"Immersive audio makes a significant impression on audiences, and because of the real value it adds, we're seeing an increasing number of movies being mixed for the immersive environment," says Brian Vessa, founding chair of SMPTE's Technology Committee on Cinema Sound Systems (TC-25CSS) and executive director of digital audio mastering at Sony Pictures Entertainment. "By supporting delivery of a standardized immersive audio bitstream within a single interoperable digital cinema package, the new SMPTE immersive audio standards simplify distribution while ensuring that cinemas can confidently play out immersive audio on their choice of compliant Immersive sound systems."
Technology Committee on Cinema Sound
Systems (TC-25CSS) and executive director
of digital audio mastering at
Sony Pictures Entertainment
SMPTE ST 2098-2 defines a coded representation (bitstream) that carries the audio essence and metadata necessary to reproduce a complete immersive audio program.
SMPTE ST 2098-5 defines names and abbreviations for immersive audio channels and soundfield groups associated with D-Cinema immersive audio presentation. This standard also provides guidance on typical locations of cinema loudspeakers used for immersive audio reproduction.
The new standards for immersive audio are available now in the SMPTE digital library hosted on the IEEE Xplore platform at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/browse/standards/number/smpte/?queryText=immersive%20audio.
A podcast with Vessa as a guest, discussing the challenges in sound quality in the cinema is available at https://soundcloud.com/smpteconnect/cinema-sound. Further information about SMPTE and its standards work is available at smpte.org
