Dolby Atmos on 10" tablet ... "Why"?

KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
I'm probably missing something obvious:
I just bought a Lenovo tablet from a Cyber Monday sale.
I really didn't do much research as my old one works well enough, but the battery is going downhill and I thought it would be interesting to check out a more current iteration of android and a much faster processor.
My criteria were size (10") and resolution (1920X1200ips).
I just got it today and am surprised to see the Dolby Atmos logo on a sticker on the front of the tablet.
Why would this be a thing?
Do many people actually use a tablet to stream full blown HT to their systems?
Are their new earbuds with atmos drivers?:D

It seems like licensing fees must be pretty cheap if it makes sense to put it on tablets these days! Or maybe the license fee is pro-rated based on the likelihood of it being used?
 
A

andyblackcat

Audioholic General
Nope do not care to own a dolby atmos 10" tablet I hope it ends up on a landfill site surrounded by immersive overhead seagulls.
 
A

andyblackcat

Audioholic General
I like this and I agree with David Lynch. "On your f-ing telephone. Get real". Yeah that's like atmos on your f-ing phone. lol lmao :D


Oh Real Life sound is better than any atmos dolby cp850 and avr. Get Real! :D
 
Matthew J Poes

Matthew J Poes

Audioholic Chief
Staff member
I can’t deny that it’s marketing, but...I am fairly sure this atmos is actually tablet specific processing. It isn’t that it will output atmos sound to s receiver, but that Dolby developed an algorithm for tablets.

I actually have the same tablet, an Amazon 10” tablet, and an Apple current gen tablet. I have to say, I wish these companies would put more effort into just making the built in speakers sound decent. Apple has done an impressive job with theirs. The speakers play louder and have much more bass relative to the other two.

I was so impressed by the sound from the tiny tablet that I was actually thinking of sweeping the tablets and sharing the results. I’m not sure anyone else cares but me, but I was curious how much better the Apple tablet really was and why. My ears tell me there is at least another octave of bass and a good 6dB more output.
 
Steve81

Steve81

Audioholics Five-0
I actually have the same tablet, an Amazon 10” tablet, and an Apple current gen tablet. I have to say, I wish these companies would put more effort into just making the built in speakers sound decent. Apple has done an impressive job with theirs. The speakers play louder and have much more bass relative to the other two.
So you're saying you'd prefer not to be "immersed" in shitty sound? :D
 
Matthew J Poes

Matthew J Poes

Audioholic Chief
Staff member
Hey look! A website that discusses it.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/mobile/dolby-atmos.html

Seems silly to me, but I also tend to watch movies on my 161" screen not my 9.7" screen.
You are massively in the minority though. The downfall of modern home theater and 2-channel has come from the change in how average consumers use the content. They not only aren't watching on projector screens, they aren't even watching on TV's anymore. The new generation of kids are largely using their tablets and laptops to watch movies. More and more content is consumed from places like Youtube. The times are changing and if companies like Dolby don't invest, they will die a dinosaur.

This hobby is my passion and I hate to paint a doom and gloom picture, but I don't think it's a very healthy industry at the moment. In talking to some industry insiders, including those who design the hardware for surround processors and such, there is real risk that in our lifetime the necessary technology to make a receiver will not exist. We currently rely on archaic DSP chips that are used both for surround decoding and pro audio DSP. Both industries are seeing a decline in the need for these chips and the profitability to chip manufacturers is not there. There have been threats by companies like TI to abandon the Aureus chips, for example. There are just a handful of chips still available, they are easily 10-15 years old with little updates, so their demise is likely.

I suspect once DSP chips go the way of the dinosaur we will see a shift to computer-based processors that do all decoding in the software. While many processors are already basically just a computer, they will exclusively be so. While that might seem fine, it's important to consider that this would price out low-cost receivers and processors. When I've talked to some of the folks in the know, they've basically implied that its not a major concern because the industry sees our niche becoming smaller and smaller and thus only leaving room for more expensive products.

I think a possible dystopian future may actually be that the majority of content is consumed via VR, AR, and tablet/phone devices with surround sound or 3D sound largely being either a headphone thing or built into the device. Music will be increasingly consumed through small smart speakers or similar. Home theater will become increasingly marginalized to the point of a very rare and small niche.
 
D

dandunham

Audiophyte
I think you are on the money Matthew. I think there is a confluence of technologies and the way people consume media that are making the dedicated stereo or even home theater less and less attractive. 1 - large stereo \ home theaters are NOT considered high tech/ cool any more. There is lots of high tech out there that people want to spend money on outside of just audio video.
My receiver just kicked the can and I am really struggling with the idea of purchasing something that I cant upgrade with a firmware or software update to the latest sound processing technology. The entire receiver/ pre amp processor thing is so irritating to me because I know you can do this with a nice cpu and software without having to change out the entire box when the tech changes. I really think the home audio industry is going to have to change in a big way to stay relevant.
2 - my two young teens couldn't care less about high end audio/video. as long as they can play the content and make their content that's what they are interested in.
3 - Its very rare that we as a family will sit in the same room and watch any one show or movie. We do lots of family things together but sitting in the "theater" is rarely one of them.
4 - my wife likes stuff that I don't and vice versa - many times we go to different rooms to consume media.
5 - I happened to purchase an ultrawide screen for work and my laptop supports Dolby Audio in to headphones. I have a pair of headphones I really like and I have found that watching movies or shows this way is actually incredibly immersive and I tend to use this method of watching far more than my theater now. With that said do believe that my theater gives me a better overall experience but it disturbs everything else in the house when I use it.
6-pop music these days doesn't really beg for high quality systems, the music is so "digitalized" that it doesn't really matter what you play it on. (that's totally my opinion ;-)

I almost forgot to comment on the subject that got me interested in this thread. I specifically purchased my ZTE Axon 7 for Dolby and Atmos capabilities (and several other features). I find that turning Dolby on for just about any music enhances it in a pleasing way. On movies that are Dolby capable you get some amazing sound. I don't watch too much on the Axon 7 but it can be quite startling for people to hear atmos through a phone. Its kinda fun to watch :) at any rate, for me its good enough on the Axon 7 to make it a requirement for any new gear I look at.
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
I think you are on the money Matthew. I think there is a confluence of technologies and the way people consume media that are making the dedicated stereo or even home theater less and less attractive. 1 - large stereo \ home theaters are NOT considered high tech/ cool any more. There is lots of high tech out there that people want to spend money on outside of just audio video.
My receiver just kicked the can and I am really struggling with the idea of purchasing something that I cant upgrade with a firmware or software update to the latest sound processing technology. The entire receiver/ pre amp processor thing is so irritating to me because I know you can do this with a nice cpu and software without having to change out the entire box when the tech changes. I really think the home audio industry is going to have to change in a big way to stay relevant.
2 - my two young teens couldn't care less about high end audio/video. as long as they can play the content and make their content that's what they are interested in.
3 - Its very rare that we as a family will sit in the same room and watch any one show or movie. We do lots of family things together but sitting in the "theater" is rarely one of them.
4 - my wife likes stuff that I don't and vice versa - many times we go to different rooms to consume media.
5 - I happened to purchase an ultrawide screen for work and my laptop supports Dolby Audio in to headphones. I have a pair of headphones I really like and I have found that watching movies or shows this way is actually incredibly immersive and I tend to use this method of watching far more than my theater now. With that said do believe that my theater gives me a better overall experience but it disturbs everything else in the house when I use it.
6-pop music these days doesn't really beg for high quality systems, the music is so "digitalized" that it doesn't really matter what you play it on. (that's totally my opinion ;-)

I almost forgot to comment on the subject that got me interested in this thread. I specifically purchased my ZTE Axon 7 for Dolby and Atmos capabilities (and several other features). I find that turning Dolby on for just about any music enhances it in a pleasing way. On movies that are Dolby capable you get some amazing sound. I don't watch too much on the Axon 7 but it can be quite startling for people to hear atmos through a phone. Its kinda fun to watch :) at any rate, for me its good enough on the Axon 7 to make it a requirement for any new gear I look at.
I can see how Dolby might improve sound quality. Dolby's Atmos, however, would require some specialized phones (that I do not think are being made) with extra drivers or some sort of pseudo-sound trickery to provide the overhead sound.
With tablets, I normally think in terms of buds or phones for good sound and the tablet speakers for poor sound. So no benefit from Atmos there!

Does anyone know if you could reasonably cast a movie with full multi-channel Atmos audio to a smart TV?

I have no idea how much bandwidth is available through the normal media casting wireless operation. I don't believe my tablet has an HDMI port.
That would at least make some sense of having the feature on a tablet.
 
D

dandunham

Audiophyte
I am not sure how they make the Atmos stuff work over standard headphones but they must be doing something with phasing in conjunction with shifting the frequencies of specific sounds so your brain interprets it as moving behind you or above you. Its really quite amazing to me how it works. Keep in mind that because Atmos uses sound "objects" that when they mix the sound track they can isolate a specific sound like a vehicle or a bullet or whatever is moving and manipulate just that sound any way they like. meaning that they could take that sound and not only pan across both speakers but phase shift and pitch shift it to make it sound like its moving all over. At any rate its fun to listen to.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
My phone has this "feature" for headphones. I suppose it is the equivalent of an avr using Dolby Surround sound mode in 2ch?
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
I am not sure how they make the Atmos stuff work over standard headphones but they must be doing something with phasing in conjunction with shifting the frequencies of specific sounds so your brain interprets it as moving behind you or above you. Its really quite amazing to me how it works. Keep in mind that because Atmos uses sound "objects" that when they mix the sound track they can isolate a specific sound like a vehicle or a bullet or whatever is moving and manipulate just that sound any way they like. meaning that they could take that sound and not only pan across both speakers but phase shift and pitch shift it to make it sound like its moving all over. At any rate its fun to listen to.
Deceptive marketing it probably just decodes atmos . It’s essentially virtual surround like on old school devices and TVs .


Ultimate bass lover !! si ht15 dvc.
Free the reptile aliens
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
Anything that keeps Atmos or X alive is a good thing, IMO no matter how trite. We've got a generation of Facebook zombies that mostly wouldn't know quality if it hit them in the face.

I'm guessing there will be a rebellion from the next generation against much of this god awful social media garbage and maybe people will appreciate the finer things in life again.... That is if the movie industry doesn't keep shooting itself in the foot with constant repetitive reboots and sequels. Quality new content needs more than just Atmos to save it.
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
Anything that keeps Atmos or X alive is a good thing, IMO no matter how trite. We've got a generation of Facebook zombies that mostly wouldn't know quality if it hit them in the face.

I'm guessing there will be a rebellion from the next generation against much of this god awful social media garbage and maybe people will appreciate the finer things in life again.... That is if the movie industry doesn't keep shooting itself in the foot with constant repetitive reboots and sequels. Quality new content needs more than just Atmos to save it.
They should shoot movies in 16;9 so I don’t got these massive bars on my tv haha .
Low end Soundbars , and blue tooth speakers are the worst travesty to audio along with Bose cube speaker type systems and satellite speakers with low end pasta parts .
Nice to know atmos is popular I don’t yet have a atmos receiver , financial hardships .


Ultimate bass lover !! si ht15 dvc.
Free the reptile aliens
 

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