Sony Teaming Up with IMAX and DTS to Battle Dolby Vision

gene

gene

Audioholics Master Chief
Administrator
The gloves are off. Sony is ready to do some battle in a potentially new format war that involves IMAX and DTS heavyweights vs Dolby....

Just when we thought Sony learned their lessons from past formats DOA, they are at it again this time by teaming up with IMAX and DTS along with select partners to certify the "IMAX movie experience" for home theater. Will Sony be on the losing side against already established Dolby Vision and HDR10 or will they leverage IMAX's immersive picture and sound quality on top of these other technologies?

This smells like a format war or at the very least more consumer confusion. How many more damn logos can we fit on AV receivers and how much more can we shrink the power supplies to keep product costs the same while adding more licensing partners? Inquiring minds want to know.

imax.jpg


Read: Watch IMAX Quality Movies with Special DTS Sound with IMAX Enhanced for Home Entertainment
 

TechHDS

Audioholic General
I’m sure all the fees eat into the cost of the build of AVR’s, we consumers have to eat in the end. Umm speaking of eating, everyone at Genes house! for a sit down I’m bring the popcorn! Very nice System Gene!

Mike
 
Last edited:
D

Drunkpenguin

Audioholic Chief
Speaking of logos on a receiver can I rant about something real quick? I keep seeing Denons in youtube reviews with the stickers still all over them. One guy was doing a 6 month review and still had that large sticker a cross the top showing all the various things this receiver can do. Am I the only one bothered by stickers? lol

With that out of the way, I do miss the old days where the only audio format was ON or OFF.
 
BoredSysAdmin

BoredSysAdmin

Audioholic Slumlord
I kinda get it why DTS in this (need to do SOMETHING to do to fight Dobly Vision), but Sony is just being greedy here as they are already supporting licensing free HDR10.
IMAX I get, they would try absolutely anything as IMAX as a brand name already have been diluted to nearly meaningless, why not to continue the trend and offer "IMAX" TVs?
The absolutely last thing we need right now is yet another HDR format, however, I suspect this alliance has nothing to do with it, despite author claims. This seems more like THX certification approach, rather than trying actually something new.

p.s:
Denon/Marantz corporate/ownership history and structure is quite fascinating and complicated. Try to keep track:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D+M_Group
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/01/sound-united/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEI_Holdings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlesbank_Capital_Partners
 
Last edited:
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
I really want to root for anything DTS but Dolby caught up and is out in front now.
 

TechHDS

Audioholic General
I really want to root for anything DTS but Dolby caught up and is out in front now.
Don’t know if you remember back in the ole days Sony’s wars with all of the other format wars, beta VHS, my favorite the laser disk battle, and Blu-ray over HD-DVD. Now we have this new battle format. Sony who own’s movie company “Universal” now teaming up with IMAX seems to me a money grab, Gene is spot on with his comments, on all the fees that manufactures already have to pay which cuts into the build of AVR’s and than passed on to us the consumer. Gene even mentions that with all of the processor being crammed into the units power supply load being taxed. I don’t see an end to this format thing ever.

Mike
 
Bookmark

Bookmark

Full Audioholic
There is a suggestion from a german site that this combined Imax/Dts move will roll up Auro3d and bring a VOG to Dts:X setups.

New 2018 models and going forward, will from Denon and Marantz support the Imax Mode. No word from the rest.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Time to bring out the popcorn and watch the Video fight. :D

I don’t even care who wins since I’m mainly an Audio guy. :D
 
L

Lil klipsch

Junior Audioholic
So,have they done testing on these AVRs to certify them, and what will this update actually be doing to help audio and video quality?.
 
RichB

RichB

Audioholic Field Marshall
The information from IMAX/DTS was pretty thin gruel.

It seems to be an opportunity to have an "IMAX movie experience" stamped on your AVR/Processor, with appropriate licensing frees.

- Rich
 
RichB

RichB

Audioholic Field Marshall
So,have they done testing on these AVRs to certify them, and what will this update actually be doing to help audio and video quality?.
Sounds like IMAX has an authoring process into standard HDR. It could be best practices.

- Rich
 
chrisskylin3

chrisskylin3

Enthusiast
The gloves are off. Sony is ready to do some battle in a potentially new format war that involves IMAX and DTS heavyweights vs Dolby....

Just when we thought Sony learned their lessons from past formats DOA, they are at it again this time by teaming up with IMAX and DTS along with select partners to certify the "IMAX movie experience" for home theater. Will Sony be on the losing side against already established Dolby Vision and HDR10 or will they leverage IMAX's immersive picture and sound quality on top of these other technologies?

This smells like a format war or at the very least more consumer confusion. How many more damn logos can we fit on AV receivers and how much more can we shrink the power supplies to keep product costs the same while adding more licensing partners? Inquiring minds want to know.

View attachment 25687

Read: Watch IMAX Quality Movies with Special DTS Sound with IMAX Enhanced for Home Entertainment
Thanks for the video and article Gene. It will be interesting when you guys get your hands on this new equipment and see if it is the be all and end all. I doubt it will be significantly better. As far as I have experienced, nothing beats OLED in 4K. Until we have holographic projections in our living rooms, all this is baby steps by the AV corporations.
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I don't know what the problem is with this format. It's not like the discs won't work in normal equipment. Given the print-through issue with Atmos (locked 7.1.4 soundtracks from Disney and probably soon 20th Century Fox as well since Disney bought them) that won't play properly on higher speaker count home theaters, I'd PREFER DTS:X since at least DTS:X Pro can near perfectly expand 7.1.4 out to 30.2 speakers (with some Auro-3D layout options to choose from to boot) using "center" extraction (I use the same effect in my home theater to get Top Middle that works with everything including Auro-3D and it works GREAT. You can't tell it from the real thing , IMO with actual material playing and Neural X does a better job than old Pro Logic at extraction). Dolby has allowed Disney to put out these abominations of Atmos and their DSU upmixer uses even less speakers than original DTS:X, let alone DTS:X Pro. So I say go DTS:X at this point. It doesn't matter that it does nothing "new" in IMAX Enhanced. It gets away from that locked channel issue.

As for discs (if they ever show up; apparently Angry Birds 2 will be the first release from Sony), if that means I get a Blade Runner 2049 in FULL CINEMA IMAX like it was in theaters, well fantastic as far as I'm concerned (I just wish they'd do 3D as well). How many movies got released without the IMAX scenes included? If this corrects that issue, more power to them. The discs don't need any special decoding to work. No one is making anyone buy them either.
 
S

snakeeyes

Audioholic Ninja
I don't know what the problem is with this format. It's not like the discs won't work in normal equipment. Given the print-through issue with Atmos (locked 7.1.4 soundtracks from Disney and probably soon 20th Century Fox as well since Disney bought them) that won't play properly on higher speaker count home theaters, I'd PREFER DTS:X since at least DTS:X Pro can near perfectly expand 7.1.4 out to 30.2 speakers (with some Auro-3D layout options to choose from to boot) using "center" extraction (I use the same effect in my home theater to get Top Middle that works with everything including Auro-3D and it works GREAT. You can't tell it from the real thing , IMO with actual material playing and Neural X does a better job than old Pro Logic at extraction). Dolby has allowed Disney to put out these abominations of Atmos and their DSU upmixer uses even less speakers than original DTS:X, let alone DTS:X Pro. So I say go DTS:X at this point. It doesn't matter that it does nothing "new" in IMAX Enhanced. It gets away from that locked channel issue.

As for discs (if they ever show up; apparently Angry Birds 2 will be the first release from Sony), if that means I get a Blade Runner 2049 in FULL CINEMA IMAX like it was in theaters, well fantastic as far as I'm concerned (I just wish they'd do 3D as well). How many movies got released without the IMAX scenes included? If this corrects that issue, more power to them. The discs don't need any special decoding to work. No one is making anyone buy them either.
When you say dtsx pro supports 30.2, do you mean the LFE uses more than one mono channel? Or is it the same mono .1?
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
When you say dtsx pro supports 30.2, do you mean the LFE uses more than one mono channel? Or is it the same mono .1?
Supposedly, it can use two LFE channels, but I don't know if any hardware supports that function and I've only seen speculation as to what use it might have given the non-directional nature of sub-80Hz bass. I think DTS was just keeping their options open for the future. Perhaps it could be repurposed some day even.
 
newsletter

  • RBHsound.com
  • BlueJeansCable.com
  • SVS Sound Subwoofers
  • Experience the Martin Logan Montis
Top