Ever since the first Star Wars movie wowed audiences with groundbreaking surround sound in 1977, the Dolby Group has played a major role in most of what's happening in film and cinema sound. With the introduction of DVD and Blu-ray, they have also made inroads into the home market with the Dolby Digital surround sound format.

In the film industry, it is important to innovate in order to attract audiences. So two years ago, Dolby launched Atmos - a three-dimensional sound format that can be heard from the front, side and back - but also just above your head through dedicated height channels. A cinema equipped with Dolby Atmos can have up to 64 speakers around the auditorium, allowing sound engineers to place sound effects far more precisely than before. The goal is to envelop you in a perfect bubble of sound! The ceiling speakers - or "Voice of God" speakers, as they're also known - are designed to give the movie sound a height perspective. Already used in films like Brave, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Gravity, Godzilla and the Hobbit movies, to name a few, the technology undoubtedly adds an extra dimension to movie sound... Now you can experience it at home!

From 64 to 12 channels

Advanced cinema technology tends to end up in the home sooner or later, but this time it's happening sooner than we expected: The home version of Atmos will be introduced on new surround receivers as early as this year, and new Blu-ray movies with Atmos soundtracks will be available from the autumn. And that's not all: They can be played on your current Blu-ray player! The home version of Atmos is naturally scaled down "a bit" compared to what we can experience in the cinema. Dolby has no ambitions for us to install 64 speakers in the living room! To make it easier to upgrade to Atmos, they've based it on today's familiar 5.1 and 7.1 setups, where you add two or four speakers as extra height channels. Therefore, you'll need more speakers or alternatively have to move the ones you have around a bit. Follow the home cinema section of Sound & Vision

This is what you need to get Atmos sound at home:

1. A Blu-ray or streaming movie with Atmos soundtrack 2. Blu-ray player 3. An Atmos-compatible surround receiver/amplifier 4. 5.1 or 7.1 speaker system 5. 2 or 4 additional height speakers. Today's Blu-ray players must already be compatible with the Atmos format, which is an evolution of today's Dolby TrueHD format. You can therefore continue to use your existing Blu-ray. You will, however, need to buy a new surround receiver (again!) that can decode and reproduce the Atmos soundtrack, as well as drive the necessary speakers. To get the right height perspective, the height channels should ideally be mounted in the ceiling. Alternatively, they can be placed above your existing speakers, respectively in front of and behind the listening position, radiating upwards.

Here is an overview of possible Atmos configurations:

Atmos 5.1.2: A traditional 5.1 setup with front left/right, centre and two surround speakers - plus two Atmos height channels. This configuration might work well in places where 7.1 sound is difficult to place.

Atmos 5.1.4: As above, but with four Atmos height channels. Note that a more advanced receiver is required to drive four Atmos speakers.

Atmos 7.1.2: A traditional 7.1 setup with front left/right, centre, two surround speakers, two rear speakers and two Atmos height channels.

Atmos 7.1.4: As above, but with four Atmos height channels. A total of 11 channels (plus sub) and the most comprehensive Atmos configuration for home use.

What is Dolby Atmos?

The cinema version of Atmos is about more than just installing a few speakers in the ceiling. It's a very three-dimensional soundtrack with up to 128 (!) individual sound channels, with 64 speakers able to be driven simultaneously. But that doesn't mean the sound engineers in the movie studio are stuck with 64 speakers. In fact, the Atmos soundtrack is coded so that a sound effect (such as the sound of a helicopter flying overhead) is assigned longitude, latitude and altitude coordinates that indicate where the sound is and in which direction it is moving.

This 3D audio information travels with the digital movie disc into the cinema and is used to mix and scale the sound exactly to the number of speakers in the cinema, which is why Dolby can claim that the same audio experience can be moved into your living room. A Dolby Atmos sound mix consists of music/background sound, object sound and metadata that tells you where the sound is going. All this allows for much more precise placement of sound effects, smoother panning effects and, most importantly, better sound for each cinema seat. In short: A more realistic movie experience! Follow us in the home cinema section of Sound & Vision.