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[Bandyka]

Hello Fellow Audiophiles.

I am really enjoying version 21 it works great. I especially love the way music sounds its just absolutely fantastic. However I cannot say the same for Blu-ray and movies they sound dead flat. I suspect this is because the EQ is not being applied to movies but I could be wrong.

Any input appreciated. I have a full dedicated cinema room setup including Paradigm and KEF speakers full Atmos setup with an Onkyo TX-NR 3030 at the centre.

[CountryBumkin]

Are you playing Bluray "rips" or playing straight from the disk? If ripping, what file format are you using (i.e. m2ts, mkv, iso, etc.)?

[Bandyka]

I am using mostly discs but there are some rips such as the atmos demo disc. I'd like to be able to apply simple EQ adjustments only to any movie playback.

[mwillems]

It's sounds like he's trying to bitstream and use DSP at the same time, which you can't do.  In order to use DSP you have to decode the audio first (you can't do DSP on encoded audio).  You can set JRiver to re-encode on the back end, but that would leave you out of luck on ATMOS, I think.

[Bandyka]

You are correct indeed the only way to have ATMOS is to bitstream so it seems I am out of luck? No other option...

[rec head]

I have been asking for a preset button for bitstream just for this. Then every non-Atmos, non-DTS:X title could be decoded and EQ applied to it by MC and the movies with the HD audio could automatically be bitstreamed to take advantage of the new mixes.

I don't think it will happen until the EQ preset gets sorted out because it seems essentially the same.

[blgentry]

Movies are a lot like music in my mind.  *Most* shouldn't require any eq.   EQ that is applied on a title by title basis normally is indicative of a sound system with poor response.  Before anyone gets offended, I'm generalizing here.  But I've seen this behavior many times from customers.  They change the EQ setting for every song because "it sounds bad until I adjust it".  That's because EQ adjusted by ear isn't reliable.

I think EQ should only be applied on a SYSTEM level.  ...and only then very carefully with the goal of reaching a flatter response, or a specific response curve that the owner is trying to achieve.  Just pushing various frequencies up and down in an attempt to make it sound "better" almost always results in a system with worse response and an EQ setting that doesn't work on anything except the test song that was used to set the EQ in the first place.  Again, I'm generalizing.

It's odd to me that a system would sound "very good" with music but not so good with movies.  What would be the difference?  Are you using only 2 speakers for music and 5.1 or 7.1 for Movies?  If that's the case, then you need to look at the placement and settings of the surround, center, and subs.  Or try running movies in 2 channel only as a TEST.  Are the levels of the surrounds, center, and sub set reasonably?  Were they set with an SPL meter?  What bass management settings are being applied in 5.1 or 7.1 mode?  Again, we are looking for differences.  WHY does music sound good, but movies don't?  EQ is almost NEVER the answer.  In general. 

Brian.

[tls62dk]

Also,  Zones and zone switch should be able to handle treating Atmos and non Atmos files differently.

[Bandyka]

My system is all but average. I have the top of the line Onkyo NR 3030, Paradigm speakers and KEF R50 Atmos speakers, connected to a very high end custom PC all professionally calibrated. While you are correct the base should be setup sort of flat as the reference but since some users might like highs or lows more pronounced they need to have  the freedom to adjust the settings to their liking while the reference system stays the same. What I mean is that for music using the software I am able to upscale the low quality streaming or mp3 to high quality studio like sound and apply a bit of highs and lows to my preference this makes it perfect for me. I cannot do the same for movies which I would love to as for example a shattering glass would be much more life like if the high frequencies could be adjusted and same goes for dialogue it could be much clearer. I am sure I am not the only one with this sort requirement/wish. Besides there is a reason why professional mixers have a million frequency knobs on their systems. I agree with what you say in general as for the base system and base media but it needs to be adjustable. And yes I would be very happy if the EQ could be adjustable at the system level but if bitstream isn't adjustable it not adjustable at any level unfortunately. I'd be happy with one setting for all as you say which is why I am now looking into an external EQ solution. So we might be on the same page after all.

Movies are a lot like music in my mind.  *Most* shouldn't require any eq.   EQ that is applied on a title by title basis normally is indicative of a sound system with poor response.  Before anyone gets offended, I'm generalizing here.  But I've seen this behavior many times from customers.  They change the EQ setting for every song because "it sounds bad until I adjust it".  That's because EQ adjusted by ear isn't reliable.

I think EQ should only be applied on a SYSTEM level.  ...and only then very carefully with the goal of reaching a flatter response, or a specific response curve that the owner is trying to achieve.  Just pushing various frequencies up and down in an attempt to make it sound "better" almost always results in a system with worse response and an EQ setting that doesn't work on anything except the test song that was used to set the EQ in the first place.  Again, I'm generalizing.

It's odd to me that a system would sound "very good" with music but not so good with movies.  What would be the difference?  Are you using only 2 speakers for music and 5.1 or 7.1 for Movies?  If that's the case, then you need to look at the placement and settings of the surround, center, and subs.  Or try running movies in 2 channel only as a TEST.  Are the levels of the surrounds, center, and sub set reasonably?  Were they set with an SPL meter?  What bass management settings are being applied in 5.1 or 7.1 mode?  Again, we are looking for differences.  WHY does music sound good, but movies don't?  EQ is almost NEVER the answer.  In general. 

Brian.

[Bandyka]

Brian, just read your post again.

To answer your question why movies and music sound different is very simple: because the system EQ settings in MC do not apply to bitstream which the movies use. So I agree with you entirely but I think I wasn't clear enough on the original issue side of things.

[blgentry]

You could apply EQ in your high end receiver.  Presumably it has some EQ settings that *might* help you.

I'm not very schooled on Atmos, but I'm assuming it's one of the surround formats that MC cant' decode?  If MC can't decode it, then it can't apply DSP.  Period.  It's a black box that MC is just passing along to the receiver where the receiver can open that black box and decode what's inside into music.  THEN the receiver can apply EQ, bass management, time alignment, etc.

If MC CAN decode it, then MC can apply EQ.  But it would then have to stream it to your receiver as PCM (over HDMI probably) or re-encode it to Dolby Digital (which would not be my preference).

If you go with EQ in your receiver or another external component, you'll need to decide what to do about playing music.  Will you use MC's EQ for music?  Or the external EQ?  Certainly not both.  You'd need a way of defeating the external EQ in a convenient way when you play music.  Otherwise you'll end up with double EQ and a potential mess of sound.

Wow, modern home theaters are complicated!  But fun right? 

Brian.

[Vocalpoint]

If that's the case, then you need to look at the placement and settings of the surround, center, and subs.  

Exactly. This is why the high end AVR's have room correction processing built in. If the Onkyo has a room correction processor - it should be used to adapt the AVR to the room and go from there.

With our Marantz 7701 system - I set it all up using the Audyssey DSP. Once that is done - I have never flt a need to ever mess with any source (EQ) coming into the AVR. I feed everything into our system dead flat (TV, Music & Movies via MC etc) and it all sounds incredible when it hits the speakers.

VP

[Bandyka]

Well if I was able to hook up an external EQ then I would set the MC EQ to flat mission accomplished, as you said there has to be only one point of adjustment I agree.
Unfortunately even the highest end receivers do not have a proper manual EQ these days, the only way is to attach a PreAmp which could cost as much as the receiver so if I don't have to I'd love to avoid that path but since I've invested quite a bit of money just recently into sound and projection I really want to be able to enjoy movies just as well as music. I hope I am now making sense I think I was a little thin on info in my OP.

So yes it would be a really nice and welcome addition to be able to apply EQ to bitstream or decode Atmos as well.

Cheers

Andrew

[Bandyka]

Yes mine done exactly like that but once I've heard what MC can do with music (taking it yet another level) I want my movies to sound like that too. The room correction is not proper EQ but we all have different ears, I know that I ma into real audiophile territory which not everyone requires.

Exactly. This is why the high end AVR's have room correction processing built in. If the Onkyo has a room correction processor - it should be used to adapt the AVR to the room and go from there.

With our Marantz 7701 system - I set it all up using the Audyssey DSP. Once that is done - I have never flt a need to ever mess with any source (EQ) coming into the AVR. I feed everything into our system dead flat (TV, Music & Movies via MC etc) and it all sounds incredible when it hits the speakers.

VP

[Vocalpoint]

Yes mine done exactly like that but once I've heard what MC can do with music (taking it yet another level) I want my movies to sound like that too. The room correction is not proper EQ but we all have different ears.

Disagree on the room correction statement heavily - but each to their own.

I do not use any MC EQ and my movies and music sound stellar. Audyssey DSP is world class for room correction and that's all that really matters here.

VP

[fitbrit]

I do not have an ATMOS or DTS:X capable receiver yet, but this is what I plan to do when I have one:

I will create a new zone for Immersive Sound, which will still use HDMI, but will bitstream. I tag my video files with a custom [Audio codec] field which mostly automatically populates by reading the [compression] field.
Using ZoneSwitch I intend to have all movies that have ATMOS or DTS:X in the [Audio Codec] field to automatically play in the Immersive Sound zone; all other movies will play in the default HDMI zone, will not bistream, and therefore allow DSP effects such as JRSS etc.

[blgentry]

^ fitbrit:  I was thinking of trying to transcode the Atmos to something that MC could decode (like PCM), so that way the OP could use one set of settings, DSP, etc for everything.  Your solution is more sophisticated; I like that a lot better!

I think that solution is the best of all worlds.  It lets MC decode all the formats it understands, and apply DSP to all of them.  Then for the (presumably) very small number of Atmos titles, it just bitsteams them using a different zone with different rules.  That's a great use of zones and zone switch. 

Brian.

[fitbrit]

^ fitbrit:  I was thinking of trying to transcode the Atmos to something that MC could decode (like PCM), so that way the OP could use one set of settings, DSP, etc for everything.  Your solution is more sophisticated; I like that a lot better!

If you decode ATMOS to PCM in MC you can "only" stream the TrueHD core. The metadata that makes ATMOS ATMOS has to be decoded by a Dolby ATMOS capable AVR or receiver. You can only get the immersive effects in that scenario.

[blgentry]

^ Sorry I wasn't more clear.  I was thinking of trying to use some external program (if such a program exists) to transcode Atmos to something else.  I understand that Atomos is "object oriented" and doesn't use true channel assignments though.  Which means that decoding it is more like.... hmmm.. more like a sonic rendering engine that renders based on the number of channels available.  So any kind of transcoding would be sort of flawed by definition.

Given that, I still really like your solution better. 

Brian.

[fitbrit]

We'll just have to wait until ATMOS and DTS:X have been reverse engineered and rolled into LAV.

Or for JRSS to up its (already considerable) game to rival DSU for immersive upmixing for non-native ATMOS and DTS:X tracks

[bblue]

I believe the OP has unrealistic goals set for movie audio.

There's just no way that upsampling and equalizing streaming audio and (especially) mp3's is going to come anywhere close to high quality studio level audio.  No way.  But then trying to take movie audio (which is frequently better quality than recorded commercial audio) and match it to the upsampled/equalized mp3 sound is a fools errand.

The best thing to do is get the audio system calibrated to sound great with CD's (not lossy rips) or (especially) high definition audio tracks with little or no equalization.  Or use movie soundtrack recordings as well as those are usually quite excellent quality.  Forget mp3's, and streaming for this part of the exercise, they will throw you way off track.  Once you have a good presentation with good quality audio sources, you'll hear just how bad much streaming and many mp3's are. 

--Bill

[Bandyka]

Agree with this part fully and it has been done. I thinks it is very hard to explain what I mean/hear in writing.

The best thing to do is get the audio system calibrated to sound great with CD's (not lossy rips) or (especially) high definition audio tracks with little or no equalization.  Or use movie soundtrack recordings as well as those are usually quite excellent quality.  Forget mp3's, and streaming for this part of the exercise, they will throw you way off track.  Once you have a good presentation with good quality audio sources, you'll hear just how bad much streaming and many mp3's are. 

--Bill
[/quote]

[Hilton]

There's always the option to decode the core audio stream and use other processing engines. There are other options that rival Atmos and X.

I'm about to install a trial of SAD over the weekend to see what it can do.  Supports at least 24 channels that I can see and probably more.
I believe you could tailor the mix to your own liking and for your own room and channel config. It works as a VST too and hopefully will load in MC DSP engine.
It might not work at all, but worth a tinker.

"Spatial Audio Designer also comes with some new channel presets including the new IMAX 12.0 and Dolby Atmos Home, as well as presets with three layers in total plus top channel in layouts like 17.1.and 24.2"

Pricing is reasonable but is still high at about 400 euros.
http://newaudiotechnology.com/en/products/spatial-audio-designer/
 

[Hilton]

Good news is the VSTs all load in the MC DSP engine. Now to play! 

[rec head]

There's always the option to decode the core audio stream and use other processing engines. There are other options that rival Atmos and X.

I'm about to install a trial of SAD over the weekend to see what it can do.  Supports at least 24 channels that I can see and probably more.
I believe you could tailor the mix to your own liking and for your own room and channel config. It works as a VST too and hopefully will load in MC DSP engine.
It might not work at all, but worth a tinker.

"Spatial Audio Designer also comes with some new channel presets including the new IMAX 12.0 and Dolby Atmos Home, as well as presets with three layers in total plus top channel in layouts like 17.1.and 24.2"

Pricing is reasonable but is still high at about 400 euros.
http://newaudiotechnology.com/en/products/spatial-audio-designer/
 

Won't SAD just be upmixing content? I only looked at it quickly but it doesn't look like it decodes Atmos or DTS:X. So if you play an Atmos movie you will loose the Atmos info and just be upmixing the True HD core?

[mojave]

Good news is the VSTs all load in the MC DSP engine. Now to play! 

Looking forward to your results. I see the license is valid for two seats.   

[Hilton]

The plugins all work and I can sort of get sound out of it but I'm having problems picking up the output from the mixer vst. I don't use vst much so I'm not sure how to chain them. I'll fiddle again later today.

[Hilton]

Won't SAD just be upmixing content? I only looked at it quickly but it doesn't look like it decodes Atmos or DTS:X. So if you play an Atmos movie you will loose the Atmos info and just be upmixing the True HD core?

Yes your quite right. But if we can get this to work the way I think it can, you can just recreate your own ambisonic mix to match your own speaker config and layout.
This VST plugin toolset is used to create the Auro-3D, Atmos and Dolby DTS:X, so it's coming at it from a different angle..  Im not trying to decode the proprietary codecs, Im trying to re-do what they already do, which is use a 5.1 or 7.1 Audio "Bed" and upmix to a live stream in a supported format.  The program has all the presets for these different codecs(formats) and channel configurations to create the same sound stage.

I have sort of made some more progress using an external VST host chain manager but don't understand enough about ASIO, VST and routing...... but im learning. I worked in a recording studio for a few years in the 80's so I understand the concepts, but when I was doing mixing and mastering it was all hardware based routing and buses.

I've had enough for the weekend, but if anyone else knows more about VST chaining and ASIO routing you'd likely make faster progress than me.



Here's my progress with P&M VST Chainer and SAD running in MC DSP.
SAD-VST by Hilton, on Flickr