Surround Sound

Surround sound is an interesting advance in the way we perceive sound and its environment. Surround sound allows us to create several different channels of audio to be produced out of different directions giving the listener a sense of presence within the visual. The surround sound movies allow the audience to hear sounds coming from all around them, and plays a large part in realizing what suspended disbelief is.  Suspended disbelief" is when the audience is completely captivated by the movie experience and is no longer aware of their real-world surroundings.

The usual setup for a surround sound system is show in the image Bellow. Usually you will have 3 speakers placed at the front of the TV facing the listener. The left and right channel will produce most of the audio within the movie. The center speaker should be placed in the middle of the tv. This speaker will produce mainly Dialog which gives a sense of the person on the screen talking straight at you. The back surround speakers can be used to add ambiance to create background noise placed behind the listener. There is also the Sub woofer which is used to represent low level frequency and produces all the bottom end rumbles you hear in movies which adds lots of dynamics to the movie. This can be placed anywhere which in the room and bass has no general direction when produced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dolby Digital DTS & THX

This allows the listener to hear sound coming out of six-channel digital surround sound systems and are currently the standard format in movies, music, and digital television. They both use the 5.1 speaker format. Dolby digital is now producing movies via a paper view option for sky which allows HIgh Defention sound quality to be produced through there digital receivers allowing better sound for normal satellite television. Dolby Digital uses the AC-3 file format, which any Dolby Digital Decoder can decoder to  produce 5.1 audio.The THX Sound System was the first to be developed in 1982. The system was developed by Lucas film Director Tomlinson Holman, who had just finished Return of the Jedi.This is why it is known as THX (Tomlinson Holman eXperiment).

Surround sound MP3

Surround sound is also produced in MP3 Format. This is a design from Fraunhofer which has been created by adding mp3 encoding extra information that describes the spatial characteristics of the main audio track. Using this extra information helps MP3 players recreate the surround sound effect. Surround sound MP3 files played on devices or by software that does not work with the system will just sound like ordinary MP3 files. MP3 Surround supports high-quality multi-channel sound at bit rates comparable to those currently used to encode stereo MP3 material, this allows the files to be compressed but still obtain the surround sound effect.

Surround sound is an interesting market at the moment sales are not too good, this i think is due to the lack of people who own a 5.1 system. People are happy and often fonder of a stereo mix of music. I do feel it is a different story with movies as these make a movie experience much more enjoyable. There are now Super audio CD player with 5.1 mixes for just audio but not enough people have the equipment to play all these new better sounding formats.