Total utter nonsense with "bouncy atmos" its a cheap con for those too lazy to fit lightweight or even heavy speakers to the ceiling or flush mounted within the ceiling.
Back around when I was young and seeing STAR WARS and many other DOLBY STEREO films over the years at the same odeon twin screen at bournemouth, uk.
Dolby Stereo CP50 was doing OVERHEAD SURROUND flush mounted at the now closed down odeon bournemouth back in the days of STAR WARS in screens 1 and 2.
Screen 1 upstairs had flush mounted arrays scattered evenly apart and guess what. It was "immersive storytelling" With a DOLBY STEREO CP50, not some enabled rubbish.
Screen 2 downstairs had the surrounds on the sidewall rear wall and again flush mounted scattered evenly about within the ceiling. Of course the signal is playing the same sound matrix mono rear channel source only scattered about to SURROUND THE AUDIENCE within the auditorium.
When I got a job with UCI cinemas guess what UCI 10 screen used EV Eletro-Voice speakers LCR behind screen no subs installed which should have for DOLBY SR prints and arrays of OVERHEAD SURROUNDS mounted on the ceiling in the same exact way as today in commercial atmos cinemas with the same spacing between them only back then there was less of them on the ceiling and they didn't extend far forward as now with rules being changed by Dolby labs.
UCI had 7 smaller screens all same design with 6 I think on the ceiling with odd placement as the odd one was at the rear back where it narrows toward the door entrance as you walk in further it widens out and then you notice evenly placed wait for it..... "OVERHEAD SURROUNDS" I mean is there any other name for it?
One of seven of the smaller screens with Overhead surrounds again these smaller ones original design no longer exists its been revamped. But that is how it originally looked in 1989. A ten plex cinema with Overhead surrounds with a Dolby CP55 with SRA5 and basic Quad modified amplifiers only x3 in the small mounted rack in the projection booths with booth monitor that had a feature to adjust the mono matrix surround level within few + and - db.
UCI screen 5 or 6 hard to tell also the design no longer exists its been altered I think around 2010 or 11?
The two same design larger screens 5 and 6 had I think 6 or 8 OVERHEAD SURROUNDS evenly placed and a little more to middle like on the ceiling not really in the middle but sure look like the same placement as it is today.
I must have listened to and felt dozens of DOLBY A-type DOLBY SR and when left few years later dts was installed so now its STEREO OVERHEAD SURROUNDS! Still no SUB BASS installed not until near 1999 or 2000 I noticed in smaller screens where a JBL 4645B when DOLBY CP500 SR-D was installed but the OVERHEAD SURROUNDS was taken down and replaced with the typical sidewall rear wall configuration for DOLBY STEREO / 5.1 / 70mm that is really sort of common in most cinemas its just these few cinemas had something different in placement and it really did work well.
So I heard original STAR WARS DOLBY STEREO a real one off kind of treat back in its day and many more DOLBY STEREO films.
It was strange to hear STAR WARS ''97 with OVERHEAD SURROUNDS again in screen 1 as screen 2 was gutted in 1989 halved up for 5 shoe-box screens.
Hearing the OVERHEAD with STAR WARS '97 in screen 1 got a lot of my trained ear listening attention! It really was again "immersive storyteller" and I don't think even skywalker sound had Overhead at the time. Yeah we British like to take surround further.
Sadly screen 1 must have had speaker issues near upper late 90's as the OVERHEAD didn't appear active and I noticed what a projectionist must have done was taken one of the pair Hi-Fi speakers used for those mini-hi-fi used in downstairs foyer for Rear back corners only surrounds and it sounded CRAP! Talk about cinemas on budgets but really mini-hi-fi speakers and I had to put up with crap matrix rear mono surrounded until 1999 when it was revamped with JBL 8330 same old 1960's speakers behind the screen with lousy bass and no subs but a new DOLBY CP500 and amps was installed from what I could see when standing on a seat at the rear back I could see in the port window and a dts decoder I think one of the higher class models? Thou no longer as odeon is CLOSED.
So that's a little bit about OVERHEAD SURROUNDS dating back 1977 its human to explore it and for as long as it lasted trained my ears.
Hearing atmos at the CLOSED Empire Leicester Square EMPIRE 1 I say closed as cineworld doesn't exist to me with crappy fake imax LIEMAX.
Hearing atmos first time with "captain spunker lens flare kirk" Overhead Right then Overhead left reminded me of UCI tower park 24 years at the time 1989 - 2013 just reminded me of UCI with OVERHEAD SURROUNDS I wasn't all that impressed so what if its discrete for all I know the atmos might have been f**d up and playing back with some sort of upmix decoder. Of Course it wasn't I'm just cynical about it as Dolby labs are lazy not to have placed a BELOW SURROUND CHANNELS I mean the whole thing fucking bores my ears to tears that I have to wait more years while these vultures scamming the public then release another version which has been going on now for decades with stereo hi-fi world.
Best sound one can hear is called REAL LIFE check it!
