Apple plans to reward artists that offer Dolby Atmos spatial audio mixes
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Mr. Afternoon
Mixing Engineer & Artist
Unfortunately this is guaranteed to lead to an influx of fake mixes, FWIW.
jimfisheye
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I call bs!
Dolby will not even talk to you if you don't have a corporate email they recognize. They genuinely refuse to sell you their encoder software unless they have vetted you. Independents are apparently not welcome!
Being that Atmos is used for proprietary encoding to force hardware decoder sales first and a nerdy extension to surround sound 2nd, I also think we'll see an influx of faux Atmos mixes. The stereo ear bud listeners will be none the wiser.
Yes I DO have a bad attitude around all this!
But we still won this round at the end of the day! 7.1.4 mixes are here to stay and there's nothing Dolby can do to take them away now.
Dolby will not even talk to you if you don't have a corporate email they recognize. They genuinely refuse to sell you their encoder software unless they have vetted you. Independents are apparently not welcome!
Being that Atmos is used for proprietary encoding to force hardware decoder sales first and a nerdy extension to surround sound 2nd, I also think we'll see an influx of faux Atmos mixes. The stereo ear bud listeners will be none the wiser.
Yes I DO have a bad attitude around all this!
But we still won this round at the end of the day! 7.1.4 mixes are here to stay and there's nothing Dolby can do to take them away now.
No one would be listening in 7.1.4 were it not for Atmos.
probably true. But we've always had fake mixes going back to the quad era.
I will focus on the good and not the bad.
JoshBasswood
Well-known Member
More expensive subscription plans are also a likely outcome of this strategy.
I doubt it. Part of Apple’s strategy seems to be one tier (technically 3 if you include Family plans or the multi service Apple One) that’s the same price as Spotify’s paid tier… but has all the benefits of Tidal’s most expensive tier. That way they can go after two competitors at the same time
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I just hope this results in making the albums easier to find. I don't know about Apple, but on Tidal you often have to know which album you're looking for and to search for the album specifically in order to find the Atmos mix.
If it weren't for the thread on this forum, I wouldn't know most of the Atmos mixes even exist. It's almost as if they try to hide them.
Seems to me these services should issue announcements of new releases they are streaming and in what formats on at least a weekly basis.
If it weren't for the thread on this forum, I wouldn't know most of the Atmos mixes even exist. It's almost as if they try to hide them.
Seems to me these services should issue announcements of new releases they are streaming and in what formats on at least a weekly basis.
I wish they would plan to reward the mixers.....
Well at least the good ones like you. Some of the streaming mixes are utter crap. Some are very well done.
Apple has no investment in durable media, as in Blu-ray discs or DVDs. This is going to make more business for Apple streaming and unlikely disks that we can buy for ourselves, so we will always have an Atmos mix.
But also:
Apple has next to nothing to do with the mixes either. That’s all on the shoulders of the Labels. They store/stream them, curate a special page of them, and now have raised streaming royalty rates on them… but they do not make them, mandate them, mix them, etc.
It is up to the label to decide if a disc version should come out. And as we’ve seen with Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, YES, etc… labels do seem interested in making discs
True enough. But most of the artists you mention with recent releases as stand-alone blu-rays were most if not all NOT available first as streaming on Apple or other streaming services. Even the DSOTM Atmos standalone was available in the big box set.
Won't the artists that get incentivized to produced Atmos mixes need to hire mixers? Sounds like good job security/demand for your services.
Mr. Afternoon
Mixing Engineer & Artist
What? That's sucks...
What changed? Wasn't it different before?
jimfisheye
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I jumped in 'after'. Not sure about the 'before'. They're refusing to license the decoder to any 3rd party media player apps so they can push consumers into buying new AV receivers with the decoder hidden inside. They still need to provide their media player to creators but they want to keep it out of consumer hands. So they give it to you for free with an encoder subscription (yeah, it's a subscription scam instead of a purchase too). I can only guess that the helpful online tutorials that popped up a year ago instructing how to buy that subscription once to get the media player led them to vetting who they talked to.
So that whole angle with forcing hardware is distasteful. This is wholly where my bad attitude came from.
I was just thinking as I listen to the last couple Steve Wilson 7.1.4 mixes that this is just amazing that this level of ambition is happening! I almost can't believe it. This level of mix work and for this niche of a surround system setup is mind blowing! The 12 channel format is here to stay at this point no matter what Dolby does or doesn't do and we really won this round! So I hope they don't turn too many potential consumers away with the software lock down and spoofing approach. Would be a shame.
That would be pretty great! Things sure slowed down after the pandemic and they sure aren't back. So of course I bought 6 more speakers and amplifiers! Yeah, PM me and we'll get started on something!
As I remember, vaguely, pretty much anyone could buy the Minnetonka/Surcode software for DVDA encoding/authoring and for DTS. Even DTS had their own encoder for that matter. discWelder, Surcode MLP Encoder, Surcode DTS encoder in two flavors.
I think pretty much anyone could buy the DTS-HD MAS encoder, not sure about the DTS:X after the MAS encoder was canned.
Now as @jimfisheye says, and I do get his passion about it, Dolby does not want to sell their Media Encoder/Dolby Reference Player to the public or smaller shops apparently.
Not sure how Dolby sees their business impacted by sales to the general public.
The Dolby Reference player, for example, is pretty limited for your average enthusiast, and you have to strip things back to the bone for playback if you're starting with e.g. a BD. But it's not made to be a consumer level player, i.e. no bitstreaming just straight decoding to pcm.
Who knows how many budding young artists/mixers are left out in the cold, even established, but small shops. It does suck, but I don't see how Dolby's corporate mind could be changed so we have to live with it.
I think pretty much anyone could buy the DTS-HD MAS encoder, not sure about the DTS:X after the MAS encoder was canned.
Now as @jimfisheye says, and I do get his passion about it, Dolby does not want to sell their Media Encoder/Dolby Reference Player to the public or smaller shops apparently.
Not sure how Dolby sees their business impacted by sales to the general public.
The Dolby Reference player, for example, is pretty limited for your average enthusiast, and you have to strip things back to the bone for playback if you're starting with e.g. a BD. But it's not made to be a consumer level player, i.e. no bitstreaming just straight decoding to pcm.
Who knows how many budding young artists/mixers are left out in the cold, even established, but small shops. It does suck, but I don't see how Dolby's corporate mind could be changed so we have to live with it.
I fixed that for you
(There have been a fair number of DTS:X movie releases with 7.1.4 so ‘no one’ is not right).My worry about this announcement: Is Apple rewarding for exclusive rights to these Atmos mixes?
Hmmm.I fixed that for you
My worry about this announcement: Is Apple rewarding for exclusive rights to these Atmos mixes?
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