Where to find Dolby Atmos content?
What is Dolby Atmos?
Dolby Atmos is a new sound technology developed in 2012 by Dolby, the new technology expands the 5.1 and 7.1 previous setups into more speakers placed all around the room to create an all-surrounding 3D-sound experience. Basically, Atmos is the latest way to get surrounded by sound, one of the main benefits of this new technology is that it can work with as many or as few speakers as you have.
When filmmakers and sound designers are creating the sound for a movie, they usually put all the different sound in what we will call them here channels, this includes everything you hear in a movie from the sound of the characters to the sound effects, those channels are divided in each side of the room, that’s how it used to be with old sound system. With Dolby Atmos, and surrounding sound systems, filmmakers don’t deal with channels anymore, instead, they treat the sound as an object, for example in the picture below, when the characters look to the left corner of the room, which is the source of the sound, the audience will hear the sound from this left corner, where filmmakers already put it, and this could be any place in the room even if there is no speaker there.
in a cinema, where Atmos was first introduced, a set of 64 speakers is used, all around the theater, even on the ceiling which will provide a height dimension to the sound, and it will deliver a much better sound experience.
For a better understanding of how Atmos technology works you can check out this video by ONKYO:
Where can I find and try Dolby Atmos?
To try Atmos sound, and experience this new technology, which I highly recommended you to do, the easiest and cheapest way would be to find the nearest cinema that is already upgraded to the Dolby Atmos sound system, there are quite a lot of those cinemas right now, and to find that out, Dolby has provided you with a full list and a map of all the cinemas that use the new technology all over the world, all you need to do is to enter your city, state, or zip code and it will show you all the options that you have around you.
Your other option would be to upgrade your home sound system, of course, to bring the whole cinema experience to your home is something hard and nearly impossible, but in case of your living room, you won’t need a set of 64 speakers. For a home Atmos experience, a set of at least 7 speakers would be enough, but if you are planning to go for the full package, then Atmos home system can support up to 34 speakers, but to be honest, such a step would be a bit crazy.
If you are upgrading your sound system, then I will be happy to tell you that you need to worry about the speakers, your already existing speakers are capable of delivering Atmos quality. What you need to think about is an AV receiver which can decode Atmos sound. There are a few of them now in the market you can check some of them out at Samma3a.com .
In case you are wondering about the overhead speakers, and how will you be able to place them on your ceiling, then let me tell you that this step is not that necessary, you can always buy a special Dolby speakers that will be placed above the front speakers, and it will aim the sound to the ceiling so it can reflect and deliver the same Atmos experience.
related: All you need to know about Dolby Atmos technology
Where to find Atmos content?
Dolby introduced the new technology back in 2012, and since then a lot of movies and TV shows have been upgraded to the new sound technology. And Atmos is becoming more popular than ever before. Luckily, Dolby has provided us with a list of movies that have already used Atmos. But still, not all of these movies have been released on Blu-ray, that’s why Dolby also has a list for the Blu-ray movies that have used Atmos technology.
Read also: Sony announces adding Dolby Atmos to its Blu-ray player and AV receiver
