Quote:
Originally Posted by philper  True surround, where the sound field for all enviro sounds is equally coming from all around the listener IS possible in cinema, but it is generally not done because only a very small part of a theatrical audience is sitting in the ideal sweet spot to make such a mix work. Everyone else is out of the sweet spot, and thus sounds coming from a given direction in correct balance for the sweet spot would seem overly loud, get in the way of dialog and be a distraction from the story. The PICTURE in normal cinema is really coming from only about 90 degrees of your peripheral vision, so SOUND coming from outside that angle has to be less present in some way (with some obvious exceptions) than sound appearing to come from within that angle. Well-defined sounds coming from the side or from behind us without warning trigger human fight-or-flight reactions, a major distraction from the story, so they are generally used sparingly. Surround mixes for other kinds of venues: theme parks, live shows, installations, performance art etc. do not have those limitations, and in those cases I've been allowed to go wild with the surrounds and really envelope the listener. In these cases the listener is often free to move around, and so can change their location as the piece progresses, or is being moved through a serious of defined acoustic spaces. As was said, for the illusion to really work you need a lot more speakers/channels than 5.
Philip Perkins |
Thanks for your answer, Philip. I understand that in a cinema you have to mix for the whole audience. So it seems this is really about the reproduction technique and the 'problem' can only be solved with some kind of wavefield-synthesis (IOSONO et al.)
I mix quite a bit of surround as well, but not theatrical. So I can be more extreme with the enveloping of the listener, as they are more likely to sit in the sweet spot.
Another question: Can you envelope the listener more with theatrical 7.1 than with 5.1?
How many channels do you think would be necessary for true surround in theaters?