quite charming, really, actually touching (OK, when the Bandersnatch gets its eye back, I got a little weepy). I've seen it a couple times now and I like it better each time. thumb.gif

PS... it looked even better on Netflix streaming, for the most part. Unfortunately, it's not up there currently. Hopefully they'll cycle it back through. I notice stuff comes and goes and comes back at times.
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Alamo Drafthouse is a great place - they even take care to show movies with the proper settings for the projectors (2D vs 3D, etc) which is unheard of these days.

They are expanding bigtime after decades of having just a couple locations - there is even now one about 2 miles away from where I live out just southwest of the city limits. I hope with expansion they don't start dropping their standards.

You sit behind a long tabletop that runs the length of the aisle. So you don't have to hear gramma's dentures clicking behind your ear while she works on her gummy bears. Yeah - beer, food, amusing preview shorts, good sound, and yes PLEASE SHUT THE #$* UP DURING THE MOVIE thank you very much. There are all the other theatres in town you can go to and text/chat/talk/and generally be irritating to your heart's content.

They show tons of mainstream stuff, not just college-town art house stuff by any means.

They do charge more - worth it IMHO.

nat whilk ii

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Just as a footnote: D'you know what kind of cinema I'm holding out for? Cinema-in-the-round. In which there is an 360deg movie going on all around you. Totally immersive, even scarily, unnervingly so. In the age of digital, it can't be too far away. Cinemas since 1960 have long been wondering what they could do to pry Mom, Dad & The Kids away from the home TV set.... This would do it, I'd think.

I attended a cinema scope showing of 1962's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in California in the 90's.... extremely widescreen. But I'm talking about a full 360deg of seamless cinema action. (and, of course, ATMOS 64-channel audio).

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Quote Originally Posted by rasputin1963 View Post
Just as a footnote: D'you know what kind of cinema I'm holding out for? Cinema-in-the-round. In which there is an 360deg movie going on all around you. Totally immersive, even scarily, unnervingly so. In the age of digital, it can't be too far away. Cinemas since 1960 have long been wondering what they could do to pry Mom, Dad & The Kids away from the home TV set.... This would do it, I'd think.

I attended a cinema scope showing of 1962's LAWRENCE OF ARABIA in California in the 90's.... extremely widescreen. But I'm talking about a full 360deg of seamless cinema action. (and, of course, ATMOS 64-channel audio).
Disneyland had what I think they called the Circ-o-Rama (sp?) theater for a while in the early 60s (it disappeared before too long)... it was, as you describe -- although it was achieved with multiple individual rearview projection screens and synchronized projectors. I'm guessing there were probably 16-24 but it's quite hazy. I think it was all scenes of the park. It was... less than entirely compelling. Toward the end, there were often a projector or two MIA.

This seems similar... http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ca...re_%28VDNKh%29


Not too long after the D-land Circ-o-Rama experiment, a few 'curved' screen theaters popped up in SoCal under the Cinedome branding. They were actually three separate more or less equally sized screens joined in two seams that were always slightly noticeable. For a while they were supplied with films shot in whatever that format was called, I remember seeing a European Brothers Grimm movie when they first opened. Later, when those films stopped being made, they modified the screens so they could show regular 70 mm flix. (Last time I was in one, I think, I was seeing the 1968 Oliver! in its first release. Great little movie musical. A bit dark, but I guess we're used to that by now. Directed by the great Carole Reed, who also did the Third Man and a bunch of other classics.)
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Quote Originally Posted by blue2blue View Post
Disneyland had what I think they called the Circ-o-Rama (sp?) theater for a while in the early 60s (it disappeared before too long)... it was, as you describe -- although it was achieved with multiple individual rearview projection screens and synchronized projectors. I'm guessing there were probably 16-24 but it's quite hazy. I think it was all scenes of the park. It was... less than entirely compelling. Toward the end, there were often a projector or two MIA.
Circlevision was there right through the late nineties. It was pretty cool, actually. They had several different short movies they played in there.

ATMOS is a pretty good idea. As was said above, you can mix for up to 64 channels, but ATMOS will decode a mix in real time to match the number of available speakers in the theater.
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Quote Originally Posted by Anderton View Post
Hopefully it jams all cell phone transmissions in the theater, so anyone wanting to use one has to leave.

That would be the single biggest possible upgrade to the theater audio experience IMHO!
They used to jam cell phones in French movie theaters but stopped because people complained that somebody might need to be contacted in case of an emergency.

I don't get it. Nobody ever complained that they couldn't be contacted in a movie theater before cell phones existed. When I'm watching a movie I don't want to be contacted for any reason. Isn't the whole point of going to a movie so you can escape the real world for a couple of hours?

Cell phones are the main reason I don't go to movies anymore.
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Alamo Drafthouse is a fantastic theater. There's fair warning about texting or using your phone in the theater - there are reminders shown on screen before the movie begins, and as I recall, there are posters in the lobby as well. The reminder also indicates that you'll receive a verbal warning first, and if you use it again, they'll kick you out. I absolutely don't buy the "I was using my phone to find my seat" excuse used in the voicemail - unless the customer arrived after the movie already began, which is also extremely annoying. Speaking of which, the last time I saw a movie there, that on-screen reminder stated that starting next month, they will refuse entry to anyone who tries to enter after the movie has already started. I really don't think there's anything "snooty" about it. idn_smilie.gif Those kinds of things legitimately ruin the experience of being at the cinema, and I think it's great that they don't tolerate it.

The food and beer is excellent as well, and the whole experience is truly unique and awesome. It's really unfair to call it an "arthouse cinema" or construe it as some kind of artsy fartsy hipster place (unless it used to be extremely different?). They play mainstream movies (both old and new) and I don't think I've ever seen previews or announcements for pretentious, underground art flicks. The staff and the customers all seem like fairly normal people and not the kind of people you'd see at The Mohawk on a Thursday night. I wonder if anyone would call it an arthouse cinema if it was located anywhere other than Austin...but I know that's an easy stab to make. It's really a great place.

It also doesn't hurt that it's the closest theater to where I live. biggrin.gif But on that note, I should speak that I'm referring to the one located on Slaughter, and I haven't been to the others.

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