[kh600rr]

No, haven't checked out the innerfidelity post yet. I've been kinda busy, and haven't spent much time with your fabulous program yet. But what I heard at the show was great. I downloaded it to my win 8.1 with no issues.

 

[Brooko]

Did you see Tyll Hertsens post about Out Of Your Head on InnerFidelity.com? He stopped by my booth on Saturday at THE Show. (Not sure if I am allowed to link directly to the post on Tyll's website.)

Not sure on TOS for you Darin - but pretty sure we can. Here's the link to Tyll's article for anyone interested:
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/show-newport-2014-darin-fong-audio-out-your-head-virtual-audio-software

 

[Digitalchkn]

Maybe this is more of a question for Darin. Windows (7) apparently has a funny way of not making it very clear the currently set sampling rate and I suppose just likes to sample rate convert things when there's a mismatch. My guess is that that OOYH does not use, say, WASAPI mode so does that mean that I need to set the Windows sounds setting to match the sampling rate of my source in order to avoid Windows resampling?

 

[darinf]

Hi @Digitalchkn, Thanks for posting your question.
 
Due to CPU processing requirements for 8 channels of audio, we decided to do all the processing at 48kHz/32 bit sampling rate. We can do up to 192k, but the processing power required is significant especially with 8 channels.
 
So, even though you can send higher bit rate audio to Out Of Your Head, the audio is sampled down to 48k when using Windows Direct Sound.
 
You can use WASAPI, but then you have to have your media player resample the audio to 48kHz/32bit.
 
The thing is, because Out Of Your Head is applying significant DSP to the audio, "bit-perfect" is really not possible since the processed audio is SO different from the original audio signal anyway.
 
I will not get into a debate about the pros and cons of high rez audio, but with the current processing engine in Out Of Your Head, it doesn't really matter since Out Of Your Head does not currently support high rez audio.
 
Let me know if you have any other questions,
 
-Darin

 

[Crman]

Darin, I have a question. I read that Atmos technology is being released to home cinemas. Is it possible that in the near future you can make a preset with the full 32 speakers? That would be awesome, cause I think a lot of people would like to enjoy that but can't afford it, or don't have space for them. And this way we could really have a 3D audio experience, instead of the 2D we have now. 

 

[darinf]

  Darin, I have a question. I read that Atmos technology is being released to home cinemas. Is it possible that in the near future you can make a preset with the full 32 speakers? That would be awesome, cause I think a lot of people would like to enjoy that but can't afford it, or don't have space for them. And this way we could really have a 3D audio experience, instead of the 2D we have now. 

Hi Crman,
 
Yes, there seems to be a lot of press lately about Dolby Atmos for the home. I am still reading up on it, but from my understanding, Atmos for home will not use anything close to 32 speakers. I can't imagine many home theaters being retrofitted or built with 32 speakers. I suppose someone will.
 
It's my understanding that Atmos for home will support up to 11.2 channels. 
 
With Out Of Your Head, in theory, I can support as many channels as I want assuming the host computer has enough computing power. But on fast systems, 11 channels should not be a problem since I am doing 8 now. (The .2 of LFE isn't really that critical to have as a localized sound source.)
 
So, when the time comes where content and decoding software is capable of delivering decoded 11.2 channel Dolby Atmos, I hope to be able to support that. The trickiest part is finding an actual speaker system with the proper 11.2 speakers that I can measure. Worst case I could try using one speaker and repositioning that speaker at each of the positions as specified in the Atmos guidelines.
 
But of course, it would be huge to be able to just put on your headphones and run Out Of Your Head to get a full Dolby Atmos experience. I think if nothing else, it would give people the opportunity to hear Dolby Atmos before they went ahead and built an actual Atmos home theater system.
 
The truth is that most people still have 5.1 home theater systems even though 7.1 has been available for a while. Even the content is slow to incorporate even Dolby HD or DTS-MA 7.1 audio. So I think it will be a while before we see a lot of content available in Dolby Atmos for the home. Yes, there will be the first few movie releases that support it, but until there is enough content, I don't think there will be a lot of demand for Atmos capable hardware.
 
Hopefully Out Of Your Head will be one of the first ways most people can actually hear the Atmos enabled content.
 
As a side note, I did have one person who I was giving a demo of Out Of Your Head to and he exclaimed, "Wow! It's like Dolby Atmos in my headphones!"

 

[Crman]

Thanks for the answer Darin
 
I read somewhere about a 32 speaker configuration, but maybe I misunderstood it.
Another thing I read was that the Atmos software could transform 5.1 or 7.1 sound to Atmos technology, to have a 3D surround experience, so we could enjoy the 3D sound experience with any movie. 
Even though I think 32 speakers is insane, a 9:2:4 configuration would be great. 
But, we can't really use the surround experience of Atmos with Out Of Your Head until there's a PC player that accepts Atmos technology, right?
Just of curiosity, which preset were you using when that person said that?
 
IMO, your idea of Out Of Your Head being the first experience of Atmos sound technology can be truth in many cases. In some countries here in Europe is very difficult to find that technology in theaters outside the big cities, and having it in your home would be really an awesome experience.

 

[AgentXXL]

Hi Darin,
 
Any word on the release of a Mac OS X version of OOYH? I've come to the realization that I rarely use my Windows system anymore - particularly only when I want to watch a movie or listen to some music with OOYH. It would definitely be nice to have the Mac version.
 
Dale

 

[darinf]

  But, we can't really use the surround experience of Atmos with Out Of Your Head until there's a PC player that accepts Atmos technology, right?
Just of curiosity, which preset were you using when that person said that?
 
IMO, your idea of Out Of Your Head being the first experience of Atmos sound technology can be truth in many cases. In some countries here in Europe is very difficult to find that technology in theaters outside the big cities, and having it in your home would be really an awesome experience.

Yes, until there is software available that supports decoding Atmos encoded content, there's no point in having Out Of Your Head support it if it doesn't exist. But certainly if there's going to be a way to apply Atmos processing to existing 7.1 systems, that would be a good interim step until people start setting up additional height/ceiling speakers. It's going to take time before we really see much available with Atmos encoded content and Atmos compatible decoders.
 
I generally use the Acoustic Zen preset for most of my demos. So that's what he was listening too when he said that.
 
One large target market Out Of Your Head is for those people who do not have the space or money or desire to set up an actual 2.0, 5.1, or 7.1 speaker system in their home or office. So even with current surround content, Out Of Your Head gives people the opportunity to hear multi-channel music and movies. If you've ever wondered about 5.1 music, it's a great way to listen to it with your existing gear.

 

[darinf]

  Hi Darin,
 
Any word on the release of a Mac OS X version of OOYH? I've come to the realization that I rarely use my Windows system anymore - particularly only when I want to watch a movie or listen to some music with OOYH. It would definitely be nice to have the Mac version.
 
Dale

Hi Dale,
 
The Mac version is WAY overdue. I apologize for that. In addition to rewriting the core processing engine from scratch, we also recently had some unexpected problems with one of our contractors. As you can imagine, getting another person up to speed on everything has been slow.
 
At this point, we have a working prototype that we have been showing at the last few Head-Fi and hi-fi shows. But making that into a release version has proved to be more challenging than expected.
 
Although I can't announce it here when the Mac version is released, you can sign up to be notified when it is released.

 

[Crman]

  But certainly if there's going to be a way to apply Atmos processing to existing 7.1 systems, that would be a good interim step until people start setting up additional height/ceiling speakers. 

 
I wanted to say it the other way around, the 5.1 and 7.1 can be transformed by Atmos compatible systems to Atmos audio with the 9 speakers and 3D audio, so you could enjoy the movies you already have home with all the Atmos speakers. Sorry if I explained it wrong, English is not my first language.
I'm sorry for asking so many questions, but I imagine that you have tried OOYH with a lot of headphones, and I know it works with any pair of headphones, but I would like to know if you have any favorite? A pair of headphones that you can say "ok, it can't be better than this".  

 

[darinf]

   
I wanted to say it the other way around, the 5.1 and 7.1 can be transformed by Atmos compatible systems to Atmos audio with the 9 speakers and 3D audio, so you could enjoy the movies you already have home with all the Atmos speakers. Sorry if I explained it wrong, English is not my first language.
I'm sorry for asking so many questions, but I imagine that you have tried OOYH with a lot of headphones, and I know it works with any pair of headphones, but I would like to know if you have any favorite? A pair of headphones that you can say "ok, it can't be better than this".  

I see. Yes, in theory they could "upscale" the existing 5.1 or 7.1 content to use the additional speakers, but you still don't have object based positional data in any existing content. An algorithm could guess at the position of sound source, but no actual data is embedded in the source material. There already are processors that will upscale 7.1 to 9.2 or 11.2, but I am not sure how well that works. I have never heard it.
 
For headphones, in general, if you like the way your headphones sound now, they should work well with Out Of Your Head. But, because Out Of Your Head relies on subtle microdetails and accuracy to reproduce the sound of the measured room and speakers, I think that headphones that are "fast" and have a lot of detail tend to work best. For example, if you have a darker sounding headphone, then it's not going to reproduce the sound of a bright speaker or room. But if you like a darker sound, then you aren't likely to like a bright sounding speaker or room anyway. The Out Of Your Head effect works with just about any headphones.
 
My preference in headphones is with electrostatic headphones, so that also works well with Out Of Your Head since there's a lot of detail and speed. But the bass tends to have less impact with electrostats. I use a subwoofer with my headphones and Out Of Your Head to give me that visceral bass impact when watching movies at home. Sometimes for action movies I will listen to magnetic planar headphones or CIEM's with good bass and lots of detail.

 

[kh600rr]

What's your favorite one for watching movies?

 

[darinf]

What's your favorite one for watching movies?

For movies I like the Magico preset since it has more bass. Some people like the more damped rooms for movies to minimize the room interactions. The recording studio presets like AIX and MiCasa are in very damped/dead rooms.

 

[Crman]

OOYH combined with something like Crowson Tactile Motion Acuators seems an interesting combination to increase the sense of reality.