What’s the difference between Dolby Atmos in live broadcasting and Dolby Atmos in post?
One of the main differences between Dolby Atmos in live broadcasting and Atmos in post, is the difference between “channel-based immersive” and “object-based immersive.”
Objects vs Channels: What’s the difference between channel-based immersive and object-based immersive?
Channel-based immersive means that most of the Dolby Atmos work is done live in the mixing desk, whereas object-based immersive uses the full Dolby Atmos production toolkit, generating metadata for individual audio objects that are included in the delivered product.
Live broadcast mainly relies on channel-based immersive. There are several good reasons for this; live-to-air mixing is unpredictable and it’s often not practical to mix live objects into the sound field.
Live TV productions are focused on getting it right first time and there are no second chances, so it relies on channel-based immersive mixing which places the viewer at the centre of the live environment to create the passion, excitement, and emotion of the event.
This puts additional pressure on the mix engineer, who is often creating multiple outputs for host and international mixes, as well as making sure that surround, stereo and mono versions all sound great.
This is where the console can make a big difference, with assistive features to help reduce the workload – and even a small broadcast console like Brio can make a big difference.