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Topic: SoundFi debuts 3D audio format for ‘The Equalizer 2’ opening
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Harold Hallikainen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 906
From: Denver, CO, USA
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 07-30-2018 11:15 PM
This is what ISDCF calls "sidecar" content delivery. In this case, it's a binaural soundtrack (in the original language or another) synced using auditorium audio.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/26/soundfi-debuts-3d-audio-format-for-the-equalizer-2-opening/
SoundFi has created a way to bring immersive 3D audio to ordinary headphones and smartphones, and the company is releasing an iPhone app to improve sound for the The Equalizer 2 movie opening on Friday.
The free app will work with ordinary headphones and smartphones that viewers take to the theaters (four theaters in Los Angeles and one in Arizona) where the movie is playing. It promises to improve the movie experience through its “binaural” audio, SoundFi said. This is one of the ways that movie makers and theater owners hope to bring more people back into theaters.
A lot has happened since I met with SoundFi at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. To review, the Los Angeles company’s new format adds the fluidity of a surround-sound system to your headphones. It modifies content in a spatial way, so that sports, movies, and other content can be enjoyed as they are meant to be experienced.
Downloading the SoundFi: At the Movies iOS app gives you the ability to play sound for a movie in the spatial audio format. You select the movie, download the sound for it, and then fire up the app in the theater. You can even use the app to listen to the film in a different language through your headphones.
In the theater, you can sit in any seat and put on your headphones that are connected to your smartphone. You don’t have to worry about being in the sweet spot of the sound system, and the sync is automated, said SoundFi cofounder Chris Anastas.
I’m no audiofile, but when I listened it sound fuller, louder, and with deeper bass than headphones I’ve used in the past. Some theaters definitely have fancy sound systems, but SoundFi-enhanced headphones play a synchronized version of the movie’s sound to ensure the sound quality is high.
“SoundFi: At the Movies is a smartphone app to allow you to enjoy the SoundFi format in an auditorium,” Anastas said. “Binaural audio is completely different from hearing sound from a loudspeaker. It requires headphones, and it’s personalized for you. It gives you an idea of the direction the sound is coming from.”
The technology is the brainchild of Anastas, who has been working on it for more than five years. They started the company in 2014 and raised $3 million in an early funding round. They unveiled the tech at CES 2018 and within 24 hours received a call from an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which eventually led to Fuqua getting involved.
Antoine Fuqua, director of the Colombia Pictures film The Equalizer 2, has joined as executive adviser and partner with SoundFi. The film, which stars Denzel Washington, will be the first of a number of movies to use the SoundFi format, Anastas said.
“As a movie fan, you want to disappear into a film,” Fuqua said in a video. “You want to forget everything else going on in your life and disappear into a movie. SoundFi allows you to do that in a way that’s unique.”
The CES appearance also paved the way for SoundFi to raise an additional $2.2 million, Anastas said. Theater owners could find it easier to promote SoundFi than to install an expensive surround-sound system. Over time, SoundFi is likely to start charging a fee for each movie soundtrack that a user downloads.
An Android version is coming soon.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-01-2018 07:03 AM
I am digging way back in memory so I wouldn't make any bets on this, but my recollection of the IMAX system was that it was not binaural sound in the speakers that were housed in the 3D glasses -- the sound that came out of them was only for surround sound enhancement and special "behind you" effects. In fact, the speakers as I recall were actually behind your ears, not facing them. I don't recall it ever sounding like it was a full binaural mix coming from the headset. The main screen channel mix always came from the screen and wasn't heard in the headset ear speakers.
This SoundFi system may in fact be real binaural, but then depending on how much isolation or not those personal earphones or buds provide, the theatre sound system will be pumping out 3 screen stereo mix at certainly a hefty level that will combine with the earbud audio and confuse those spatial cues. All sorts of time-alignment issues will also come into play and I would guess latency has to become an issue somewhere along the line as well, if not in whatever way they are getting the signal to the cellphone and then that to the analog audio in the earbuds, then between the actual time delay of the theatre speakers and the audio in the earbuds.
And then there is the General Public's fickle perception; it may be very difficult to convince people that their $10 earbuds are going to deliver any audio more impressive than what they go to the cinema to hear -- Big Sound and to see Big Picture. I most people's minds, earbuds don't scream Big Sound. I think it will be hard to charm patrons into thinking that somehow the those cheap earpods that they listen to every day are going to somehow be transformed into some incredible sound experience. Why are they paying for tickets (which the already perceive as being too expensive) when they need those cheap earphones to hear it? Not to mention that at least a portion of the GP seemed to be unhappy having to wear glasses for spacial cues in 3D imaging; now they are being asked to wear earphones to hear spacial cues for 3D audio. Take those SoundFi earbuds out and you can hear the whining already.
Given all the audio enhancements in cinema audio with spacial surround sound, i.e. Dolby Atmos and Barco's Auro and AuroMax, seems this SoundFi gimmick (awful moniker BTW -- sounds derivative the 50's "HiFi" -- definitely old school and even pre-stereo). SoundFi certainly doesn't sound like anything that is going to pull patrons back to the cinema ticket booth.
Then of course a shrewd exhibitor will be well aware of how he was told that at last he could give his patrons an experience that couldn't be duplicated in the home -- 3D. They'll never be able to have 3D in the home, he was assured. So he invested in 3D technology and a year later, manufacturers were churning out 3DTVs by the truck load and the studios were releasing 3D BluRays. So much for a technology that was exclusive to the cinema.
If ANYTHING can be easily duplicated in the home, it will be this SoundFi system. And in fact, in the home, binaural sound works even without the need for earphones because all you need to do is sit equidistant between two stereo speakers (i.e., the "sweet spot") and it will give you binaural sound; no need even for any special equipment. All they need to do is add the binaural mix to the BluRay or to any streaming channel and the home theatre's got it. AND, Netflix, for example, could even use the old slight-of-hand that Fox used when they first marketed CinemaScope; THE ROBE 1-Sheets all proclaimed, CinemaScope -- the miracle you see without glasses....clearly trying to give the impression that it was 3D but you didn't need to wear those pesky glasses -- which of course it wasn't. It won't be long before you'll see Netflix proclaiming, Now on Netflix -- THE EQUALIZER 2 in SoundFi -- the miracle you hear without earphones!.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 08-01-2018 09:21 AM
quote: Gordon McLeod
would work well in driveins with FM stereo transmitters
It would... maybe.
I'm working on a version of this with equipment from a different company. It still has sync issues, given there's no way for the theatre-to-smart phone process NOT to have some latency. They've got it pretty close but, sitting next to a car radio, it's not hard to miss. Basically, it sits just at the fringe of what most people might tolerate, were there not actual off-air radios to compare the sound to. You can just about get away with it, except for lip sync or anything else where picture and sound timing are immediately related.
There are some shenanigans we can do with the sound timing out of the server, made up by delay adjustments in our software audio processors. That might work for someone with a background in such stuff, but the idea seems offbeat enough that the average drive-in owner might consider it too complicated. In the end though, something like that might be the only way this would compare favorably with a direct feed.
Network availability is another possible issue. This runs on a separate wifi network, which generates a unique stream for each user. I haven't been able to test it to the maximum the company says their box says can handle (50 or up to 250 users at once, depending on firmware level). Not sure the Ubiquiti or Engenius stuff that's readily available around here will do that.
It's an interesting idea though... we'll see.
Right now, if they really have to hear the audio through their phones, some of our customers can use the Nextradio app. That requires their phone has FM and the carrier has authorized it. It is an actual off-air pickup though, so we don't have to do anything special for it to work.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-01-2018 04:46 PM
For decades Dolby had used phasing information to create surround sound from 2 channel playback systems. Primarily it was used in TVs and could be incorporated in computer sound cards (which is how I heard the demo of it). It was quite impressive...sound actually did seem to come from the sides and behind you, basically using the matrix encoding that is in all Lt-Rt stereo channels to process them in such a way that when listening with headsets or two speakers where you are sitting equidistant between them, you hear phantom rear channels.
Gordon, Sony offered a stand-alone audio processor (the DP-IF5100 - consumer unit) that incorporated Dolby Virtual Surround. It could be used with headphones or using the so-called sweetspot, a 2 channel playback system. Sony still uses that Virtual Surround technology, but have discontinued the stand-alone processor, now incorporating the Dolby chip in their headsets.
The claim is, the processor can take Dolby & DTS multichannel encoded audio and process it into as much as a 7 channel virtual surround experience from a simple stereo pair. Seems like a wild claim, but certainly the result does give a sense of surround and immersion; whether it is accurately reproducing how a discrete 7 channel system would sound is debatable.
Since I first heard that virtual surround demo, I always thought it would be perfect for Drive-Ins. If not from actually duplicating what a multichannel system sounds like in the theatre, at the very least, it adds a very discernible dimensional surround sound that is impressive enough that patrons would certainly notice the added spacial variations that a DI theatre could claim "Now with Virtual Surround -- 360 Degree Sound right in your car!" Of course a savvy huckster like me would add, "It sounds BETTER than in the multiplex!" And yes, in a car not everyone is in the sweetspot, but in reality, moving a bit off center just shifts the surround audio a bit to the left, a bit to the right, but it is still there, somewhere other than from the front; it certainly will be heard by all the occupants. I always felt that if I owned a DI, I would giving it a try -- the Sony unit, when it was available, cost around $500.
I think just to be able to throw a graphic up on the screen proclaiming that the theatre has Dolby Virtual Surround Stereo would be worth the cost. And not to mention, today "Virtual" now has the sound of high-tech and hip appeal. BTW, one of them is now actually listed on ebay for $50! Sony with Dolby Virtual Surround.
Stick this between the Lt-Rt audio out of the mixer and the transmitter: 
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