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BOOM: Dolby Atmos Streaming vs Physical Disk
- Thread starter ApexPredator
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No it was a BANG&OLUFSEN one at the time (I paid £750 for it at the time) so very nice and crazy money when you compare what you can buy now! It was popular releases from what I remember and they were well used
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You might just find that Netflix with Atmos sound decent on the Apple TV in the Autumn. When I used to have Netflix, I was always super disappointed with its dull, lifeless sound quality compared to iTunes or a disc at the time.
Something is amiss here. I have never heard of disks that scratch themselves, so that means something is coming in contact with the physical media surface. It could be the player, or it could be that someone in the household is not holding a disk by the edges but putting their fingers on the media itself, or just throwing disks on top of the DVD player. My nightmare is seeing a stack of disk scattered on top of a dirty tabletop.
I have never scratched any of the ~1000 optical disks that I own. But all of this is a moot point if you create a digital copy.
Uncompressed audio vs compressed audio. Choice is not that hard.
You can't compare streaming audio to the sound coming from a disk. At least not with any decent home entertainment set up.
You can't compare streaming audio to the sound coming from a disk. At least not with any decent home entertainment set up.
@priitv8 Thank you for running this test!
It would be great if anyone currently using tvOS 12 could also post their movie surround sound results after comparing the Dolby Atmos stream to the physical disk.
I have been buying older titles so far, but don't want to buy an action-packed movie that I am going to regret owning after I hear the physical disk at a friends house.
TIP: If you are expanding your streaming collection, try the CheapCharts app. I have been using it for over a month now and it is so much easier to track the movies you want without having to check iTunes daily. It also tracks the price history on a movie, so you know if its a good time to buy. My favorite feature is the ability to set a max price you are willing to pay and you get a "Movie Drop" alert when a movie hits your criteria.
In general yes, but there are streaming services with CD or better quality. Tidal HiRes is CD quality, and their MQA is better quality than CD media. Qobuz which also offers CD quality will be available in the U.S. fairly soon.
Not really a miss. These discs have probably been lent out to hundreds of customers. Not all people look after things as well as you and me.
CD quality is not even close to uncompressed audio like what is found on a blue ray disk. There are formats such as FLAC that do a good job with audio quality, but I thought this thread was related to streaming movie sound vs movie sound from a physical disk.
It will always be a challenge to stream video and audio and match the quality of an actual disk. The issue is the file size. Uncompressed audio files are huge. Add video to that mix and you have a streaming nightmare.
Streaming MUSIC services can do a better job of streaming quality sound because the format is only processing AUDIO not AUDIO and VIDEO. To stream a 4k video with uncompressed audio would be a challenge. Therefore as far as I know, current streaming services cannot match the quality of sound coming from a disk.
There is ONE HUGE problem when comparing streaming & 4K BluRay that many are forgetting here. And that is simple - in the majority of cases the films that i LOVE and buy and not available on 4K BluRay, often not even on BluRay here in the UK. (Surfing, Call Me By Your Name, Something's Gotta Give, Flashdance etc).
So we can talk as much as we want about 4K BluRay being amazing BUT it's not much use if the films that you truly love aren't available on that format. I love unicorns but even in my 30s, I still haven't seen any
So we can talk as much as we want about 4K BluRay being amazing BUT it's not much use if the films that you truly love aren't available on that format. I love unicorns but even in my 30s, I still haven't seen any
Did a small listening test with measurements. I used the very opening scene after titles until the words "A man reduced to a single instinct: Survive" (as seen on screenshot). That's incidentally the exact same clip that is demoed on Atmos demonstration disc.
Overall impressions:
Overall impressions:
- BD mix is the loudest. Attached spectrograms were taken at same volume level set on AVR. BD level is and sounds the loudest (by as much as 10dBFS, see attached screenshots).
- Overall quality sequence is: BD TrueHD, Demo disc TrueHD, Demo disc DD+, iTunes DD+
- Bass is the punchiest on BD, can partly be attributed to overall higher loudness as well.
- Encoded bitrate follows the same order: BD (saw peaks up to 13Mbps), Demo TrueHD (up to 8Mbps), Demo DD+ (constant 1.7Mbps), iTunes DD+ (constant 640kbps)
- iTunes sounds the most compressed, can also be seen on the spectrograms - the corridor between min and max peaks is the narrowest. And the opposite - dynamic range (corridor width) is the broadest on UHD BD.
- iTunes also sounds the dullest in terms of subtle details (like sand flying once Max crawls out of the flipped car, echoes in the girl's voice saying "Where are you, Max?"), directionality (probably due to least channel separation) and clarity (mid-to-high frequencies are the lowest).
- Despite all this - iTunes Atmos sounds much, much better than the previous DD5.1 sound and very good indeed for a streaming service.
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Thanks for the correction as I did get side tracked. Staying there a minute you can get equivalent audio streaming (DTS-MA) from Tidal HighRes (~1.5 Mbps) or greater (Tidal MQA 192K 24 bit). Staying on topic you can stream an original DTS-MA soundtrack using a DNLA client for Plex on a player that supports it, such as an Oppo. I assume that Atmos would pass through as well, but can't confirm.
Yep, TrueHD Atmos and DTS:X both come through from Plex DLNA server on my UBP-X800 for example.
As far as I can tell, DLNA simply serves the file as is over HTTP so the client sees the same file that is stored on drive. As long as Plex server does not start to transcode. I also am not sure if it does transcoding over DLNA at all.
Thanks for the info. Did not know this. I'd eventually like to do away with a physical disk library.
Like you are considering, I buy the physical and dump the digital copy into iTunes. That said, the 4K collection is going to be (and is currently) limited to really exceptional films and science fiction. Mostly the later. Atoms and DTS:X, at least in my environment is freakin’ rediculous. I just upgraded to a Denon AVR-X8500 which has more channels then I’ll ever need. I installed six additional speakers, front wide and and two pair of ceiling speakers, upgrading the older speakers to Klipsch. When something explodes, stuff flies everywhere in the room, and it can absolutely be pinpointed with rediculous clarity. As for streaming from Apple, I have to wait until OS 12 as I don’t use Beta’s. I wasn’t very pleased with the PQ out of ATV on the large screen vs. physical, but perhaps that can improve. I will install it to test the audio though.
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The descecration of audio content via over compression is a scourge. Storage costs and average bandwidth have increased, but with the massive expansion of lucrative mobile platforms, most services have chosen to stay with low bit rate crap.
Until there is enough demand - and robust DRM - streaming media of high quality is still an oxymoron. BTW, as a reference point, most commercial cinemas exhibit a DCP (Digital Cinema Package) encoded at 250mb/s. A UHD Blu-Ray disc can theoretically handle 100mb/s, though most titles are closer to 60mb/s.
Streaming services vary widely, but most cap out around 25mb/s even on UHD titles and typically live in the 6-20mb/s range.
Perhaps the emergence of 5G wireless will raise the floor enough to motivate a quality based marketing strategy that changes the equation... You gotta hope...
Until there is enough demand - and robust DRM - streaming media of high quality is still an oxymoron. BTW, as a reference point, most commercial cinemas exhibit a DCP (Digital Cinema Package) encoded at 250mb/s. A UHD Blu-Ray disc can theoretically handle 100mb/s, though most titles are closer to 60mb/s.
Streaming services vary widely, but most cap out around 25mb/s even on UHD titles and typically live in the 6-20mb/s range.
Perhaps the emergence of 5G wireless will raise the floor enough to motivate a quality based marketing strategy that changes the equation... You gotta hope...
I think the only hope is Apple pushing back on the movie studios to give users the ability to download 4K files. It would be nice if there was an additional option to download the full file for movies as well. Hard drive space is getting so cheap, it makes sense to offer users a better experience and allow them to play the files locally without isolating customers who do not have access to the connection bandwidth needed to in their area to enjoy the 4K experience.
When you buy a game today, it can be around a 60GB download. I hope the movie industry sees the light. As for now, it looks like I have to buy my action and sci-fi movies on disk and the rest on iTunes.
When you buy a game today, it can be around a 60GB download. I hope the movie industry sees the light. As for now, it looks like I have to buy my action and sci-fi movies on disk and the rest on iTunes.
We can only hope on the 5G. Its also the ultimate solution for people who aren’t on the grid enough for legitimate high speed internet service in the home. This would really open the door for people to access streaming content. My in-laws can’t get jack for internet service because they are in a wooded area on the wrong side of the freeway. They might as well have dial-up. You go across the freeway and people are on fiber. It’s rediculous. Verizon and AT&T have a home LTE product, but it’s so ridiculously expensive as they don’t offer an unlimited data plan for it. AT&T is getting close though, but service areas are limited. If we had to rely on it for data, we’d be broke with the data we blow through every month.
AT&Ts product for those lucky enough to be in a service area. 170gig of data per month for $60:
https://www.att.com/internet/fixed-wireless.html
On 5G:
https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/industry-voices-rysavy-how-5g-will-solve-rural-broadband
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Aside from the many above who agree discs sound better than streaming I have found that there is often a significant difference between streaming services with iTunes being amongst the worst. I’m assuming it has to due with bitrate for the most part. Vudu tends to have fairly good sound and Netflix can be good as well especially with newer original content but is variable. I’m hoping Apple improves at least with the tracks it upgrades to Atmos. The most significant difference for me at least has been bass/LFE. This was not apparent to me until I invested in good subs (currently dual SVS PC-4000). For example my 4K disc version of Blade Runner 2049 will continuously shake my room especially the opening bass hit but no matter how loud I turn up the iTunes version I just can’t get the same response. Yes the highs are better and dynamic range is better but that, even with good equipment, is less noticeable to me than the bass. For me great bass with capable subs is really what has transformed my home viewing experience so for most movies I buy the disc. I also rip everything untouched into Plex so that still makes viewing easy.
If anyone is interested in converting DD+ Atmos tracks in MKV containers to aTV and tvOS 12-friendly format, check out the just released Subler 1.5!
Like you, I also have the Denon X8500 and just recently put 6 speakers in the ceiling, in anticipation of Apple making access to Atmos content much easier. I installed the current iOS 12 beta, given that it is quite advanced and was pleasantly surprised with how many Atmos movies are showing in the iTunes store. Definitely looking forward to watching some of them over again in Atmos.
I moved away from physical content years ago and have several hundred movies in my iTunes library. Since I recenly also got a 4k projector and a screen, I am seeing the compression artifacts. Streaming is so convenient, but the PQ suffers, which is particularly visible if you're projecting on a larger screen. I got the 4k disc versions of Fury Road (what a great movie) and The Last Jedi. I will say that things simply look and sound better from the disc as compared to being streamed. Looks like after my home theater upgrade I'll jump back to discs, but only for truly special releases.
Yea streaming has a long way to go before it matches the picture and sound quality of physical media
I think physical media will evolve as well, so will they ever match?
Actually, its the media content, that will evolve (like 8K for example) and the media to carry it will have to keep pace.
If a content owner chooses to remove a film from iTunes, it just means no one else will be able to buy or rent it, but the film will still be available to watch for those who purchased it. Also, Apple has been selling movies on iTunes for 13 years... this doesn't seem to be a product they will lose interest in after a few years.
The compression really chaps my hide on the video side. My Sony projector does everything it can to turn crap into gold. The upside is that it’s great to have ATV throughout the house so I don’t have to run to the theater for a disc. It looks fine on 55” and smaller. I looked at Kalaidescape at one point, but damn. At that price my wife would have killed me for a second time. It was bad enough when I dropped enough money into a home theater to buy a midsize car, life #1. She just took a swing at me for the recent upgrade. Of course when her friends come over for a movie night I’m a total bad ass for having built it.
I freakin’ love my 8500 though. It delivers.