7.1 surround sound

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Label for 7.1 extended surround sound 7 1 channels surround sound.svg
Label for 7.1 extended surround sound

7.1 surround sound is the common name for an eight-channel surround audio system commonly used in home theatre configurations. It adds two additional speakers to the more conventional six-channel (5.1) audio configuration. As with 5.1 surround sound, 7.1 surround sound positional audio uses the standard front left and right, center, and LFE (subwoofer) speaker configuration. However, whereas a 5.1 surround sound system combines both surround and rear channel effects into two channels (commonly configured in home theatre set-ups as two rear surround speakers), a 7.1 surround system splits the surround and rear channel information into four distinct channels, in which sound effects are directed to left and right surround channels (SL and SR), plus two rear surround channels (SBL and SBR).

Contents

In a 7.1 surround sound home theatre set-up, the surround speakers are placed to the side of the listener's position and the rear speakers are placed behind the listener. [1] [2] In addition, with the advent of Dolby Pro Logic IIz and DTS Neo:X, 7.1 surround sound can also refer to 7.1 surround sound configurations with the addition of two front height channels (LH and RH) positioned above the front channels or two front wide channels positioned between the front and surround channels. [3] [4]

History

Home entertainment

The Blu-ray Disc and the HD DVD home video formats provide up to eight channels of lossless DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed LPCM audio at 96/48 kHz 24/16-bit, or lossy Dolby Digital Plus up to 48 kHz at 1024 kilobytes per second.

Cinema

While some movies have been remixed to 7.1 audio tracks on Blu-ray Discs for home cinema, [5] the first discrete theatrical 7.1 soundtrack was Toy Story 3 in 2010, [6] followed by Step Up 3D . Disney announced that they will use 7.1 surround for their future 3D releases.[ citation needed ] Recent titles include Megamind , Tangled , Tron: Legacy , Gnomeo and Juliet , Mars Needs Moms , Gulliver's Travels and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader . [7] In 2011, additional movies were released with theatrical 7.1 audio, including Thor , Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides , A Minecraft Movie, Kung Fu Panda 2 , Super 8 , Green Lantern , Cars 2 , Transformers: Dark of the Moon , Captain America: The First Avenger . In 2012, Pizza, a Tamil film was released with this theatrical 7.1 audio. All these titles are exhibited in the Dolby Surround 7.1 theatrical format. [8] 7-1-surround-sound

Music

The history of electronic music includes the evolution of multi-channel playback in concert (arguably the real roots of "surround sound" for cinema) and for a considerable time the 8-channel format was a de facto standard. This standardisation was fostered, in great measure, by the development of professional and semi-professional 8-track tape recorders—originally analog, but later manifesting in proprietary cassette formats by Alesis and Tascam. The speaker configuration, however, is much less traditional, and unlike cinematic reproduction systems, there is no hard-and-fast "standard". In fact, composers took (and to some extent still take) considerable interest in experimenting with speaker layouts. In these experiments, the goal is not limited to creating "realistic" playback of believably natural sonic environments. Rather, the goals are often simply to experience and understand the psychoacoustics effect created by variations on source and imaging.

Some of the first live concerts to appear were Chris Botti in Boston in 2009 and Satchurated in 2012.

See also


Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Home cinema</span> Home entertainment system that aims to replicate the experience of a movie theater

A home cinema, also called a home theater or theater room, is a home entertainment audio-visual system that seeks to reproduce a movie theater experience and mood using consumer electronics-grade video and audio equipment and is set up in a room or backyard of a private home. Some studies show that films are rated better and generate more intense emotions when watched in a movie theater, but convenience is a major appeal for home cinemas. In the 1980s, home cinemas typically consisted of a movie pre-recorded on a LaserDisc or VHS tape; a LaserDisc Player or VCR; and a heavy, bulky large-screen cathode-ray tube TV set, although sometimes CRT projectors were used instead. In the 2000s, technological innovations in sound systems, video player equipment, TV screens and video projectors have changed the equipment used in home cinema set-ups and enabled home users to experience a higher-resolution screen image, improved sound quality and components that offer users more options. The development of Internet-based subscription services means that 2020s-era home theatre users do not have to commute to a video rental store as was common in the 1980s and 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WinDVD</span> Video and music player software

WinDVD is a commercial DVD video player software for Microsoft Windows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surround sound</span> System with loudspeakers that surround the listener

Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener. Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems commonly had three screen channels of sound that played from three loudspeakers located in front of the audience. Surround sound adds one or more channels from loudspeakers to the side or behind the listener that are able to create the sensation of sound coming from any horizontal direction around the listener.

Dolby Pro Logic is a surround sound processing technology developed by Dolby Laboratories, designed to decode soundtracks encoded with Dolby Surround. The terms Dolby Stereo and LtRt are also used to describe soundtracks that are encoded using this technique.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolby</span> Audio technology company

Dolby Laboratories, Inc. is a British-American technology corporation specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">5.1 surround sound</span> Sound systems that use 5 speakers and one subwoofer

5.1 surround sound is the common name for surround sound audio systems. 5.1 is the most commonly used layout in home theatres. It uses five full-bandwidth channels and one low-frequency effects channel. Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, SDDS, and THX are all common 5.1 systems. 5.1 is also the standard surround sound audio component of digital broadcast and music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTS, Inc.</span> Series of multichannel audio technologies

DTS, Inc. is an American company. DTS company makes multichannel audio technologies for film and video. Based in Calabasas, California, the company introduced its DTS technology in 1993 as a competitor to Dolby Laboratories, incorporating DTS in the film Jurassic Park (1993). The DTS product is used in surround sound formats for both commercial/theatrical and consumer-grade applications. It was known as The Digital Experience until 1995. DTS licenses its technologies to consumer electronics manufacturers.

Dolby Digital Plus, also known as Enhanced AC-3, is a digital audio compression scheme developed by Dolby Labs for the transport and storage of multi-channel digital audio. It is a successor to Dolby Digital (AC-3), and has a number of improvements over that codec, including support for a wider range of data rates, an increased channel count, and multi-program support, as well as additional tools (algorithms) for representing compressed data and counteracting artifacts. Whereas Dolby Digital (AC-3) supports up to five full-bandwidth audio channels at a maximum bitrate of 640 kbit/s, E-AC-3 supports up to 15 full-bandwidth audio channels at a maximum bitrate of 6.144 Mbit/s.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sony BDP-S1</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">AV receiver</span> Consumer electronics component

An audio/video receiver (AVR) or a stereo receiver is a consumer electronics component used in a home theater or hi-fi system. Its purpose is to receive audio and video signals from a number of sources, and to process them and provide power amplifiers to drive loudspeakers, and/or route the video to displays such as a television, monitor or video projector. Inputs may come from a TV, FM, or AM tuner, satellite receiver, DVD players, Blu-ray Disc players, VCRs or video game consoles, among others. The AVR source selection and settings such as volume, are typically set by a remote controller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DTS-HD Master Audio</span> Lossless audio codec for home theater

DTS-HD Master Audio is a multi-channel, lossless audio codec developed by DTS as an extension of the lossy DTS Coherent Acoustics codec. Rather than being an entirely new coding mechanism, DTS-HD MA encodes an audio master in lossy DTS first, then stores a concurrent stream of supplementary data representing whatever the DTS encoder discarded. This gives DTS-HD MA a lossy "core" able to be played back by devices that cannot decode the more complex lossless audio. DTS-HD MA's primary application is audio storage and playback for Blu-ray Disc media; it competes in this respect with Dolby TrueHD, another lossless surround format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xbox 360 HD DVD Player</span> Accessory for the Xbox 360 console

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Center channel</span> Audio channel

Center channel refers to an audio channel common to many surround sound formats. It is the channel that is mostly, or fully, dedicated to the reproduction of the dialogue of an audiovisual program. The speaker(s) connected to the center channel are placed in the center of and behind the perforated projection screen, to give the effect that sounds from the center channel are coming from the screen. In many home surround sound units, the center channel is positioned above or below the video screen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surround channels</span>

Surround channels are audio channels in surround sound multichannel audio. They primarily serve to deliver ambience and diffuse sounds in a film or music soundtrack.

Height channels are audio channels in surround sound multichannel audio. Height channels are located above the listening area and increase the sound field beyond the horizontal plane.

Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal nor vertical limitations. Following the release of Atmos for the cinema market, a variety of consumer technologies have been released under the Atmos brand. The initial cinema Atmos systems used in-ceiling speakers, then upward-firing speakers were introduced as an alternative for consumer products. Atmos is also used on some devices that do not have a height channel, such as headphones, televisions, mobile phones, and tablets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auro 11.1</span>

Auro 11.1 is one of the cinematic speaker layouts of the Auro-3D format, invented in 2005 by Wilfried Van Baelen.

Auro-3D is an immersive 3D audio format developed by the Belgium-based company Auro Technologies.

References

  1. ↑ "5.1 vs 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receivers - Which is Right For You?" . Retrieved 2012-06-04.
  2. ↑ "Help Guide | Installing 7.1-channel speaker system using surround back speakers". helpguide.sony.net. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  3. ↑ "Dolby Pro Logic IIz". Dolby Laboratories. Archived from the original on 2011-09-26. Retrieved 2011-10-07.
  4. ↑ "Help Guide | Names and functions of speakers". helpguide.sony.net. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  5. ↑ "7.1 Blu-ray". Blu-rayStats.com. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
  6. ↑ Flinn, Ryan (2010-03-23). "Pixar Gets Dolby to Invent 'Rain of Sound' Technology to Match 3-D Movies". Bloomberg . Retrieved 2011-05-22.
  7. ↑ "Dolby Marks 40 Years in Cinema with Major Digital Cinema Milestones". Dolby Laboratories. 2010-11-10. Archived from the original on 2011-07-10. Retrieved 2011-05-22.
  8. ↑ Giardina, Carolyn (2011-03-28). "'Pirates of the Caribbean,' 'Kung Fu Panda 2' to Use Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound". The Hollywood Reporter . Archived from the original on 30 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-29.
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