Dolby Atmos' Upcoming FlexConnect May Simplify Wireless Home Theater Audio (arstechnica.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Dolby Laboratories today announced Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, a feature with the potential to add flexibility and simplicity to home theater audio setups. The company says FlexConnect allows supporting TVs to optimize Dolby Atmos audio output among the TV's speakers and paired wireless speakers. Currently, Dolby is only announcing the feature with upcoming TCL TVs, but it could expand elsewhere. FlexConnect, which will work with Atmos, 5.1, and stereo sound, is about adapting to people's audio setups, with considerations for things like speaker count and placement. The upcoming feature aims to bolster Atmos audio in situations where speaker placement is limited due to obstacles like room size, furniture, or outlet locations.
According to Dolby, FlexConnect will mean users can hear the same experience regardless of where they're sitting in the room, and that audio is tweaked based on each speaker's location and capabilities. Ars Technica asked Dolby to elaborate on this, and a company spokesperson told us: "After each speaker is placed, the TV will undergo an automatic calibration using acoustic mapping, [using TV microphones], to understand the location of each speaker. The TV then intelligently and seamlessly optimizes the sound image after analyzing this data combined with information the TV can gather on each speaker's acoustic capabilities. Together, this information allows the TV to adjust the rendering of each speaker to optimize the sound to ensure listeners are enjoying a great audio experience."
An example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker capabilities is with low frequencies, which many TVs struggle with. If there's a more capable speaker connected, the TV's speakers could "offload the bass to these speakers, which frees up power to allocate to other parts of the frequency spectrum," Dolby's spokesperson said. "This could allow the TV speakers to allocate more power to dialogue, ensuring the best combination of bass and intelligibility," the rep said. Dolby also provided an example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker location. If a user puts two wireless speakers in the back of the room, FlexConnect "will put more of the audio load onto the TV speakers so that the TV speakers cover the front soundstage and the dialogue." But if the wireless speakers were in the front of the room, the TV/center speakers would focus on dialogue.
According to Dolby, FlexConnect will mean users can hear the same experience regardless of where they're sitting in the room, and that audio is tweaked based on each speaker's location and capabilities. Ars Technica asked Dolby to elaborate on this, and a company spokesperson told us: "After each speaker is placed, the TV will undergo an automatic calibration using acoustic mapping, [using TV microphones], to understand the location of each speaker. The TV then intelligently and seamlessly optimizes the sound image after analyzing this data combined with information the TV can gather on each speaker's acoustic capabilities. Together, this information allows the TV to adjust the rendering of each speaker to optimize the sound to ensure listeners are enjoying a great audio experience."
An example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker capabilities is with low frequencies, which many TVs struggle with. If there's a more capable speaker connected, the TV's speakers could "offload the bass to these speakers, which frees up power to allocate to other parts of the frequency spectrum," Dolby's spokesperson said. "This could allow the TV speakers to allocate more power to dialogue, ensuring the best combination of bass and intelligibility," the rep said. Dolby also provided an example of how FlexConnect could adapt audio based on speaker location. If a user puts two wireless speakers in the back of the room, FlexConnect "will put more of the audio load onto the TV speakers so that the TV speakers cover the front soundstage and the dialogue." But if the wireless speakers were in the front of the room, the TV/center speakers would focus on dialogue.
Using TV Microphones? (Score:2)
How about using the microphone in the remote? Then you could be prompted to place/hold it in the various seating positions for evaluation, instead of depending on reflected audio.
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Not all remotes have microphones, nor, IMHO, does a remote need a microphone. If you want to talk to your TV, it should have a built-in microphone, like all other smart devices.
If your TV has a remote, and a microphone, then the logical place for the microphone is in the remote. This is true for a whole bunch of reasons, and only one of them is that you can easily replace the mic by replacing the remote control — but frankly, that reason is enough. It also makes it a lot easier to disable the mic if that's what you want to do with it, though that's not really a feature from the manufacturer's standpoint. It might slightly help sales along, though. I just take mic permissions
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"I just take mic permissions away from the google app and that disables it AFAICT, although it doesn't stop my TV from participating in PRISM via Google ofc."
No but you can always replace it with another remote that doesn't have a microphone and you've physically removed the problem.
If you are going to have a remote with a mic then it would be nice if you calibrated a baseline for the speakers using a known audio setup sample and then it dynamically recalibrated the boost for different audio. For instance f
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I would not want my TV to have a built-in microphone aka bug. A microphone in the remote is fine because I don't use the remote outside of setup and as a backup.
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Hey alexa, check this out!
Auto adjusting speaker setup... meh (Score:1)
I have a higher end of mid range system with that brand's auto adjusting speaker configuration feature. You can spend more, a lot more, but few would.
The room isn't complex. The speakers are very closely positioned to Dolby's textbook locations. Ran the test exactly as specified. Didn't like it, tried again, wasn't any better. Adjusted manually and got better results in a few minutes of playing around. It thought one of my side speakers was 38 feet away, for example.
YMMV but I didn't find this sort of
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My thought is....you're not going to be able to get the same quality signal from BT as you would with a hard wire, right?
If this is the case, I guess if you're dealing with a lower end system and cheap speakers, you won't know a difference, but if you've laid out some cash for some good speakers....you'd still wanna go wired, right?
I have Klipsch K-Horns as my front speakers and a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls as my rear channel speakers...i
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I'm guessing the "wireless" connection to the speakers is Bluetooth?
My thought is....you're not going to be able to get the same quality signal from BT as you would with a hard wire, right?
If this is the case, I guess if you're dealing with a lower end system and cheap speakers, you won't know a difference, but if you've laid out some cash for some good speakers....you'd still wanna go wired, right?
I have Klipsch K-Horns as my front speakers and a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls as my rear channel speakers...if I had something of that quality with a wireless option, I'd not want to opt for wireless unless there wasn't a choice, if I wanted best possible sound I'd think.
Also, with BT...is there a delay problem potentially?
First, I don't know what the wireless protocol is as I'm on /. and clearly have barely skimmed TFS, muchless TFA, muchless researched further.
Most of those problems with BT are old. aptX has had a lossless protocol for about 7 years now, however limited implementation there has been with it. There's latency to BT of course, but that latency is easily compensated for on the processing side, otherwise all the people with AirPods would never watch videos with them. There's already a buffer to live shows any
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"otherwise all the people with AirPods would never watch videos with them."
Actually there is still latency and while newer protocols work ok for something like videos where the system can determine and compensate for the latency it is still terrible for more dynamic content like music performance/piano and games.
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Actually there is still latency and while newer protocols work ok for something like videos where the system can determine and compensate for the latency it is still terrible for more dynamic content like music performance/piano and games.
Oh, I absolutely agree. Live content is not plausible via Bluetooth still. FlexConnect, if it is using BT as its wireless protocol, will not be good for gaming.
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Yup I discovered this the hard way with my quest 2. Took the recommendations out there to get a dongle to support the low latency wireless and watched a film thinking I'd found the perfect solution only to realize as soon as I exited the film the lag scrolling over the menu buttons was horrible.
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I have a Klipsch set up too (the mains, center and atmos but not the sub woofers).
They're all wired except for 1 rear which I decided to put on Wi-Fi instead of run cables through the ceiling or over a walkway. That one speaker is in a good spot for sound but a bad spot for daily life.
The Wi-Fi is a third party 5.8 ghz signal not BT. It probably has some delay but in games, movies, and standard TV with normal speech I can't hear it at all so it must be pretty low or the third party device accounts for it
Who cares? (Score:3)
What is the target market for this? The people who both know what atmos is and care have real speakers connected to a real receiver. If you draw a Venn diagram between those in this category and those who would use a TV speaker for any purpose whatsoever the intersection between the two is vanishingly small. Further still the chance of using TV speakers and being able to distinguish between 7.1 and 7.1 + spatial metadata is probably nill.
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They will simply market sound bars which come with rear speakers alongside TVs with this feature, with big and shiny and more and better in the adverts. It might even make a substantial improvement for some people. On the other hand, most people are so impressed by a sound bar alone that they think that's premium sound now, sigh.
On the gripping hand, the sound out of my cheapass Hisense TV is remarkably good for a cheap flat unit, so maybe the plebes have a point. Our Sharp AQUOS 52" had speakers so worthle
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Even the higher-end brands have way better speakers and amplification in them than they used to, because they know that off-brand manufacturers like Hisense have stepped their game up, and they don't want to save $4 per unit and have every reviewer on the Internet saying "It's unknown why Sony couldn't be bothered to fit a decent pair of speakers in this $2000 TV that leads the market in every other way, but they didn't. So you're at least going to have to also drop a couple hundred on a sound bar in addit
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This isn't about using a tv speaker. It is about wireless speakers around your room driven by the tv. Very different.
No one has to know what Atmos is. They only have to know from the marketing department that "this TV has magic sound configuration technology that helps you have theatre quality sound at a home price!"
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the next step in mass-commercialization of spatial sound. Discrete surround amplifiers and multi-point surround sound is awesome, but it's a pain in the ass to set up and install cleanly unless you are spending some money at it, or cutting holes in walls, or both.
Current audio gear is good enough to compensate for wireless transmission delay, so the clean install gets a lot easier if you have a box on a shelf that someone can buy that has a sound bar you plug in at the TV, and then some remote speakers that you just have to provide AC power to, which is far more commonly found on every wall than custom speaker wiring. Plug in your sound bar, plug in subwoofer and your surrounds to AC power, and run through the on-screen wizard and all of a sudden you have something approximating an Atmos 5.1.2 that took 15 minutes to set up.
Will it be as good as a fully-wired setup with a 10+channel amp and whatever higher-end speakers you may decide to purchase? No. But it's also not trying to be - I would never replace my Bowers and Wilkins speakers and Yamaha Aventage receiver with these, but I also know I'm outside of their addressable market.
TL;DR: this is the next logical step following the "sound bars" that have become popular for getting a somewhat proper 3.1-channel audio setups in the last few years. Many people want something better, but they aren't ready to pull the trigger on a $1200 receiver, $1000 for speakers, and then $X on wiring and installation (could be DIY, could be paid-for) as well as the time investment required.
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The target market is the 90% of people who basically use TV speakers.
S
Can we just get the voices to come through clear? (Score:1)
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"It feels like modern movies and shows aren't mixed for a minimalist home setup."
That's because they aren't and they can't be bothered to spend a couple grand on a second MA track mixed for home audio even when it is a whole lot of nothing next to the hundred million dollar budget of the film. But even if they were the arteest mixing the sound will refuse to do it in a way that makes the film enjoyable for a home audience, they envision some mythical scenario when people are please to strain to fail to hear