IMAX Laser vs Dolby Cinema

[Marcel Birgelen]

The original question was IMAX Laser vs. Dolby Cinema. In both cases, the main fader isn't locked in, but those settings are remotely monitored and usually also corrected back to reference. Dolby Cinema is Dolby's "managed cinema" concept, which is pretty much comparable with the IMAX concept.

Dolby Atmos for cinema is a technology stack that comes with certain minimum requirements for the cinema's A and B chain, but the settings are neither remotely monitored nor are they enforced by Dolby.

[Marco Giustini]

Marcel,
Only IMAX impose a reference fader setting to their rooms. I've heard of IMAX rooms where due to too many complaints, the management unplugged the remote connection to stop IMAX from turning up the volume!
Everything else is down to the judgment of the cinema itself. If they want to run their very expensive Atmos system at 4.0, they can surely do that - and I've seen that with my own eyes.

How practical is it to speak to a supervisor or manager, and request the fader levels be checked or normalized for Dolby Cinema at an AMC?

Probably the definition of wasting time. I suppose 1. they probably won't know what you're talking about 2. they'll quote the usual BS (Back Surround) about the system being calibrated as per industry standard etc 3. There is probably a company-wise policy fixing the fader to a set level

When I used to work in a large chain, the faders were all set to 6.5 regardless of the movie. It accounted for the lack of technical skills of the average projection staff. "The lessen of the two evils".

[Marcel Birgelen]

Marcel,
Only IMAX impose a reference fader setting to their rooms. I've heard of IMAX rooms where due to too many complaints, the management unplugged the remote connection to stop IMAX from turning up the volume!

I also know of certain locations that permanently put their fader down and sabotaged the remote control connection, due to many complaints regarding the absurd volume levels inside the IMAX room. Apparently, this was "corrected" after the installation of the "Immersive Sound System" and the upgrade to the laser system. What I found interesting is that the system ended up sounding way less boomy, with a higher dynamic range, after the conversion. The end-result was a way more enjoyable show. While the previous "illegal volume adjustment" at least made the average digital IMAX show watchable, it also removed all "punch" in the mix.

I always had the impression that the way they tried to compensate for the shortfalls of the old 5.0/6.0 IMAX sound system was by simply jacking up the volume. While this might have appealed to some of their customer base, it certainly annoyed the heck out a lot of them too...

[Marco Giustini]

I admit I have little experience with IMAX but when I watched a show there I found it just "loud". It wasn't too loud when I watched my shows but just "loud". It lacked precision, clarity, extension, dynamic.

That said, I don't disagree with imposing a sound level - or at least a minimum setting. Cinemas would turn the sound off if they could.

[Steve Guttag]

I think cinema will play the volume at whatever yields the least number of complaints. They don't care if it is loud or quiet. The exceptions to that are theatres that:

• Put in insufficient equipment to handle power/SPL necessary for their particular auditorium.
• Build their theatres so poorly that sound transfer is a significant problem.

[Marco Giustini]

I know it's a long standing subject but in my experience theatres will play at the volume which yields NO complaints. That is 4.0 as there is ALWAYS someone annoyed by the "big sound", regardless how good it is.

Playing at 4.0 will yield no complaints (people don't normally complain if it's too soft) but the audience will walk out of the cinema thinking "meh"/"it was like a big TV".

(*) yes, fully aware that not many cinemas are properly calibrated, that 4.0 for someone is 7.0 for someone else, that loud sound on a crappy system is truly bad etc etc That Atmos at 4.0 made me cringe though

[Steve Guttag]

A truism I've discovered/proven, the better the system/room, the louder one can play it without annoying the public. For a client where I've tuned all of their rooms, the question has come up why they can run the volume notably higher (and yes, even at 7) while in other rooms, they are significantly lower and closer to 4-5 range. I tune them with the same equipment and to the same levels. And, oddly enough, it is their smaller rooms where the volume often has to be lower (longer rooms places mic 1 further from the center speaker so one is turning up the level more to compensate)...the difference? The quality of the speakers and the acoustics of the room. You can play better (lower distortion) speaker louder than you can lower-end speakers. My current go-to, non-esoteric cinema screen speaker is the QSC SC-424. That mid-high/very-high delivers the audio without much EQ (if any) and in an inoffensive manner. I've never had a customer complaint with it (or its family).

And don't think that a 3-way is going to, necessarily, beat a 2-way. Quite the opposite. It is FAR easier to make a good 2-way than a good 3-way or 4-way. Some of my favorite speakers of all time are 2-ways. Some of my most hated speakers are 3-ways and 4-ways.

[Marco Giustini]

Absolutely.

I've done rooms which were ok running movie "X" at 7 (IMHO) but still set to 5.0 because "it's too loud". However, when sitting down in the auditorium with the owner and run the film at 7.0, they thought it was not too loud. So why was it being run at 5.0?

Oh well

[Marcel Birgelen]

The less distortion you have, the louder you can play stuff before it starts to agitate people, that's pretty much a "generally accepted truism". Distortion creates harmonics at all kinds of unintended frequencies for which people are more sensitive, which can make stuff sound way louder than it actually is.

From what I've heard from the IMAX "Immersive Sound System" so far is that it performs pretty OK in most rooms and is a good step-up from the old system. It tends to underperform quite a bit in those huge, original IMAX rooms though: Those enormous original IMAX screens that were built in the 15/70 era, not those "RPX" screens, which are mostly converted regular cinema screens during the late 15/70 era. That being said, I never found the IMAX sound in those theaters to be extraordinary compared to decent Dolby Digital or DTS installs. For larger screens, I always preferred 8-channel SDDS, although those releases were far and in-between...

Probably the definition of wasting time. I suppose 1. they probably won't know what you're talking about 2. they'll quote the usual BS (Back Surround) about the system being calibrated as per industry standard etc 3. There is probably a company-wise policy fixing the fader to a set level

When I used to work in a large chain, the faders were all set to 6.5 regardless of the movie. It accounted for the lack of technical skills of the average projection staff. "The lessen of the two evils".

Don't confuse Dolby Atmos with Dolby Cinema... Dolby Cinema is Dolby's "PLF-franchise" and just like your local McD's, it comes with a whole bunch of requirements.

For Dolby Cinema, the fader level is also prescribed in the contractual obligations. The setup is actually generally speaking even stricter than IMAX. Keep in mind that all the equipment in the room is owned by Dolby in this setup and NOT by the cinema, quite similar to IMAX. The entire thing runs remotely, local intervention in the booth is only requested if something goes wrong that can't be fixed by the Dolby NOC.

Dolby Cinema @ AMC only differs in that they lessened their standards for the room geometry and furnishings, probably in order to be able to somewhat compete against IMAX in numbers.

[Marco Giustini]

I am not confusing, Marcel, unfortunately. You have Dolby Cinema in the NL, go and ask your local dolby cinema what fader level the CP is being run at!

[Scotty Wright]

From what I've heard from the IMAX "Immersive Sound System" so far is that it performs pretty OK in most rooms and is a good step-up from the old system. It tends to underperform quite a bit in those huge, original IMAX rooms though: Those enormous original IMAX screens that were built in the 15/70 era

Any ideas as to why they would underperform in the original style rooms compared to the refurbished regular rooms?

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm not entirely sure, but my best bet is that those rooms are simply too big for those new speaker systems they put in for the immersive sound setup. Keep in mind that IMAX now has far more those smaller rooms than those "legacy museum-type installs" they were originally known for. So, I guess their main focus when designing this new sound system was what about 80% of their current install base represents.

If you look at the raw volume of those original builds, it's more like concert venue level of volume than your average cinema room. Also, those rooms were never built like modern cinema auditoriums. There are no baffle walls for example, the entire setup is pretty inefficient from a sound design perspective. If I'd had to come up with a somewhat cost-effective way to do sound in such a room with modern hardware, I'd probably come up with a line array based design rather than a traditional cinema setup...

I am not confusing, Marcel, unfortunately. You have Dolby Cinema in the NL, go and ask your local dolby cinema what fader level the CP is being run at!

It's been a while, but I've had a booth tour at the first Dolby Cinema install ever. They had two CP-850s in there, one for backup purposes and they were running the first part of the pre-show at 4.0 and the second part of the pre-show and the FTR at 7.0. I'm not going to say it's the best sounding room I've ever heard, but when it was all new and shiny, I had very little to complain about and this all despite the speaker system being based on the Christie Vive audio system, which I associated with something between "meh" and "awful", based on previous experiences. I do like the fact that those original installs do hide all the speakers behind scrims.

[Allan Young]

The Dolby Cinema setup is by far the better picture. Deeper blacks, better color gamut and a WHITE screen, so no ugly speckle.

Presumably IMAX doesn't actually require a silver screen, it's just that all the Laser installations have them to handle 3D?

[Carsten Kurz]

They do not need silver screens for 3D either, as they use a color-separation dual projector setup with the laser installs.

I think they want silver screens to meet their own higher brightness specs. Which is really a nuissance, I would rather be satisfied with the standard 14fL but speckle-free, than with the horrendous amount of speckle that their silver screens show now. I have noticed at least some IMAX laser locations now use screen shakers as well.

[Martin Brooks]

Atmos rooms will have their volume levels set by the theatre...just like all of their other theatres. IMAX will lock it in at reference...so that is bound to get you a louder room.


That's a real shame and explains why some ATMOS presentations seem like they could be louder. Of course, that also depends on how the film was mixed.

How practical is it to speak to a supervisor or manager, and request the fader levels be checked or normalized for Dolby Cinema at an AMC?

I have absolutely NEVER been in an Atmos auditorium where the audio level was too low. Quite the opposite. In fact, that's true for every theater I've been in, regardless of presentation format. Sometimes I bring a sound meter with me just to see how freaking loud it is.
However, even though I believe that theoretically, Atmos should be superior, at least in the Dolby Cinema auditoriums that I attend, I frequently find the sound to be thin and metallic sounding and I find that the mixes frequently don't make great use of the Atmos capability. Sometimes, the 5.1/7.1 auditoriums actually sound better with a fuller, warmer, crisper, resonant sound.