VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
Are you getting any great Atmos Sound Quality and great 4K Picture Quality from the streaming?
My projector is 2K so I can't comment on the 4K (looks good on a family's member's set, but it's only 57"). Atmos sounds identical to the BD versions to my ears, at least.
 
L

Leemix

Audioholic General
My projector is 2K so I can't comment on the 4K (looks good on a family's member's set, but it's only 57"). Atmos sounds identical to the BD versions to my ears, at least.
I only run 5.1 but personally i find BD lossless formats better than Netflix, netflix has improved and it does sound good now, but still there is a ways to go to rival Dolby TrueHD. (Edit: version of Atmos vs DD+ Atmos)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I only run 5.1 but personally i find BD lossless formats better than Netflix, netflix has improved and it does sound good now, but still there is a ways to go to rival Dolby TrueHD. (Edit: version of Atmos vs DD+ Atmos)
Well, I was mostly referring to AppleTV "iTunes" movies in Atmos versus the BD. I haven't really watched much Netflix in Atmos nor have I been able to compare to a disc format. Netflix used to have terrible data rates, but it's been vastly improved this past year. I can't tell 640kbps+ DD/DD+ from TrueHD. I haven't seen proof that anyone can thus far (i.e. anyone can claim to hear a difference in $2k RCA cables or $10k DACs too, but I've seen no proof of such claims either.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Well, I was mostly referring to AppleTV "iTunes" movies in Atmos versus the BD. I haven't really watched much Netflix in Atmos nor have I been able to compare to a disc format. Netflix used to have terrible data rates, but it's been vastly improved this past year. I can't tell 640kbps+ DD/DD+ from TrueHD. I haven't seen proof that anyone can thus far (i.e. anyone can claim to hear a difference in $2k RCA cables or $10k DACs too, but I've seen no proof of such claims either.
I haven't heard any great good decent Atmos sound from Netflix yet. :D

Probably Apple and Amazon Atmos are better.
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I watched Ender's Game in Atmos (off AppleTV 4K) last night. There were some points where I didn't think much surround was going on, but others where things were flying everywhere (more towards the sides and ceiling than in the center other than some flybys which always seem to go "bass heavy" for some reason and I wonder what mixing settings they're using as it just isn't "distinct" across the ceiling. Things that are right overhead are there.

But then I watch Flatliners in Auro-3D or Atmos and voices are distinct and clear all across the ceiling everywhere in the room so I think it can't just be me using "height" speakers instead of ceiling (well the back ones are on the ceiling, but they're pretty far back in the room relative to the MLP, which is why I have top middles as well), but rather it seems like they're afraid to put things 100% to the ceiling. When you think about it, stereo only sounds so far close to you in the room, but you get depth. However, you'd never get much depth if they were mixing front plus side surrounds and pulling everything closer to you. That is what I think might be happening. These mixing guys don't want to go to 100% ceiling, so they do 75/25 or 80/20 and think that's fantastic mixing. The problem is that only pulls ceiling sounds DOWNWARD and even outward if they're using bed level sides, etc. as well. It creates "all around" atmospherics, but it doesn't put DISTINCT "objects" flat on the ceiling. If anything, I would want 100% ceiling objects recorded in such a way as to give "depth" to the image (upward depth) so thunder sounds further away than my ceiling (real storms don't start/stop at my ceiling). SOME recordings I've heard do just that. Others sound like the clouds are right over my head.

If I play a thunderstorm recording just through the upper speakers, it sounds MAGNIFICENT. Turned up, I can't hardly tell the thunder from real thunder, but that's not what I get with many movies. Binaural thunderstorms sound even better (the whole storm sounds like I'm outside) if I play it in multi-channel stereo mode (the binaural clues create the imaging locations, not the use of any given speaker; you don't even need overheads for it to sound correct, which is what I think the DTS Virtual X attempts to do to a given signal (convert it to a binaural-like output). Film mixers should be combining binaural type sound effect recordings with height and you'd get magnificent life-like sound (like the Auro-3D demos do with dual-quad recordings). Sadly, they're mostly all pot-pan effects and like I said, they don't even put them 100% to the ceiling. They keep mixing them partially to the ground (which is appropriate for low-height effects and to create a seamless transition, but things that are way up the sky should sound like they're way up in the sky, IMO).

Or maybe my system just sucks because I don't have in-ceiling speakers (I still haven't gotten to hear such a setup to compare even the Dolby/DTS demos so I can never be 100% sure; there are no Dolby Atmos commercial theaters anywhere near me and even if there were, I'd want to hear demos or other material I could easily compare.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
I watched Ender's Game in Atmos (off AppleTV 4K) last night. There were some points where I didn't think much surround was going on, but others where things were flying everywhere (more towards the sides and ceiling than in the center other than some flybys which always seem to go "bass heavy" for some reason and I wonder what mixing settings they're using as it just isn't "distinct" across the ceiling. Things that are right overhead are there.

But then I watch Flatliners in Auro-3D or Atmos and voices are distinct and clear all across the ceiling everywhere in the room so I think it can't just be me using "height" speakers instead of ceiling (well the back ones are on the ceiling, but they're pretty far back in the room relative to the MLP, which is why I have top middles as well), but rather it seems like they're afraid to put things 100% to the ceiling. When you think about it, stereo only sounds so far close to you in the room, but you get depth. However, you'd never get much depth if they were mixing front plus side surrounds and pulling everything closer to you. That is what I think might be happening. These mixing guys don't want to go to 100% ceiling, so they do 75/25 or 80/20 and think that's fantastic mixing. The problem is that only pulls ceiling sounds DOWNWARD and even outward if they're using bed level sides, etc. as well. It creates "all around" atmospherics, but it doesn't put DISTINCT "objects" flat on the ceiling. If anything, I would want 100% ceiling objects recorded in such a way as to give "depth" to the image (upward depth) so thunder sounds further away than my ceiling (real storms don't start/stop at my ceiling). SOME recordings I've heard do just that. Others sound like the clouds are right over my head.

If I play a thunderstorm recording just through the upper speakers, it sounds MAGNIFICENT. Turned up, I can't hardly tell the thunder from real thunder, but that's not what I get with many movies. Binaural thunderstorms sound even better (the whole storm sounds like I'm outside) if I play it in multi-channel stereo mode (the binaural clues create the imaging locations, not the use of any given speaker; you don't even need overheads for it to sound correct, which is what I think the DTS Virtual X attempts to do to a given signal (convert it to a binaural-like output). Film mixers should be combining binaural type sound effect recordings with height and you'd get magnificent life-like sound (like the Auro-3D demos do with dual-quad recordings). Sadly, they're mostly all pot-pan effects and like I said, they don't even put them 100% to the ceiling. They keep mixing them partially to the ground (which is appropriate for low-height effects and to create a seamless transition, but things that are way up the sky should sound like they're way up in the sky, IMO).

Or maybe my system just sucks because I don't have in-ceiling speakers (I still haven't gotten to hear such a setup to compare even the Dolby/DTS demos so I can never be 100% sure; there are no Dolby Atmos commercial theaters anywhere near me and even if there were, I'd want to hear demos or other material I could easily compare.
Have you tried Hbo Go or Hbo Now on Apple TV? I’m hopeful DSU or NeuralX will work ok for me when I get my ceiling speakers installed.
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
Have you tried Hbo Go or Hbo Now on Apple TV? I’m hopeful DSU or NeuralX will work ok for me when I get my ceiling speakers installed.
No, I don't subscribe to HBO. I've always felt they have too limited content to be worth their monthly asking price.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
No, I don't subscribe to HBO. I've always felt they have too limited content to be worth their monthly asking price.
Ya I’m not sure with Game of Thrones ending, what the next big show will be. I do enjoy The Righteous Gemstones a lot though. :)
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I was just going to wait until iTunes has the entire series for sale and get it all at once. They do have it now, but they want $200. I'll wait until it comes down to $140 or less. $200 is too much, iMO when I saw the entire BD set (with Atmos) for like $140 (save the final season). I'm also not sure if iTunes has Atmos sound with it (you can tell with movies looking at the listings, but their TV listings leave a lot to be desired). I'd hate to have to convert 9 seasons of episodes from Blu-Ray, but I want Atmos sound.

I've been having a LOT of problems with KODI on the NVidia Shield lately. It just randomly "stops" like someone pressed the stop button using either Windows 10 or MacOS Mojave as a server. So I don't know about the future of local streaming anymore. iTunes Atmos at least WORKS. I had this problem once before and it seemed to be the CEC settings allowing interference somehow, but it's been turned off ever since so I don't know what it is now. I removed ES File Explorer (some said that was the cause) and it didn't make one bit of a difference. Whatever it is, it seems random. It's sad my system worked better two years, even 10 years ago better than it does now. Update your equipment and everything goes to hell. Of course, Team KODI doesn't give a flying crap about anything (biggest a-hole developers I've ever had the misfortune to encounter) so I don't expect it will ever get fixed. I've found dozens of others with the same problem (some just with NVidia graphics cards even) and no responses beyond ES File Explorer.... ) This after all those Devs said the NVidia Shield was the BEST box for KODI short of using a PC. Yeah right. My old FireTV 4K can't do Atmos, but it doesn't stop randomly....

The Mac server sometimes has the added bonus of freezing for a few seconds and then catching up once in awhile (turning the server on/off after a reboot seems to help get rid of it), but I never had any of those issues using MacOS El Capitan (everything worked great then). But the "stop" stuff started either after the Nvidia Shield OS update or the move to 18.4 LEIA (similar time frames so who knows). CinemaVision stopped working with Leia and still hasn't been properly fixed either. I just LOVE "progress" updates that BREAK more than they add. Basic operation is of paramount importance and they just seem to break that every damn time in favor of new features that don't mean jack for the most part. The only really useful new feature I saw in Leia was integrated voice search with the Shield.
 
fast fred

fast fred

Full Audioholic
Out of the 157 movies I have on Apples ecosystem about 30 are free upgrades to 4K. That is enough that I will be getting one soon.
?

Do you mean the digital copies of these 30 movies automatically get viewed in 4K?
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
If you buy a movie in 2K (HD aka 1080p) and the same movie (sometimes they have some director's cut nonsense or whatever that doesn't qualify since it's not the "same" movie) gets a 4K version on the iTunes store, then you get the 4K upgrade (including Atmos when available) for free. The first movie I bought on iTunes (Terminator 2) got upgraded to 4K, for instance (no Atmos version anywhere for that one). I've had dozens get upgraded to Atmos and dozens more to 4K (e.g. I bought the entire James Bond library on sale at the time save Spectre which didn't exist yet) on iTunes and they got upgraded to 4K before a single Bond title was available on BD UHD in 4K. Those have no HDR or Atmos, but they're still resolution 4K. I think I have over 80 titles in Atmos on there. And you get Atmos even if you don't have a 4K set and even if you don't qualify for the 4K version (i.e. some Movies Anywhere BD titles don't give you 4K digital copies, but if the 4K title on iTunes has Atmos, you still get Atmos even if it only plays back in 2K! That's quite nice, really. Other titles I had no intention of buying the 4K versions that I got free Atmos upgrades to include both Bad Boys movies (bought them as a two-pack way back when for like $10), all three Men In Black movies and Ghostbusters 1&2. Two of the three Robert Langdon movies got Atmos upgrades (Da Vinci Code and Inferno; not sure why Angels and Demons didn't get Atmos on the store yet). I think I bought them as a three pack. I've since gotten Inferno on BD in Auro-3D to compare as well. Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom was in DTS:X on the 3D BD and it gave me a 2D Atmos version on the iTunes store for free. :D

Sad (or happy depending on your viewpoint) with all the free digital copies and buying some movies on there on sale and ones that never got released in HD on BD (there's been a lot of those over the years) I think I have 438 titles now not including TV Shows.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
If you buy a movie in 2K (HD aka 1080p) and the same movie (sometimes they have some director's cut nonsense or whatever that doesn't qualify since it's not the "same" movie) gets a 4K version on the iTunes store, then you get the 4K upgrade (including Atmos when available) for free. The first movie I bought on iTunes (Terminator 2) got upgraded to 4K, for instance (no Atmos version anywhere for that one). I've had dozens get upgraded to Atmos and dozens more to 4K (e.g. I bought the entire James Bond library on sale at the time save Spectre which didn't exist yet) on iTunes and they got upgraded to 4K before a single Bond title was available on BD UHD in 4K. Those have no HDR or Atmos, but they're still resolution 4K. I think I have over 80 titles in Atmos on there. And you get Atmos even if you don't have a 4K set and even if you don't qualify for the 4K version (i.e. some Movies Anywhere BD titles don't give you 4K digital copies, but if the 4K title on iTunes has Atmos, you still get Atmos even if it only plays back in 2K! That's quite nice, really. Other titles I had no intention of buying the 4K versions that I got free Atmos upgrades to include both Bad Boys movies (bought them as a two-pack way back when for like $10), all three Men In Black movies and Ghostbusters 1&2. Two of the three Robert Langdon movies got Atmos upgrades (Da Vinci Code and Inferno; not sure why Angels and Demons didn't get Atmos on the store yet). I think I bought them as a three pack. I've since gotten Inferno on BD in Auro-3D to compare as well. Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom was in DTS:X on the 3D BD and it gave me a 2D Atmos version on the iTunes store for free. :D

Sad (or happy depending on your viewpoint) with all the free digital copies and buying some movies on there on sale and ones that never got released in HD on BD (there's been a lot of those over the years) I think I have 438 titles now not including TV Shows.
So if James Bond is upgraded to 4K before 4K is available, does that mean it’s not really 4K? I have similar questions on Amazon Music when songs say they are available above 16/44 when no SACD or DVDA of them exists. :)
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
So if James Bond is upgraded to 4K before 4K is available, does that mean it’s not really 4K? I have similar questions on Amazon Music when songs say they are available above 16/44 when no SACD or DVDA of them exists. :)
No, they're real 4K, although like some studio output, some might be upconverts (not all BDs that say 4K are actually 4K, probably less than half really. It's a bit of a scam, IMO).
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
No, they're real 4K, although like some studio output, some might be upconverts (not all BDs that say 4K are actually 4K, probably less than half really. It's a bit of a scam, IMO).
I saw on Blu-ray.com they tell you if an UHD is 2k unconverted or 4K. That’s one way to find out.

I try to find used copies a few months after release when possible. Or Black Friday is the time for good deals on new. :)
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I saw on Blu-ray.com they tell you if an UHD is 2k unconverted or 4K. That’s one way to find out.

I try to find used copies a few months after release when possible. Or Black Friday is the time for good deals on new. :)
Yeah, I'm banned on there till the end of the month for telling off a moderator that claimed I insulted someone. Saying "bullcrap" in regards to some nonsense someone kept shoving in my face about 3D projector crosstalk (which I argue varies greatly by movie title consistently on projectors that have crosstalk issues (not all TVs do; there's a timing issue involved and some titles have no crosstalk and some do and they vary in intensity on sets that have the issue. Yes, if you don't have any crosstalk at all, I can see why you would THINK the movie has nothing to do with it. Thus, they claim it's 100% the TV/Projector's fault and has NOTHING and I mean NOTHING to do with the movie itself. So that's why it varies consistently on titles between TVs and projectors that do have the problem? What has bad crosstalk on one has bad crosstalk on all. Some of us simply lauded reviews that informed us which titles had issues and these guys kept attacking those reviews with "Why would you infer this when the movie has NOTHING to do with it. It's all your crappy TV's fault!!!" Yeah, I love posts like that.

Yeah, saying "Bullcrap" is not a flame.... Apparently, I'm not allowed to have a strong opinion or the moderator agrees with these jokers. I can't stand abuse of power. I hate forums with biased moderation. I suppose I could just logoff to see postings, but I'd just assume stay away from those people.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
Yeah, I'm banned on there till the end of the month for telling off a moderator that claimed I insulted someone. Saying "bullcrap" in regards to some nonsense someone kept shoving in my face about 3D projector crosstalk (which I argue varies greatly by movie title consistently on projectors that have crosstalk issues (not all TVs do; there's a timing issue involved and some titles have no crosstalk and some do and they vary in intensity on sets that have the issue. Yes, if you don't have any crosstalk at all, I can see why you would THINK the movie has nothing to do with it. Thus, they claim it's 100% the TV/Projector's fault and has NOTHING and I mean NOTHING to do with the movie itself. So that's why it varies consistently on titles between TVs and projectors that do have the problem? What has bad crosstalk on one has bad crosstalk on all. Some of us simply lauded reviews that informed us which titles had issues and these guys kept attacking those reviews with "Why would you infer this when the movie has NOTHING to do with it. It's all your crappy TV's fault!!!" Yeah, I love posts like that.

Yeah, saying "Bullcrap" is not a flame.... Apparently, I'm not allowed to have a strong opinion or the moderator agrees with these jokers. I can't stand abuse of power. I hate forums with biased moderation. I suppose I could just logoff to see postings, but I'd just assume stay away from those people.
Oh I just look up the titles for the video details. I haven’t looked at the posts. :)
 

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