Diving deep into Dolby: In dialog with Sameer Seth and Jayant Shah at Dolby Laboratories India

The pandemic has been rearing its ugly head over the previous two years inflicting people to remain dwelling and eat content material voraciously. Content material, nevertheless, is now not primarily consumed in film theatres and on massive dwelling theatres however equally, or extra so, on smaller type issue gadgets reminiscent of smartphones and tablets. Our smartphones and tablets are more and more turning into succesful content material consumption machines, and Dolby has performed a pivotal function on this. From Dolby Atmos to Dolby Imaginative and prescient to the brand new child on the block – Dolby Music, all have made their strategy to quite a few telephones in the marketplace immediately. A few of them priced at as little as ₹15K. To know extra about Dolby’s journey by means of the pandemic, how Dolby applied sciences have grow to be more and more pervasive, and extra, we delved into dialog with Sameer Seth, Director, Advertising and marketing-India, Dolby Laboratories; and Jayant Shah, Director Apps & Options Engineering, Rising Markets at Dolby Laboratories. 

Q. Because the pandemic, folks have been shifting away from the theatres and consuming extra content material of their dwelling rooms on TVs or on smartphones, on the go. What has Dolby noticed on this regard? Any statistics to share? How has Dolby ready for this shift?

Sameer: So the pandemic, actually, has had a change in the best way shoppers eat content material, particularly in India. What we have seen in varied shopper research that we have performed in the course of the pandemic and post-pandemic is that Indian shoppers, greater than ever earlier than, have began realising the significance of high quality audio and high quality visible expertise. They’re more and more in search of a greater expertise, whether or not it is of their front room, whether or not it is on the go. And now that they are again at work, even at work. So, speaking about shopper research, we discovered that what the shoppers are undoubtedly doing in the course of the pandemic is connecting with content material much more than they’ve linked previously. So, once I spend extra time with content material, I am insisting on a greater expertise. And for that, I am now a shopper who’s keen to improve.

We did a current shopper research Counterpoint on content material consumption in the lounge. We did one with CMR on the smartphone facet. So, each these research are literally pointing in direction of a two-pronged improve that the Indian shopper has performed as a result of she or he is connecting extra with content material.  One, by upgrading the system for a greater expertise. So, you understand, if I had an outdated TV, I am upgrading to the newest tv, which supplies me a greater expertise. On the identical time, I am upgrading from a single system SD plan to a UHD Dolby Atmos or Dolby Imaginative and prescient-enabled plan on a streaming service. So, it is each gadgets and content material and that is what we have seen the shoppers doing off late.

Q. With reference to Dolby, what gadgets do folks must expertise the expertise? Is it considerably restrictive nonetheless or is it extra ubiquitous than we notice?

Sameer: Dolby experiences can be found to shoppers in each facet of leisure they eat. Beginning with cinema, you’ll be able to eat Dolby content material once you stroll right into a cinema close to you. Once you speak about India particularly, there are greater than 800 Dolby Atmos-enabled screens. You possibly can watch them in multiplexes, you’ll be able to expertise the expertise in single theatres. It is pretty common within the nation. The second is, after all, the lounge. In the lounge, there are a number of gadgets there the place you will get the Dolby expertise – the tv, a soundbar or an AVR. You could have good audio system that ship the expertise. So from a front room perspective, these are the experiences that customers are in search of and already consuming. On the go, you may have smartphones. I imply, India is a mobile-first nation. We eat a variety of content material on cell, on the go. Customers are connecting and consuming Dolby-enabled content material, whether or not it is AV content material or whether or not it is streaming music or podcasts, with Dolby Atmos and Dolby Imaginative and prescient. Then comes the following situation, which is at work or working from dwelling. There are PCs that include Dolby expertise so you’ll be able to eat each AV content material or leverage our Dolby Voice conferencing resolution. There are numerous gadgets on which shoppers can expertise Dolby. 

What’s core to us as an organization is that we work with the whole ecosystem. That is essential to grasp as a result of we work with content material creators on one facet to allow them to make use of our expertise for higher storytelling. The content material creator all the time desires to ship his or her content material, which is closest to his unique intent. And that is what the Dolby expertise, each on the visible and the audio facet, does. The second facet is supply which is the place we work with a variety of streaming providers and broadcast providers. They use our expertise for delivering content material. And the third ingredient within the ecosystem is playback. That is the place gadgets are available in. It is accessible in all these eventualities. There’s a variety of content material now in India, each on streaming and on broadcast. There are a variety of genres of content material accessible and there are a number of gadgets to eat that Dolby-enabled content material.

Q. What number of streaming providers are supported by Dolby and is there a plan to have extra streaming providers within the Dolby ecosystem?

Sameer: I believe it’s no shock that we Indians love the content material. We join with content material much better than the rest. We work with a variety of streaming providers, each world and Indian streaming providers. So, you will get a Dolby expertise on world providers like Netflix, Apple TV Plus or Amazon Prime Video. As for Indian providers, there are fairly a number of providers that ship Dolby reminiscent of Disney+ Hotstar, Zee5 and Hoichoi. Hoichoi is our newest companion, who we labored with very not too long ago, to allow their content material with Dolby Atmos. So sure, there may be a variety of momentum. There are some providers on the AV facet. Now, speaking additionally concerning the audio facet of the expertise on streaming, we work with Earshot for podcasts. On the music facet, now we have Apple Music and Hungama Music. So, each world and Indian providers at the moment are streaming their music in Dolby Atmos. So, the Indian shopper is spoiled for alternative. There’s a variety of content material on the market in Dolby.

Q. Talking of streaming music and even creating content material, what concerning the content material creators? Have they got to have particular gear to have the ability to create Dolby content material on their finish? 

Sameer: What the pandemic has additionally performed is that the patron can also be the creator. So from a creator’s perspective, Dolby Atmos Music is a expertise that the creator can use simply. The headphone combine could be performed by means of a quite simple set-up. After all, there is no such thing as a restrict relating to a studio combine expertise. However the expertise helps a Dolby Atmos combine you could even do by means of a PC at dwelling, you are able to do the combination over a headphone and you’ll launch it and that is the fantastic thing about the expertise. So for the creator, each the codecs can be found. She or he can create it on the laptop computer, headphones, or in a studio.

Q. What about Dolby Atmos for music? So what sort of reception has it acquired, particularly in India, and the way has the expertise improved since its launch?

Sameer: Once you speak about music, it is once more an entire ecosystem join that one has to take action. We’ve a number of artists which have created music in Dolby Atmos for the reason that time we launched Dolby Atmos Music in India. And the journey began with nobody higher than A. R. Rahman who’s performed a number of tracks and albums in Dolby Atmos. Different Indian artists as properly, whether or not it’s songs from the movies or it is their very own singles or albums that they are releasing in numerous languages now in Dolby Atmos. So there’s a variety of momentum that one has seen. We work with the artists on one facet, we work with the labels on the opposite facet as a result of, the labels are, once more, a really, very important a part of the ecosystem. We work with the combination engineers, these are the magicians who actually carry out the expertise. So it is a full ecosystem, kind of a piece that we do. So proper from artists to labels, to combine engineers to studio technicians. We kind of work with them and we allow them. So there’s a variety of content material, a variety of Indian Dolby Atmos Music content material out of India accessible on streaming providers. 

Q. We skilled a little bit of Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Dolby Atmos in your studio. How do they work in tandem with one another throughout completely different gadgets? 

Sameer: I believe there are two components to the query. One, Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Dolby Atmos. So Dolby Imaginative and prescient is a visible expertise from Dolby. It is an HDR expertise and one can expertise it on completely different gadgets. It is accessible within the cinemas, not in India, however exterior of India. You get Dolby Imaginative and prescient expertise in your televisions, in your telephones, in your PC. So it is a visible expertise which supplies you higher color, brighter brights and darker darks. So, you understand, the brights are 40 instances brighter and the darks are ten instances darker. So that you see a greater dynamic vary of colors and distinction. In order that’s a visible expertise. Dolby Atmos is an object-based audio expertise the place the content material creator creates the combination by treating sound as objects. It is actually one thing that can transport you into the expertise that can carry you nearer to the character and the tales you like. So the mixed expertise of Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Dolby Atmos is the very best expertise that the patron can get. The expertise is on the market in the lounge, in cinemas, on the go, at work or working from dwelling, so it’s ubiquitous.

Q. From what I do know, there are three codecs utilized in Dolby Atmos that are Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and Dolby MAT. Are you able to delve into the small print of those codecs?

Jayant: Dolby Digital Plus, basically, is a lossy excessive compression codec. I believe Dolby Digital is the one everybody’s acquainted which is now fairly outdated and that had bitrate limitations. There was a sure restrict to compression that we might apply utilizing that. Dolby Digital was intrinsically invented for cinema and when it served the aim of cinema, we stopped innovating briefly. The identical factor was tailored for broadcast, just about, within the early days. Dolby Digital Plus happened from the streaming period. It has higher compression and it has, theoretically, a bigger channel capability. So Dolby Digital was restricted to five.1. In concept, Dolby Digital Plus can do 13.1. So Dolby Digital Plus, we tailored it as a result of it was just about universally in lots of, many gadgets. Once we launched Atmos, we had to determine a approach of protecting it appropriate due to the massive system deployment. So, we retrofitted Atmos with a bit of little bit of intelligent engineering and the identical codec can carry Atmos. However, it’s, in essence, a compressed lossy codec for streaming and broadcast. TrueHD and MAT, however, are very very top quality. TrueHD is lossless utterly. There is not any lossy compression. Once more, TrueHD got here out with Blu-ray, just about. That was the default lossless codec on many Blu-rays. Not all, however many. And Dolby MAT then grew to become a transport mechanism to go from what we name a supply system to a seat system, a set-top field linked to a TV, for instance. So, you’ll be able to decode Atmos in a set prime field after which over HDMI 2.x, you’ll be able to stream uncompressed audio. So, in case your TV does not have a decoder, you’ll be able to truly decode Atmos into uncompressed audio after which transport it with metadata utilizing a expertise like MAT.

How the set-top field is aware of what the TV can render or what the downstream system is principally utilizing EDID and varied signalling methods to inform the set-top field what the aptitude of the system is. Then it should do the render. MAT means that you can transfer spatial audio into that system after which use metadata, which is the article metadata, so we are able to transport that throughout.

Q. How is the rendering occurring in your finish through AI or algorithms, in order that it is aware of what system it is enjoying on and adjusts accordingly?

Jayant: So in channel-based conventional mixing, stereo for instance or 5.1, the combination engineer principally does the render. She or he assigns sound to particular audio system or channels. So when you do a 5.1 combine, you may downmix it, you understand, however even the downmix is kind of inflexible, it follows sure guidelines. You possibly can downmix 5.1 to say stereo or mono, that’s it. You possibly can’t do fancy configurations like three or 4 audio system. In an object-based sound format like Atmos, this task of sound to the speaker does not occur. What occurs is that the combination engineer is principally working with a bunch of objects. So, there are specific static sounds assigned by the combination engineer. She or he has a sure speaker configuration which he’s monitoring on, after which he simply assigns sounds to areas in a room or a 3D house. So, he can place a sound above his head to the left or be simply behind him utilizing a joystick sort of a mechanism with a visible show. It reveals you the place the sound is bodily positioned as a visible illustration. So, how massive that sound is, how loud it’s and the place it’s positioned are all that you simply want. There is not any allocation of any speaker. What you report is the sound, its location and significance, proper? All of that is transmitted with metadata. The patron might have several types of speaker configurations. So it might be two audio system, a TV, a soundbar, or a house theatre. So the sound system at dwelling is aware of the speaker configuration and due to this fact is aware of how greatest to render these coordinates. After which it does it. So, in impact, it turns into unbiased of the audio system. That is the fantastic thing about immersive methods Like Atmos.

Q. What are a number of the challenges that you simply face when driving immersive leisure experiences?

Sameer: I would not say challenges as such. Let me simply issue it from a shopper standpoint. I believe there’s a variety of work we do by means of our companions. Not a problem, however a chance I see is to coach the patron on get the Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Atmos expertise. That is the place we work very carefully with our companions, by way of driving consciousness and driving training. We work with companions on get that have by doing an AB kind of comparability, educating them, creating how-to movies and issues like that. So we use a variety of these touchpoints with the companions, whether or not it is at retail, on-line, or digital. However I might say that’s extra a chance than a problem actually. However sure, we do a variety of work with our companions to coach shoppers.

Q. What sort of certifications do smartphone OEMs need to undergo to have their content material Dolby-Atmos licensed?

Jayant: So as soon as an OEM indicators the license, they get entry to our equipment, which is the software program and a bunch of documentation on implement it. As soon as they’ve that entry, they go ahead with the implementations. A part of the documentation is concerning the check process with the check equipment together with it. They undergo that check. Now, there are completely different ranges. If it is a new, first-time implementer, then they’ve the choice to ship a pattern to us, to our check labs. We’ve labs in China, and now we have them within the U.S. So, we do the assessments and we give them a check report and in the event that they’ve handed the assessments, they’re good to go. If issues are usually not working the best way they need to be working, then we ship them a correction and we are able to have them with that. The implementers who’re extra seasoned or older licensees, already know check. They do some assessments and ship us a check report. We evaluate it and based mostly on that we a clearance. Each system or each new mannequin that comes out has to undergo the testing methodology.

Q. We have seen some smartphones as little as ₹15,000 and even  ₹10,000 come geared up with Dolby Atmos. How do you match the expertise or the algorithms into such a small type issue like tablets and smartphones? 

Jayant: So, at a {hardware} degree, we combine with the chipset. The coding, the decoders, and all of the magic is current contained in the chipset. When it comes to type components, we need to democratise this. There is not any kind of restriction saying solely the actually high-end telephones can help Dolby Atmos. It’s in our curiosity to go as broad base as doable, so we do not restrict the {hardware}. Clearly, typically, there is a detrimental facet. For example, you want no less than two audio system. So, you understand, there are some minimal specs which might be required. However past that, we do not limit. After which once more, you understand there may be the physics of {hardware}. So, physics can restrict you up to some extent. Our intent is to get the most effective out of that {hardware}, no matter is on the market. To that finish, there are some OEMs that come to us proper on the design stage to start with, which turns into simpler as a result of then we assist them with the acoustic design. The collection of audio system, that sort of stuff. So, clearly, we do not need to limit the {hardware} past the minimal requirement. We take a look at doing the very best.

Worth will not be actually the factors. There are televisions doing Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Dolby Atmos as little as ₹15,000. After which, there’s the actually high-end stuff. I do not suppose the value is mostly a defining factor anymore. That notion of Dolby perhaps solely catering to premium will not be the fact now. The fact is that now we have it at just about each worth level.

Q. So, what are a number of the future plans for Dolby as theatres reopen? Will the main target shifts to shift there, or will Dolby proceed investing in at-home experiences or on-the-go experiences as they’ve performed in the course of the pandemic?

Sameer: We consider as a expertise, each Dolby Imaginative and prescient and Dolby Atmos, ship the most effective expertise that the system is able to. From our perspective, we consider that this expertise is on the market to the shoppers in varied codecs, whether or not it is cinemas or on-the-go or at dwelling. And there is a lot for us to cowl. I believe there is no such thing as a substitute for cinemas. I believe we Indians love the flicks and we might proceed to observe them in cinemas. With cinemas now opening up, there are a variety of theatrical releases which have began developing in varied languages. So sure, there is no substitute for that. However on the identical time, I believe the pandemic, specifically, has had us join extra with content material whether or not it’s in the lounge or on smartphones. And we’ll proceed to eat much more content material in a extra devoted method as a result of we’ll need it in the very best format. We’d need to strive completely different genres of content material and that consumption goes to proceed.

Q. Proper now we’re dwelling within the period of 5G and the Metaverse. So what are Dolby’s ideas right here and what’s the plan for the long run in these eventualities?

Sameer: The expertise needs to be one thing that ought to help the place ever the patron strikes. For us, we’ll proceed to innovate. We are going to proceed to work with the ecosystem to ship experiences the place the patron goes. So, nothing particular on these codecs to share. However yeah, we consider that the patron is one thing that we are going to observe.

Q. Possibly we might see Dolby within the Metaverse, proper?

Sameer: I would not say that. I would not deny it. I would not say sure as properly. However the place the patron goes, the expertise ought to simply allow a greater expertise is what we consider.

Q. As somebody who enjoys sound and music and has been on this trade for many years, what do you suppose is the pedestal for good sound?

Jayant: As a tech man, you understand, the very first thing I take a look at is, in all probability, the response of the system. Folks can go utterly loopy simply taking a look at specification sheets, no less than, engineers can. I might search for the low-frequency response, which is why a variety of methods fail and the highs, persons are typically obsessive about this 20 kHz vary. Actually, there is no such thing as a sound above 12 kHz, 13 perhaps? So, the excessive frequencies needs to be good, good and clear. However I do not significantly go for this. However, low frequencies, sure. I just like the lows to be good and tight and it is tougher to get low frequencies performed proper. You can not do low frequencies with small woofers. I imply, you’ll be able to play with it, you’ll be able to design with enclosures, issues like that. But when you do not have a pleasant massive diaphragm to push the air, you’re not going to get actually nice lows.

The opposite factor is, do not buy a speaker system or any music system with out listening to it. And do not buy it with out listening to your personal music. Don’t take heed to the demo the salesmen play you. Don’t take heed to demo gear or demo tracks as a result of they’re designed to boost or exhibit the most effective options. Take heed to stuff that you simply’re intimately accustomed to and that gives you a good suggestion of the way it ought to sound. That’s the holy grail.