CREATIVE SOUND RECORDING

ASSIGNMENT - 2

TOPIC : EVOLUTION OF SURROUND SOUND ,

REPRODUCTION OF AUDIO FROM FILM TO SPEAKER

NAME : D.VIVEK

REG NO : 19230341

ROLL NO : 012

YEAR & SEM : 3rd Yr & 5th SEM

 EVOLUTION OF SURROUND SOUND
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by
using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener (surround channels). Its
first application was in movie theaters. Prior to surround sound, theater sound systems
commonly had three screen channels of sound that played from three loudspeakers (left,
center, and right) located in front of the audience. Surround sound adds one or more channels
from loudspeakers to the side or behind the listener that are able to create the sensation of
sound coming from any horizontal direction (at ground level) around the listener.

The technique enhances the perception of sound spatialization by exploiting sound localization:
a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and
distance. This is achieved by using multiple discrete audio channels routed to an array
of loudspeakers. Surround sound typically has a listener location (sweet spot) where the audio
effects work best and presents a fixed or forward perspective of the sound field to the listener
at this location.

Surround sound formats vary in reproduction and recording methods, along with the number
and positioning of additional channels. The most common surround sound specification,
the ITU's 5.1 standard, calls for 6 speakers: Center (C), in front of the listener; Left (L) and Right
(R), at angles of 60°; Left Surround (LS) and Right Surround (RS) at angles of 100–120°; and
a subwoofer, whose position is not critical.

The first documented use of surround sound was in 1940, for the Disney studio's animated
film Fantasia. Walt Disney was inspired by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's operatic piece Flight of the
Bumblebee to have a bumblebee featured in his musical Fantasia and also sound as if it was
flying in all parts of the theatre. The initial multichannel audio application was called
'Fantasound', comprising three audio channels and speakers. The sound was diffused
throughout the cinema, controlled by an engineer using some 54 loudspeakers.

The surround sound was achieved using the sum and the difference of the phase of the sound.
However, this experimental use of surround sound was excluded from the film in later
showings. In 1952, "surround sound" successfully reappeared with the film "This is Cinerama",
using discrete seven-channel sound, and the race to develop other surround sound methods
took off.
In the 1950s, the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen experimented with and produced
ground-breaking electronic compositions such as Gesang der Jünglinge and Kontakte, the latter
using fully discrete and rotating quadraphonic sounds generated with industrial electronic
equipment in Herbert Eimert's studio at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Edgar
Varese's Poème électronique, created for the Iannis Xenakis-designed Philips Pavilion at the
1958 Brussels World's Fair, also used spatial audio with 425 loudspeakers used to move sound
throughout the pavilion.

In 1957, working with artist Jordan Belson, Henry Jacobs produced Vortex: Experiments in
Sound and Light - a series of concerts featuring new music, including some of Jacobs' own, and
that of Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others - taking place in the Morrison Planetarium in
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Sound designers commonly regard this as the origin of the
(now standard) concept of "surround sound." The program was popular, and Jacobs and Belson
were invited to reproduce it at the 1958 World Expo in Brussels. There are also many other
composers that created ground-breaking surround sound works in the same time period.
In 1978, a concept devised by Max Bell for Dolby Laboratories called "split surround" was tested
with the movie Superman. This led to the 70mm stereo surround release of Apocalypse Now,
which became one of the first formal releases in cinemas with three channels in the front and
two in the rear. There were typically five speakers behind the screens of 70mm-capable
cinemas, but only the Left, Center and Right were used full-frequency, while Center-Left and
Center-Right were only used for bass-frequencies (as it is currently common). The Apocalypse
Now encoder/decoder was designed by Michael Karagosian, also for Dolby Laboratories.

The surround mix was produced by an Oscar-winning crew led by Walter Murch for American
Zoetrope. The format was also deployed in 1982 with the stereo surround release of Blade
Runner.

The 5.1 version of surround sound originated in 1987 at the famous French Cabaret Moulin
Rouge. A French engineer, Dominique Bertrand used a mixing board specially designed in
cooperation with Solid State Logic, based on 5000 series and including six channels.
Respectively: A left, B right, C centre, D left rear, E right rear, F bass. The same engineer had
already achieved a 3.1 system in 1974, for the International Summit of Francophone States
in Dakar, Senegal.
All 5.1 systems use the same speaker channels and configuration, having a front left and right,
a center channel, two surround channels (left and right) and the low-frequency effects channel
designed for a subwoofer.
7.1 surround sound positional audio uses the standard front left and right, center,
and LFE (subwoofer) speaker configuration. However, whereas a 5.1 surround sound system
combines both surround and rear channel effects into two channels (commonly configured in
home theatre set-ups as two rear surround speakers), a 7.1 surround system splits the surround
and rear channel information into four distinct channels, in which sound effects are directed to
left and right surround channels, plus two rear surround channels.

Dolby Atmos technology allows up to 128 audio tracks plus associated spatial audio
description metadata (most notably, location or pan automation data) to be distributed to
theaters for optimal, dynamic rendering to loudspeakers based on the theater capabilities. Each
audio track can be assigned to an audio channel, the conventional format for distribution, or to
an audio "object." Dolby Atmos in theaters has a 9.1 "bed" channels for ambience stems or
center dialogue, leaving 118 tracks for objects. Atmos for home in films has only 1 bed channel
in LFE and usually 11 dynamic objects. In Atmos games ISF (Intermediate Spatial format) is used,
that supports 32 total active objects (for 7.1.4 bed 20 additional dynamic objects can be active).

REPRODUCTION OF AUDIO FROM FILM TO SPEAKER

TYPES OF SOUND FORMATS IN FILM

OPTICAL

Optical sound constitutes the recording and reading of amplitude based on the amount of light
that is projected through a soundtrack area on a film using an illuminating light or laser and
a photocell or photodiode. As the photocell picks up the light in varying intensities, the
electricity produced is intensified by an amplifier, which in turn powers a loudspeaker, where
the electrical impulses are turned into air vibrations and thus, sound waves
The first form of optical sound was represented by horizontal bands of clear (white) and solid
(black) area. The space between solid points represented amplitude and was picked up by the
photo-electric cell on the other side of a steady, thin beam of light being shined through it.
This variable density form of sound was eventually phased out because of its incompatibility
with color stocks. The alternative and ultimately the successor of variable density has been
the variable area track, in which a clear, vertical waveform against black represents the sound,
and the width of the waveform is equivalent to the amplitude. Variable area does have slightly
less frequency response than variable density, but because of the grain and variable infrared
absorption of various film stocks, variable density has a lower signal-to-noise ratio.
In 16 mm Film, the sound head is ahead of 26 frames than Picture Head. In 35 mm Film, the
sound head is ahead of 21 frames than Picture Head.
LAYOUT OF OPTICAL SOUND REPRODUCTION

Optical track is in right side of film

PICTURE HEAD

SOUND HEAD

LIGHT BEAM

PHOTO CELL

AMPLIFIER

SPEAKER

MAGNETIC
Magnetic sound is no longer used in commercial cinema, but between 1952 and the early 1990s
(when optical digital movie sound rendered it obsolete) it provided the highest fidelity sound
from film because of its wider frequency range and superior signal to noise ratio compared to
optical sound. There are two forms of magnetic sound in conjunction with projection: double-
head and striped.
The first form of magnetic sound was the double-head system, in which the movie projector
was interlocked with a dubber playing a 35 mm reel of a full-coat, or film completely coated
with magnetic iron-oxide. This was introduced in 1952 with Cinerama, holding six tracks of
stereophonic sound. Stereophonic releases throughout 1953 also used an interlocked full-coat
for three-channel stereophonic sound.
In interlock, since the sound is on a separate reel, it does not need to be offset from the image.
Sync between the two reels is checked with SMPTE leader, also known as countdown leader. If
the two reels are synced, there should be one frame of "beep" sound exactly on the "2" frame
of the countdown – 2 seconds or 48 frames before the picture start.
Striped magnetic film is motion picture film in which 'stripes' of magnetic oxide are placed on
the film between the sprocket holes and the edge of the film, and sometimes also between the
sprocket holes and the image. Each of these stripes has one channel of the audio recorded on
it. Four tracks are present on the film: Left, Center, Right and Surround. This 35 mm four-track
magnetic sound format was used from 1954 through 1982 for "roadshow" screenings of big-
budget feature films.
70 mm, which had no optical sound, used the 5 millimeters gained between the 65 mm
negative and the final release print to place three magnetic tracks outside of the perforations
on each side of the film for a total of six tracks. Until the introduction of digital sound, it was
fairly common for 35 mm films to be blown up to 70 mm often just to take advantage of the
greater number of sound tracks and the fidelity of the audio.
A Sound Follower, also referred to as separate magnetic, sepmag, magnetic film recorder,
or mag dubber, is a device for the recording and playback of film sound that is recorded on
magnetic film. This device is locked or synchronized with the motion picture film containing the
picture. It operates like an analog reel-to-reel audio tape recording, but using film, not magnetic
tape. The unit can be switched from manual control to sync control, where it will follow the film
with picture.

The Sound Head in Magnetic Projector:

Standard 8 magnetic 56 frames in advance . Super 8 magnetic 18 frames in advance .
16mm magnetic 28 frames in advance . 35mm magnetic 28 frames in retard
LAYOUT OF MAGNETIC SOUND IN FILM

PICTURE HEAD

SOUND
FOLLOWER

AMPLIFIER

SPEAKER

DIGITAL
Modern theatrical systems use optical representations of digitally encoded multi-channel
sound. An advantage of digital systems is that the offset between the sound and picture heads
can be varied and then set with the digital processors. Digital sound heads are usually above
the gate. All digital sound systems currently in use have the ability to instantly and gracefully
fall back to the analog optical sound system should the digital data be corrupt or the whole
system fail.
DOLBY DIGITAL

Dolby Digital data is printed in the spaces between the perforations on the soundtrack side of
the film, 26 frames before the picture. Release prints with Dolby Digital always include an
analog Dolby Stereo soundtrack with Dolby SR noise reduction, thus these prints are known as
Dolby SR-D prints. Dolby Digital produces 6 discrete channels. In a variant called SR-D EX, the
left and right surround channels can be dematrixed into left, right, and back surround, using a
matrix system similar to Dolby Pro Logic. The audio data in a Dolby Digital track is compressed
in the 16-bit AC-3 compression scheme at a ratio of about 12:1. The images between each
perforation are read by a CCD located either above the projector or in the regular analog sound
head below the film gate, a digital delay within the processor allowing correct lip-sync to be
achieved regardless of the position of the reader relative to the picture gate. The information is
then decoded, decompressed and converted to analog; this can happen either in a separate
Dolby Digital processor that feeds signals to the cinema sound processor, or digital decoding
can be built into the cinema processor. One disadvantage of this system is if the digital printing
is not entirely within the space between the sprocket holes; if the track was off a bit on either
the top or the bottom, the sound track would be unplayable, and a replacement reel would
have to be ordered.

LAYOUT OF DOBLY DIGITAL

Dolby Sound in Film

PICTURE HEAD
 DIGITAL SOUND
READER

DOLBY DIGITAL
DECODER

DOLBY DIGITAL
PROCESSOR

AMPLIFIER

SPEAKERS

In Later Days, The Dolby developed DOLBY CP 650 Processor which had Dolby Decoder,
Processor, Cross Over Unit within the Processor.

DIGITAL SOUND SYSTEM (DTS)

DTS actually stores the sound information on separate CD-ROMs supplied with the film. The
CDs are fed into a special, modified computer which syncs up with the film through the use of
DTS time code, decompresses the sound, and passes it through to a standard cinema processor.
The time code is placed between the optical sound tracks and the actual picture, and is read by
an optical LED ahead of the gate. The time code is actually the only sound system which is not
offset within the film from the picture, but still needs to be physically set offset ahead of the
gate in order to maintain continuous motion. Each disc can hold slightly over 90 minutes of
sound, so longer films require a second disc. Three types of DTS sound exist: DTS-ES (Extended
Surround), an 8 channel digital system; DTS-6, a 6 track digital system, and a now-obsolete 4
channel system. DTS-ES derives a back surround channel from the left surround and right
surround channels using Dolby Pro Logic. The audio data in a DTS track is compressed in the 20-
bit APTX-100 compression scheme at a ratio of 4:1.
LAYOUT FOR REPRODUCTION OF AUDIO IN DTS

TIME CODE
READER

DTS SOUND PLAYER

PROCESSOR

AMPLIFIER

SPEAKER

SOUND IN FILM :