On 06/05/2011 01:26, Jörn Nettingsmeier wrote:
...
i was mentioning this 3rd vs. 4th thing because bruce wiggins examined
the use of HO components for the "steering" of a 5.1 decode (which in
principle is not capable of more than 2nd order precision, but HO can
help mend the irregularities iiuc). he seems to have found that 4th
order signals can be steered even better than 3rd order ones. so there
is some benefit of really high orders as production and archival format,
even if all your customers ever get to see are 5.1 speaker feeds.
If it is third order, they can (possibly) use .AMB as a dedicated
archival and exchange medium. If it is fourth order, they will need
whatever the new file format is/will be, or just use multiple mono WAVE
files Pro Tools style. So there are potential consequences logistically,
arising from that choice. These are rarely purely "artistic" decisions;
more often than not there are practical aspects to address as well.
..
the pure-audio bluray may offer some fresh perspective on this (it does
8 channels of pcm uncompressed and allows for several such streams in
parallel).
i guess it might eventually become interesting for a small market of
ambisonic enthusiasts (go, nimbus, go!), and you can cater to the mass
market with discrete multichannel stereo on the same disk.
That does indeed sound like a promising way forward; apart from anything
else, there are some classic e/a works composed over eight discrete
channels waiting for a viable no-compromise distribution format.
..
no. that is a rig which i feel is kind of a "sweet zone" in terms of
practicablity and price/performance, but it's not something i'm
advocating as a standard. why do so? the beauty of ambisonics is that we
have this amazing flexibility, so why do you keep insisting on setting
this in stone?
Just to be clear - I asm as delighted as anyone else with the
flexibility Ambisonics affords. But I think there is a need for a clear
definition of what we might call the "entry-level" system - or, if you
like, of the lower limit on that flexibility while retaining the
surround nature (i.e. we exclude decoding HOA to stereo). For horizontal
surround, that seems to be 2nd-order decoded to 5.1. It has been
vehemently argued that first-order over a square is not good enough -
too retro. For with-height, it would seem from recent descriptions that
a reasonable entry-level system would be the bi-rectangle layout (with
just the two "high" speakers). It appears to be classroom-friendly, and
an arrangement I have a sporting chance of setting up myself and
employing as a mobile rig (where screwing speakers to the ceiling is not
an option!).
..
again, the producers don't care, that's the whole point of it.
the audiophiles will readily embrace the endless new ways for tweaking
and tuning (as will the sales guys).
whole new publications will spring up like dandelions ("the 100 best
ambisonic layouts for home use", "rouse your spouse - minimally
intrusive multichannel systems for your bedroom", "kindertotenlieder
resurrected - 45 surefire decoder tweaks for a mahler like you've never
heard it before").
I don't doubt it for an instant, but of course it implies they have
something to decode flexibly - which might be whatever formats can be
printed to that 8-channel BluRay disc. Software of course is infinitely
flexible, and decisions depend mainly on the quality of the coffee; but
in practice we are usually limited at some point in the chain by
hardware, one way or another.
Richard Dobson
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