Dolby Atmos
More info
- Creator
- Dolby Laboratories
- Released
- 2012
- Type
- Audio format
Dolby's object-based surround format, which places sounds in three-dimensional space rather than in fixed speaker channels.
Traditional 5.1 and 7.1 surround decide at mix time which speaker plays what. Atmos instead adds up to 128 audio objects carrying position metadata on top of a channel-based bed. Only at playback does the renderer work out how to spread those objects across whatever speakers actually exist — ceiling arrays in a cinema, a soundbar, or, via HRTF, a pair of headphones.
It debuted with Pixar's Brave in 2012, then moved through Blu-ray and streaming into music, where Apple Music turned it into a selling point in 2021. Whether a pop song benefits from the singer hovering a metre above your head is a question Dolby is under no obligation to answer.