3D Audio???

[Mike_TX]

I've recently seen some talk of "3D Audio".
I recently saw an ad on the back of Home Theater for SRS Labs CircleCinema and 3D audio.
I guess I thought audio was 3D before, so I'm not sure what this mean.

Is this the latest industry boondoggle/buzzword (fad) or a trend/future?

I like the terminology and explanations of Audyssey DSX more than some other marketing.

What do you think?

Mike

[Mike_TX]

Home Theater for SRS Labs CircleCinema

Home Theater for SRS Labs CircleCinema:

3D TVs bring stunning, theater-like 3D video to your home. But, something is missing. Where is that equally stunning 3D audio to complete the experience? Well, the wait is over: introducing SRS CircleCinema 3Dâ„¢, the first 3D audio system developed specifically for 3D TVs.
Designed with an adaptive, intelligent signal processing technology, our new CircleCinema 3D family of audio solutions elevate, widen and enhance the sound image, delivering stunning audio depth that moves in and out of the screen, perfectly correlating to every movement in the picture using just the speakers built inside 3D TVs.

CircleCinema 3D Features:

- Completes the 3D TV experience by realistically complementing 3D video with enveloping and immersive "3D" audio
- Provides near and far depth sound field to match 3D images
- Emphasizes the center channel to make voice clearer, making them stand out
- Elevates the sound image back to the proper listening level

[Mike_TX]

Audyssey DSX

Audyssey DSX

Delivering 7.1, 9.1 and 11.1 surround sound to your home theater. Audyssey DSX expands surround sound beyond 5.1 with more speakers for an incredibly immersive and realistic home theater experience.

Audyssey DSX highlights
More enveloping surround sound. 7.1, 9.1 and 11.1 surround sound produces amazingly detailed and immersive experiences. The Height and Wide channels make movies sound three-dimensional. With Audyssey DSX, explosions, storms and battle scenes come to life.

Scalable setup. DSX-enabled AVRs can deliver content to 7, 9 or 11 speakers, allowing you to build a surround sound system with the appropriate number of speakers for your space and budget.

A key component in your AVR. Audyssey DSX comes standard on many premium home theater receivers – be sure yours has it.

Audyssey’s surround sound solution
Today, movies are mixed with five discreet channels and nearly every home and movie theater in the world uses the 5.1 standard: five speakers and one subwoofer (read blog). But after years of research, Audyssey scientists discovered that by adding more channels in the right places surround sound could be even better. Audyssey DSX not only creates new Wide and Height channels, but also provides Surround Envelopment Processing to enhance Front and Back channels. This technology processes the standard surround signals in the time and frequency domains to improve the perceived sense of envelopment and blending with the other speakers in the surround system.

By expanding 5.1 sound, Audyssey DSX technology delivers true 7.1, 9.1 and 11.1 surround sound. The result isn’t just the most immersive, realistic home theater sound on the market, but a new standard in surround sound.

Technical details
Why use more speakers?
Research in human hearing shows that we can hear many more directions than what current systems provide. We use the direct sound to localize the direction of sources and the reflected sound to perceive the size of the soundstage.

Experiments have shown that human localization is better in front than to the sides or behind. This means that for front-weighted content such as movies and most music, good engineering dictates that we employ more channels in the front hemisphere than the back. Imaging is also better horizontally than vertically and so good engineering also dictates that channels must first be added in the same plane as our ears before going to higher elevations.

Perception is not the only factor. The physics of room acoustics for music have been well studied, and their correlation with subjective impression increasingly understood over the last 30 years. This research has shown that we have strong built-in preferences for the direction, frequency response, and time of arrival of reflected sound. Additional channels and surround sound processing are needed to properly render these components.

Wides before Heights
One key finding from the research is that first side wall reflections play a great role in determining subjective impression. The most important direction of reflected sound was found to be ±60° relative to the front. Audyssey DSX provides a pair of Wide channels (LW and RW) at ±60° with appropriate frequency response and perceptual processing to match these requirements of human hearing. These Wide channels are much more critical in the presentation of a realistic soundstage than the Back Surround channels found in traditional 7.1 systems. Adding surround channels behind the listener has a very small impact compared to the increase in envelopment and soundstage width that the Wide channels provide.

The next most important acoustical and perceptual cues come from reflections above the front stage. Audyssey DSX provides a pair of Height channels (LH and RH) that should be ideally positioned at a 45° elevation angle.

[Mike_TX]

"Other" reserved....


Ambisonics



DTS - "First 11.1 Surround System—DTS Neo:X"

DTS® will demonstrate DTS Neo:X, the next-generation of immersive 3D entertainment for home theater enthusiasts and industry audio professionals. For cinema, music or gaming entertainment, DTS Neo:X provides a semi-spherical sound field using an 11.1 speaker configuration adding height/wide speakers to create a natural, immersive, spacious and lifelike 3D surround soundscape. Further validating the significance of this groundbreaking technology, DTS licensees will be demonstrating the technology at CES with the first products expected to ship in the second quarter of 2011.

[Mike_TX]

Dolby Home Theater Speaker Guide / IIz

Dolby Home Theater Speaker Guide
Link

Optimize your sound system including Dolby technology with this step-by-step guide to the best speaker setup, including room considerations and other valuable tips.

Elevating Surround Sound to New Heights

Are you ready to enter a completely new dimension in home theater listening? Dolby® Pro Logic® IIz technology takes you there—and keeps you there—with surround sound so awesome, you'll be riveted to your seat.

With Dolby Pro Logic IIz you experience an incredible sense of airiness—a depth and presence unlike any you've heard before—when enjoying your music, movies, and video games. Dolby Pro Logic IIz delivers these enhanced effects through the addition of front height channels.
These added channels create a soundstage so lifelike, you'll think the rain in a movie is actually falling on your roof.
Special effects will hit with an intensity you've never experienced before.
And you'll feel like you're front and center when watching concert videos.
Take your listening to the next level with Dolby Pro Logic IIz.

Dolby Pro Logic IIz Benefits
- Introduces front height channels for more spacious surround sound
-Delivers a compelling and enveloping listening experience
-Adds depth and dimension for a lifelike soundstage
-Provides you with a wide range of choices for speaker positioning to optimize sound in almost any room
-Works with existing soundtracks by identifying and decoding spatial cues that occur naturally in a soundtrack

Want to Learn More About Dolby Pro Logic IIz?
Read the details of how Dolby Pro Logic IIz works.

Are you a Dolby licensee or looking for more technical details?
Learn more about Dolby Pro Logic IIz implementation and specifications.

[Mike_TX]

Vote

After posting the above I guess I would vote:

- nothing new AND trend/future
(I should have allowed multiple choices in the poll)

Because Dolby IIz, Audyssey DSX, and other technologies have been working on this.
I think that is the future.

I think that the "3D Audio" moniker is marketing to tie in with the (failed, to date...) 3D video marketing.
So maybe I would answer all 3 responses!
:doh! 1:

Mike

[gonk]

Nothing new

Pro Logic IIz and DSX have been around for a little while now, and the idea of height channels (or adding more surround channels anywhere) is very old. We've had 5.1 in homes for almost 20 years now, starting with the first AC3 LaserDisc offerings in the mid 90's and then even more accessibly with the first DVD's almost 14 years ago (March 1997). It would be reasonable to argue that those were already providing "3D Audio", especially with options like Dolby EX, DTS ES, Pro Logic IIx, Logic 7, and other modes that have extended 5.1 out to 6.1 and 7.1. We've even had height channels for a very long time now, although it hasn't been an "industry standard" like PLIIz until recently. What I think we're going to see with these modes is the same limited adoption that 7.1 has experienced. Some people will embrace the idea, but many consumers have a hard enough time getting beyond 5.1 in their homes because of the cost and difficulty of fitting the extra speakers into their rooms. It doesn't help that studios are still going to focus their Blu-ray releases mostly on 5.1 mixes with a few 7.1 mixes here and there. These processing options can all function fine with 5.1 sources, but it is going to make it easier for casual consumers to argue that the extra hassle isn't worth it.

The decision to label CircleCinema as "3D" is pure marketing, in my opinion - especially since it's not actually using surround speakers. (That last line of the description is the kicker: "...using just the speakers built inside 3D TVs.") It's latching on to the industry's huge marketing push to get people interested in 3D TV's, and building on the reluctance a lot of people have to installing surround speakers.

[Jed M]

Yeah, so its "3D", but is it "Digital" or "HD"? Those are the keywords I look for when buying anything from televisions to toothpaste.

[Sandbagger]

3D is just the new HD label that gets thrown on EVERYTHING

I guess the below will add to the 3D sound and make it more SURROUND SOUND, but I dont think it really needs the 3D name

But I guess everyone missed this, I got to listen to the demo at CES this year.

First 11.1 Surround System—DTS Neo:X
DTS® will demonstrate DTS Neo:X, the next-generation of immersive 3D entertainment for home theater enthusiasts and industry audio professionals. For cinema, music or gaming entertainment, DTS Neo:X provides a semi-spherical sound field using an 11.1 speaker configuration adding height/wide speakers to create a natural, immersive, spacious and lifelike 3D surround soundscape. Further validating the significance of this groundbreaking technology, DTS licensees will be demonstrating the technology at CES with the first products expected to ship in the second quarter of 2011.

[Fatcat]

Not may people remember or have even heard of Ambisonics but that "3D" technique has been around since the 70s I believe. They were advocating the use of height channels before anyone else commercially. I think the classical label Nimbus had released a number of Ambisonics recordings and I remember reading very favorable reviews about this recording/decoding system when Audio magazine was around.

[Mike_TX]

Good points everyone!

Just like 3D video was around for a long time with various iterative attempts at use, we are now seeing a variety of discrete or pseudo/quasi-surround technologies.

I missed the fact that no external surround speakers were being used for the SRS Labs CircleCinema. That isn't clearly demonstrated by the flashy arrows on that site. Good catch.

Mike

[CdnTiger]

Looks like I have a different take on 3D sound than others here. I've never heard it, so my understanding is purely theoretical and I can't vouch for it at this time, but it's not simply a matter of having lots of speakers around you. It uses an understanding of how the brain interprets sound to create a more cohesive and realistic soundfield. This can be done without the need for surround speakers - check out http://www.smyth-research.com/technology.html for convincing surround using standard headphones, as an example.

I found these two podcasts very interesting on the subject:

http://twit.tv/show/home-theater-geeks/20

http://twit.tv/show/home-theater-geeks/44