Atmos vs 7.1

I have a Panasonic UDP9000 blu-Ray player connected directly to my Harmony Sound Center.

I have 2xBL50 (front speakers) as well as 4xBL17 speakers.

I have configured my setup as a 7.0 or 5.0.2 system (L/R Surround heights).

When playing a Blu-Ray with an Atmos track I can see that the Harmony display it as a 5.1 signal. If I select the 7.1 track the Harmony will show it as a 7.1 track.

I am not very familiar with the true image processing - is it recommended to choose the atmos track or the 7.1 track? 

Will I get a better result if I connect the Blu-Ray directly to the TV instead of directly to the Harmony Sound Center?

I guess same question will apply to where it is recommended that I connect my ATV4

Regardless of how many speakers you are running I personally would alway choose the highest available audio track, as this is generally a higher bitrate and more info and the trueimage will figure out how to best route it.

With regards to the aptv, do younprefer ease of use or highest available track for streaming? Because you can sort of get the atmos track, but you loose puc control and you will have to change soundsettings in the lg part every time(from passthrough/earc to auto/earc), which can be rather annoying if you’re sensitive to that.

So if you mostly watch movies on the panasonic i would just leave it as is.

LuffeDK:

I have a Panasonic UDP9000 blu-Ray player connected directly to my Harmony Sound Center.

I have 2xBL50 (front speakers) as well as 4xBL17 speakers.

I have configured my setup as a 7.0 or 5.0.2 system (L/R Surround heights).

When playing a Blu-Ray with an Atmos track I can see that the Harmony display it as a 5.1 signal. If I select the 7.1 track the Harmony will show it as a 7.1 track.

I am not very familiar with the true image processing - is it recommended to choose the atmos track or the 7.1 track? 

Obviously there is a 7.1 track as well as a Dolby Atmos track based on the 5.1 configuration on the disc, you refer to.

Since you won’t be able to ‘benefit’ from the added object based sounds in the Atmos track, I would recommend using the 7.1 track.

If there is a DTS HD Master Audio track available, I’d prefer that.

Note: There can be different combinations of sound tracks on Bluray discs!

 

Since you already have set up the Harmony, I’d recommend playing the disc (entirely) with the 7.1 track, one time with the 7.0 Speaker Group and another with the 5.0.2. Then you might see (= hear) what you like best!

Actually there might not be much difference since most of the difference comes from the placement of the speakers.....which in this case is the same for either group.

 

P.S. Please note!
This might be different when you stream the same movie from a video service.

 

As always - only testing, trying things out will guide you!

 

MM

 

Mikipidia:

Regardless of how many speakers you are running I personally would alway choose the highest available audio track, as this is generally a higher bitrate and more info and the trueimage will figure out how to best route it.

 

 

With regards to the aptv, do younprefer ease of use or highest available track for streaming? Because you can sort of get the atmos track, but you loose puc control and you will have to change soundsettings in the lg part every time(from passthrough/earc to auto/earc), which can be rather annoying if you’re sensitive to that.

 

So if you mostly watch movies on the panasonic i would just leave it as is.

 

Thank you but I am not sure I understand. 

I do not understand why there is a difference between sending the Atmos track directly from ATV or Blu-ray to the Harmony Sound Center compared to sending the atmos track from the LG TV to the Harmony sound center - e.g. Atmos from Panasonic to LG and then bitstream from LG to Harmony sound center. I assume that means that the atmos track will be sent to the Harmony Sound Center.

 

 

 

Millemissen:

LuffeDK:

I have a Panasonic UDP9000 blu-Ray player connected directly to my Harmony Sound Center.

I have 2xBL50 (front speakers) as well as 4xBL17 speakers.

I have configured my setup as a 7.0 or 5.0.2 system (L/R Surround heights).

When playing a Blu-Ray with an Atmos track I can see that the Harmony display it as a 5.1 signal. If I select the 7.1 track the Harmony will show it as a 7.1 track.

I am not very familiar with the true image processing - is it recommended to choose the atmos track or the 7.1 track? 

Obviously there is a 7.1 track as well as a Dolby Atmos track based on the 5.1 configuration on the disc, you refer to.

Since you won’t be able to ‘benefit’ from the added object based sounds in the Atmos track, I would recommend using the 7.1 track.

If there is a DTS HD Master Audio track available, I’d prefer that.

Note: There can be different combinations of sound tracks on Bluray discs!

 

Since you already have set up the Harmony, I’d recommend playing the disc (entirely) with the 7.1 track, one time with the 7.0 Speaker Group and another with the 5.0.2. Then you might see (= hear) what you like best!

Actually there might not be much difference since most of the difference comes from the placement of the speakers.....which in this case is the same for either group.

 

P.S. Please note!
This might be different when you stream the same movie from a video service.

 

As always - only testing, trying things out will guide you!

 

MM

 

 

Thanks - I agree. I do not hear much different between 7.0 or 5.0.2

The difference between listening to a Blu-ray Disc vs. compressed audio from e.g. ATV is huge. I will always prefer a physical disc...

LuffeDK:

Mikipidia:

Regardless of how many speakers you are running I personally would alway choose the highest available audio track, as this is generally a higher bitrate and more info and the trueimage will figure out how to best route it.

 

 

With regards to the aptv, do younprefer ease of use or highest available track for streaming? Because you can sort of get the atmos track, but you loose puc control and you will have to change soundsettings in the lg part every time(from passthrough/earc to auto/earc), which can be rather annoying if you’re sensitive to that.

 

So if you mostly watch movies on the panasonic i would just leave it as is.

 

Thank you but I am not sure I understand. 

I do not understand why there is a difference between sending the Atmos track directly from ATV or Blu-ray to the Harmony Sound Center compared to sending the atmos track from the LG TV to the Harmony sound center - e.g. Atmos from Panasonic to LG and then bitstream from LG to Harmony sound center. I assume that means that the atmos track will be sent to the Harmony Sound Center.

 

Forget all about the Atmos informations - you won’t ‘benefit’ from these on a system based on the Harmony Sound Center!

 

When connecting the ATV to the LG screen it might provide a 7.1 channel signal (within the Dolby Digital Plus stream) from a given video.

If you connect it to the Sound Center this will fish out a 5.1 channel signal.

This might/could in some cases give you a better (at least a different) experience when using the Speaker Groups, that you have.

However, connecting to the Sound Center bring you the possibility of controlling the ATV with PUC control, which is more complete and more stable than relying on the CEC control of the LG.

 

I would akways connect a Bluray player to the Sound Center (using the respective PUC) and let the Bluray player decode the actual sound formats to LPCM.....which is perfect for the Sound Center.

 

P.S.

Please beware, when compairing the same title from a streaming service and from a disc, there might be general differences due to different mastering of the sound.

 

MM

The actual atmos part of the atmos soundtrack will be ignored, the atmos part is the meta data of sound position in 3d space. What generally comes with ''atmos'' is a higher bit rate bitstream, especially for netflix on the aptv and streaming platforms, that's why I said ''sort of atmos''. Netflix in 5.1 or ''atmos/7.1'' is very noticeably different, but like I said earlier it's not very straight forward, annoying to set everytime, and you loose some control/puc.