Chennai gets India's first Dolby Atmos theatre

Dolby Laboratories has launched its cutting edge Atmos technology in India, with the Sathyam Multiplex in Chennai. Dolby Atmos uses an array of speakers to create a realistic, object oriented sound field. A remastered 3D version of AVM's 2007 Tamil blockbuster Sivaji will be the first Indian movie to be released with Atmos.

Atmos gives sound designers a never before level of creative control while ensuring that the audience, whichever theatre they might be watching the movie in, gets the full impact of the audio effects. Dolby Laboratories India country manager Pankaj Kedia said Atmos is an end-to-end audio solution that goes beyond the traditional channel-based systems.

"Atmos addresses every single speaker in the cinema and this is a significant enhancement from the point of view of content creation. The resultant sound is natural and neat. This makes the overall experience more immersive for the viewer. You have not heard sound like this before," he said.

The new system can have up to 64 speakers, even on the ceiling, and cater to 128 simultaneous sound streams, thus allowing sound to be moved across the theatre. Plus, Atmos renders sound specifically for all kinds of cinemas, so that producers don't have to create different masters for various theatre configurations.

Kiran Reddy, CEO of SPI Cinemas, said their Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai was the first of the series of Dolby Atmos installations planned at their locations. "Since retro-fitting existing cinemas is a lot of work, our new locations are being pre-equipped to be ready for this new technology," Reddy said.

Chennai-based Real Image Media Technologies Private Ltd is the first studio in the country to adopt mixing capabilities in Dolby Atmos and has remastered the sound of Sivaji. Co-founder Senthil Kumar said that while it took under two days to set up the infrastructure for working on Atmos, the rules are now very different and there will be months of learning involved for sound engineers.

"Atmos is a wonderful tool that enables us to make breakthroughs, from storytelling to production. It allows us to offer a truly immersive listening experience that strongly complements the visual impact," Senthil Kumar said.