Since the advent of Dolby ATMOS integration into Nuendo 11, I am very curious to hear anyone’s final output on anything they have done, and hear about how they got where they did using the Nuendo setup. I can’t help but have the feeling there aren’t many examples. It’s not an easy process no matter how you slice it right now. Not easy to set up, not easy to export, and not easy to then check on your work.
I can say that I have one MP4 that I created (with black video, of course) that has a bonafide ATMOS mix when played through Apple TV onto an ATMOS system. I have not purchased Resolve (you have to purchase it, not just the free download if you want to enable the ATMOS integration of the audio in Resolve in order to marry video and adm files.) Anyone had success with that, btw?
Right now I can mix all day long in my ATMOS studio - but putting visuals into the equation remains elusive without spending at least another $300 for paid Resolve, and I already have another NLE I use and pay for, so that means yet another piece of software I have to have just to marry ATMOS audio and video together.
So… bottom line… how is everyone else faring with ATMOS creation, export, and final delivery?
Hmm, lots of views, but not one person with a real world use case success story? What gives? Surely there must be someone who has been able to successfully marry their ATMOS audio to picture? Or if not that, can anyone share where they gave up trying to do such a thing?
in short, from a hobbyist: Works for me pretty good looking at it after some rounds of experimental testing.
Am focusing mostly on audio (music), Did a couple of live 3D-recordings in the past (8x Mics in double ORTF setup).
Flows being used.
Source: Multitrack VSTi or multitrack recordings or both mixed, plus some filters applied.
Targets: With Dolby Atmos ADM export to …
… Dolby Atmos mlp (Dolby TrueHD) with Dolby Encoding Engine (DEE). With some powershell scripts, can glue audio and vido together into an mkv-container.
… Dolby Atmos mp4 (DD+) with Dolby Atmos Production Suite (DAPS)
… Dolby Atmos mp3/wav binaural (2.0) with DAPS
Remarks
All Dolby software still in eval mode.
DEE is quite expensive (for me as a hobbyist). Annual payment required. Not available for MacOs. Is only command-line based. No GUI.
DAPS is about half the price of DEE and a one-time-purchase. Not sure about updates. Has GUI. Not sure, whether command-line works too. Runs on MacOS only. Not available for Win10. Am running it on a virtual machine in a MacOS guest OS on a Win10 host system (Intel i7 4 GHz). Needs some hacking, but works.
Key performance booster: Usage of NVME-Disks for import, export of audio data and also conversion/compile of it,
Going forward: Intend to move away from mlp (Dolby TrueHD → BluRay) and focus on DD+ or Binaural for its better distribution potential (to freaks and friends).
Thanks for the synapsis of your work so far! I think at one point I stumbled across a free version (or possibly beta?) of the DEE and didn’t really get into it - I am allergic to command line these days. I keep hoping there will be an easier way. Apparently Resolve is the easier way, although I haven’t heard of anyone doing ATMOS adm file stitching in Resolve to a video - so who knows. Supposedly it is possible. Maybe someone reading this can test Resolve for this capability?
Anyway, thanks for the response - anxious to hear from others too.
Hey, I use Nuendo 11 in a theatrical Dolby Atmos studio, connecting to an RMU. This year we mixed an animated movie called “Around the world in 80 days”.
I had one 2019 MacPro running Dialogue, Foley (so that panners could be linked between D and F) and Music, and another 2019 MacPro running Amb/BG and Sound FX.
Both Nuendo rigs were addressing a certain number of objects on the RMU, and the whole mix was being recorded on a ProTools recorder rig.
Lots of fun. Specially when we realised that the PT recorder wasn’t recording pan metadata properly!! Otherwise Nuendo worked flawlessly, its panner Best in class, as always.
Hi Steven, wow - that seems like quite a setup! I’m very glad to hear of a use case that resulted in a finished work. Just curious, when you say “the whole mix was being recorded on a Pro Tools recorder rig” - what exactly did you record? Stems? Individual channels? Was the PT output then saved as an atmos file from the RMU? I’m still trying to wrap my head around the workflow… thanks in advance!
The RMU creates the Atmos mxf file to be delivered to the lab for Digital Cinema files, but the mix (stems, individual objects with pan) need to be delivered to the distributor just like any movie deliverables. Same goes for the Music&Effects track for foreign language dubbing.
This is not delivered from an RMU file, as it would not be practical at all.
ProTools has a mode for Atmos where it can sit between the Player machines and the RMU, and record both the audio (stems, object audio stream) and pan automation (aka Metadata). This allows for easy creation of a deliverable.
If I were mixing in one Nuendo machine only, I could probably work around this by exporting an ADM directly from Nuendo, but this is much less flexible than having a Stem Recorder machine like film mix stages have been using for years.