I’m looking for software to burn a 7.1.4 Blu-ray disc to test my ATMOS mixes on. Can you guys suggest any? I’ve been using DVD Architect with Vegas. But it’s gotten old (discontinued) an glitchy. I’ve heard that you can do DVDs on Wondershare. But is that ATMOS capable now (they’re at ver. 14)? Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks
- Adobe Encore: This software has been used by many professionals for Blu-ray authoring and supports ATMOS audio.
- Sony DoStudio: This Blu-ray authoring software has been discontinued by Sony, but it is still available for purchase and supports ATMOS audio.
- Scenarist: This is a professional Blu-ray authoring software that supports ATMOS audio and is widely used in the industry.
- Pinnacle Studio: This video editing software supports the creation of Blu-ray discs with ATMOS audio.
- Nero Video: This video editing software also supports the creation of Blu-ray discs with ATMOS audio.
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Thanks for the list!
Yes, very helpful.
Just to add another spin: Is the list of software the same, if only going for Pure-Audio BluRays (… no video)?
LG, Juergi
Have you actually done Dolby Atmos in a blu-ray in Adobe Encore? If there’s a tutorial I would appreciate knowing what I’m doing wrong. All I can get is stereo, starting from a 7.1 file.
From this list, only Scenarist is suitable for professional use. All the others are hopelessly outdated and produce (sometimes extreme) spec errors.
The question is, what do you want to do with the Blu-ray? If you want to create professional Blu-rays, then you need Scenarist BD/UHD, Blu-print or KITe. With limitations, Blu-Disc Studio MX Pro or BD Author UHD/3D can also be recommended.
We use Scenarist BD and Scenarist UHD. We also occasionally use KITe UHD for some of our projects.
However, for personal use or to provide customers with a test disc, simpler software will suffice. At this point I can recommend DVDLogic. It offers the right software even for non-professionals. And there are certainly other programs that can be used in individual cases. (Including numerous all-in-one solutions.) This includes many programmes that have not been maintained for a long time or have long since been discontinued.
Why even ask if an authoring software is capable of Dolby Atmos?
Well, one reason is the Blu-ray standard. According to the Blu-ray standard, you always need a Dolby Digital track as a fallback option. So the MLP track and the Dolby Digital track are always imported into Scenarist as one asset. Scenarist then merges both tracks into one stream during muxing. To do this, Scenarist (including Blu-print and KITe) must be able to decode and re-encode Atmos.
In addition, an authoring programme must be able to decode and re-encode Atmos, for example to create Seamless Branching (Language Credits). (Seamless Branching = different scenes are combined into one film. For example, the theatrical version and the director’s cut. With SB, the theatrical version and the DC are not stored on the disc as separate streams, but as separate blocks, which are then merged into either the theatrical version or the DC when the disc is played.)
And sometimes it simply fails because the program does not recognise the file extension (.eac3, .mlp, .eb3, etc.) and therefore cannot process a particular format.
I seem to remember answering this question elsewhere. But I’m happy to answer it again in this thread: Pure Audio is programmed in Java. (For example, to be able to use the colour buttons on the remote control.) So you absolutely need an authoring program that is Java (BD-J) capable. DoStudio is one of the few programs that can handle Pure Audio and does not require you to write the code yourself. However, DoStudio has been discontinued and also has some problems (see above).
A Pure Audio disc usually also has video (on-screen menu). However, it is programmed so that it can be played without a monitor, just like a CD, using the remote control.
In principle, I would not recommend Encore (see above). I have no personal experience of Encore working with Atmos.
What do you mean with 7.1? Atmos is exported from Nuendo as an ADM master file. You then have to encode the master file into a consumer format (e.g. TrueHD with Atmos) using the Dolby Media Encoder (DME). Then can you use this file in an authoring application.
You can also use the Dolby Encoding Engine (DEE) or an online service to encode your ADM master file into a consumer format. However, only the DME can also handle E-AC-3 JOC (DD+ Atmos) for Bu-ray.
Dear Lukas
Thanks for your response. My files are quicktime files with pcm audio in the standard smpte configuration. I don’t mind using Encore as this is a no budget art project and I’m working on a Mac. I have an older mac laptop I have frozen in time with the older operating system required for Encore and it works just fine, EXCEPT that it ignores that my files are in 7.1 format and produces Blurays with stereo audio.
Scenarist is way beyond my interest and means; I’m running a recent vintage M3 mac for most of my work and Scenarist only runs on Windows.
My sense is that I am missing something about the need for a Dolby Atmos track. I could very well output one from Davinci Resolve, then use Dolby Atmos Conversion Tool to create a DHT track or DD Plus track, but would that simply be ignored by any consumer level software? And give me the same result: a blu-ray with a stereo or 5.1 track.
Thanks again for carefully considering this issue.
Keith
In fact, there is hardly any decent authoring software for the Mac. The Mac has never been very Blu-ray friendly. That’s why there’s no way around Windows for professional Blu-ray authoring.
You do not need Atmos for a 7.1 mix. 
To be honest, I don’t understand your workflow.
You can’t create consumer tracks (DD+ or TrueHD) with the Dolby Atmos Conversion Tool. The Dolby Conversion Tool only converts various master formats. This includes formats that end in “.wav”. But these are not classic WAVE files. These are ADM master files.
You can only encode your Atmos master file to a consumer format with Atmos using the Dolby encoders (DME, DEE) or an online service (e.g. AWS).
That is not the impression I got from looking at the documentation, but I have not tried it yet. You are right about Mac not being blu-ray friendly, however, Encore isn’t bad for my purposes, except that as far as I can tell, it will only output stereo tracks. It has the added advantage that you can create menus, etc. on a master template and produce either dvds or blu-rays from it. As far as the current state of the Mac goes, even Compressor will create blu-rays and dvds, but downmixes 7.1 tracks to 5.1 and doesn’t not seem to offer the standard smpte configuration even for 5.1.
Can you recommend an on-line service for the creation of digital iso file that I could burn to blu-ray myself?
I engaged with this forum because someone claimed you could master a dolby atmos 7.2.2 disk with Encore, which as far as I can tell is not the case, at least not in the Mac version.
You mean the Dolby Conversion Tool? Please believe me that this program will not create Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) or TrueHD (MLP) for you. Dolby would never give you a free tool that could do that. Otherwise no one would buy their expensive encoders. 
I have never used Encore. But we have it installed on one of our computers. The latest version is from 2012, the year Dolby Atmos was born. So Encore has never been able to officially support Atmos. Even Scenarist BD (Hollywood standard for Blu-ray) can’t handle Atmos until early/mid 2015. (Atmos support was introduced with version 6.1.) So I would be very surprised if Encore could handle Dolby Atmos. (Not even in a roundabout way.)
Encore CS6 officially supports AC-3, DTS, and DTS-HD. Dolby TrueHD does not seem to be officially supported. For 7.1 you would only have DTS-HD as a format.
I’m happy to be educated. Maybe there is a way for Encore to just “pass through” TrueHD with Atmos. I can’t imagine it. And it wouldn’t be compliant with the standard at an way.
If it doesn’t turn into work, I can help out from time to time. But if you need encodings more often, you could use AWS. Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about the prices. Since we have all the encoders we need, I haven’t needed an online service for encoding yet.