Tech Focus: Immersive Audio, Part 1 - Infrastructure Waits Out the Pandemic New consoles and microphones are ready to meet the demand By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Wednesday, December 8, 2021 - 7:00 am
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Comcast Xfinity subscribers (at least those equipped with eligible X1 devices) were able to access what might be the next plateau of next-generation television during last summer's Olympics broadcasts from Tokyo: a combination of Dolby Vision HDR video and Dolby Atmos immersive audio. That pairing was used to present the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as well as popular sports - gymnastics, track and field, swimming, diving, beach volleyball, golf, tennis - during primetime broadcasts.
Comcast-owned NBC Sports has also taken a lengthy lead in applying immersive sound for domestic sports. For instance, the Peacock Network had been providing Dolby Atmos immersive audio on its Notre Dame Football home games for three years as part of a package with 4K video. More recently, the 2019 U.S. Open golf tournament was produced with an immersive 5.1.4 audio mix: surround sound (5.1) plus four height speakers (.4).
Immersive audio didn't take a break during the pandemic lockdowns. For instance, the UK's Sky Sports used Dolby Atmos throughout Project Restart, the return of football to television, broadcasting Premier League and English Football League (EFL) matches.
Immersive audio has become an integrated element in a range of high-profile broadcast-sports proof-of-concept projects. Through them, the format has been increasingly finding its way out of an industry bubble so that more viewers can access it - although, for the present, it remains largely an experiment.
Pathway Pioneered by Other Media
As is often the case, other pro-audio sectors - typically, music and film/television production and postproduction - tend to lead the way in new sonic technologies, and that has been the case with immersive audio. Those sectors become test cases and proving grounds for wider adoption.
Cinema has been the main field for immersive sound, with music making a more assertive case for it (Apple Music announced its Dolby Atmos-powered Spatial Music format in May). Live productions have also been making use of the technology, with leading sound-system developers L-Acoustics and d&b audiotechnik (both supplying PA systems for sports venues) bring immersive live-sound systems to market.
Dale Pro Audio's Joel Guilbert: There will be studio infrastructure to support creating great-sounding immersive content in the future.
This past year has seen more adoption in the postproduction and music for immersive audio, says Joel Guilbert, technology development manager, Dale Pro Audio. As these technologies start to become more mainstream in their implementation and reach a greater consumer base, demand continues to rise. Once again, sports broadcast led the pack when it came to live production, and, as a side effect, there will be studio infrastructure to support creating great-sounding immersive content in the future.
And the tools for immersive sound are now more widely available and increasingly affordable.
Although they are still more specialty items, says Guilbert, we've found that, as more [manufacturers] enter the immersive market and with different approaches, like the Studio Technologies 792/3 [an audio-over-IP-enabled multichannel monitoring system] and the Focusrite R1 [a Dante, Pro Tools, and Thunderbolt system-monitoring interface supporting up to eight channels], this area is starting to be more competitive. The addition of those devices, all three having eight-plus-channel monitor/control capabilities, increases the number of professional tools available by a third.
On the Worksurface Immersive sound is part of the Next Gen Audio initiative, part of the ATSC 3.0 portfolio, whose audio standards allow full 7.1+4 implementation - up to seven channels of sound in a horizontal plane (although five have been most common), one channel for a subwoofer, and four channels overhead.
An immersive-audio feature set is part of Solid State Logic's System T broadcast desk.
To handle that workflow, consoles have been working toward accommodating immersive audio for some time. For instance, Calrec's Impulse Core, the next-generation audio-processing platform for its Apollo and Artemis control surfaces, can accommodate 5.1, 5.1.2, 5.1.4, 7.1, 7.1.2, and 7.1.4 formats in terms of input channels, buses, monitoring, and metering. Lawo's A__UHD Core immersive system, introduced at IBC 2018, can address immersive mixing configurations up to 22.2 and offers different levels of remote-operation functionality.
An immersive-audio feature set was added to Solid State Logic's System T broadcast desk as part of a software release in 2018 and will continue to be updated. SSL Product Manager, Broadcast, Tom Knowles agrees that marquee-type events will help propel immersive audio into that realm but adds that the company is offering to help encourage it on the business side. This year's System T V3.1 software release introduces pay-as-you-go licensing that enables operators using the new TE1 and TE2 Tempest Engines to flexibly scale processing capabilities according to broadcast-production requirements. Software licenses for five different processing packs, defined by the total number (from 85 to 800) of mono-signal-path-equivalent channels supported, are now available as ongoing or short-term, time-based rental upgrades.
Solid State Logic's Tom Knowles sees the growing integration of immersive audio into live sound systems.
It's essentially added DSP capability on an as-needed basis, which is perfect for broadcasters when they need to scale up for an event with immersive audio, Knowles explains, adding that it's
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Tech Focus: Immersive Audio, Part 1 - Infrastructure Waits Out the Pandemic New consoles and microphones are ready to meet the demand By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
