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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with

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Speaker 1: tex Stole from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tex stuff. My name is Chris Polette.

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as he always does. His senior writer,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, a sailor, travels to many lands, any place

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Speaker 1: he pleases, and he always remembers to wash his hands

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Speaker 1: so's he don't get no diseases. That's so pleasant today. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, wash your hands, okay, has nothing to do

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Speaker 1: with what we're gonna talk about. No, we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about surround the sound. Indeed we are. Actually we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about the the effect of surround sounding. Surround sound

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Speaker 1: itself is kind of a I mean, the term came

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Speaker 1: from Dolby, but the concept goes back much further. Yes,

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Speaker 1: indeed it does, so, I mean, it's pretty simple concept.

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Speaker 1: The idea of surround sound is that you want to

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Speaker 1: create sound in a using recorded sound. You want to

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Speaker 1: be able to play that recorded sound back in a

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Speaker 1: way that sounds like you know, you're in the center

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Speaker 1: of all the stuff that's going on that you know,

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Speaker 1: you've got you've got sounds coming from various directions around you,

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Speaker 1: so it feels more immersive. Yeah, if you ever been

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Speaker 1: to the movie theater watching a movie where things are

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Speaker 1: you know, someone walks off screen and it you know,

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Speaker 1: you get the idea that they're behind you because you

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Speaker 1: can hear their boots crunching on the gravel from coming

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Speaker 1: from a speaker behind your head, and you go, wow,

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Speaker 1: that was really cool. That was that was essentially surround sound. Yeah. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're mainly going to focus on surround sound um in

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Speaker 1: the home theater environment, not in the movie theater where

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Speaker 1: we are going to do a Movies and Sound podcast.

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Speaker 1: The will be part of our Movie Making Technology series,

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Speaker 1: so don't worry, we will get into that, and the

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Speaker 1: two are related to one another, but we're mainly focusing

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Speaker 1: on like if you want to set up your own

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Speaker 1: home theater and what sort of options do you have?

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Speaker 1: And you know, what was the progress of surround sound? Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: of course surround sound actually started in the movies. Sure.

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Speaker 1: The first the first one I could find reference to

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Speaker 1: was fantas Sound, which was created by a couple of

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Speaker 1: Disney engineers for the release of Fantasia UM. But it

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Speaker 1: was it was a very manual process at that point.

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Speaker 1: Basically they had the track uh playing through different speakers,

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Speaker 1: two different speakers, and what they would do would be

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Speaker 1: to turn one down and the other up uh manually

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Speaker 1: so under direction of somebody, so that it appeared to

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Speaker 1: to have the effect of moving across one another. Because

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Speaker 1: originally we're talking about monophonic sound mono meaning one, so

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Speaker 1: you have one sound source and all the sound is

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Speaker 1: coming from that source. Now you could have multiple speakers

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Speaker 1: hooked up to a monophonic system and it would just

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Speaker 1: be that that same sound, the same the exact same

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Speaker 1: sound would be coming from each speaker at the same intensity. UH.

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Speaker 1: So you know, you could make yourself feel like you

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Speaker 1: were in the center of sound by putting a series

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Speaker 1: of monophonic sterry speakers around you, but there'll be no

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Speaker 1: differentiation there. It wouldn't be like you could hear the

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Speaker 1: violins off on one side while the cellos are are

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Speaker 1: behind them and and the brass section is to the

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Speaker 1: other side. You wouldn't be able to get that differentiation.

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Speaker 1: It would be the sound of the entire orchestra being

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Speaker 1: all around you everywhere. M Yeah, Actually I misspoke because

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Speaker 1: the article that I had found in the Journal of

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Speaker 1: Society of Motion Picture Engineers by William E. Garritty and

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Speaker 1: Janny Hawkins, so that there was a center channel and

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Speaker 1: two speakers, one on either side of the center. So

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Speaker 1: what they would do would be to change the U

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Speaker 1: turn one up and the other down on the side speakers.

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Speaker 1: The center speaker would would continuously play the monophonic sound

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Speaker 1: right for that, but I straight manually fading it in

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Speaker 1: and out. And that's not terribly terribly different from what

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Speaker 1: goes on now, but it's so much more sophisticated, right, right,

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Speaker 1: So after monophonic sound, we could talk quickly about stereophonic sounds. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the concept where you divide the sound up into

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Speaker 1: multiple channels and then you direct the the channels to

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Speaker 1: specific speakers. Um. And we generally think of this as

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Speaker 1: uh as as being a two speaker system, but technically

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Speaker 1: stereophonic can refer to more than just two. It's just

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Speaker 1: that you know, in the common vernacular, when you say stereo,

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Speaker 1: you think of two speakers, so generally a left and

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Speaker 1: right speaker. This is the kind of sound system that

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Speaker 1: works really well with headphones, so that you record certain

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Speaker 1: sounds on the left channel or in certain sounds of

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Speaker 1: the right channel, or you mix them so that certain

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Speaker 1: sounds only kind of come across on the left or

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Speaker 1: the right um. And by doing that you can give

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Speaker 1: the sort of the illusion that you are in the

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Speaker 1: middle of whatever it is it's making the sound that

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Speaker 1: The example everyone always uses is orchestras because I mean,

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Speaker 1: you think about it that it's it's easy enough to say,

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Speaker 1: all right, well, this would be like if you were

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Speaker 1: standing directly in front of the orchestra, because if you

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Speaker 1: were there, you would be able to hear that the

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Speaker 1: you know, all the music is coming from the orchestra

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Speaker 1: in front of you, but different parts of the orchestra

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Speaker 1: are generating that sound at different times, so you would

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Speaker 1: hear like the violence would sound like they were off

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Speaker 1: to one side, and the brass would sound like it's

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Speaker 1: on the other side. UM. So, the the goal of

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Speaker 1: stereo was to try and recreate that sensation as accurately

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Speaker 1: as possible when you're playing it back yourself. And it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty simple and a pretty simple concept. Right You're

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Speaker 1: sending one set signals to the left speaker, and one

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Speaker 1: says signals to the right speaker, and both maybe playing

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Speaker 1: some sounds at the same time, but they'll also be

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Speaker 1: playing sounds that are unique to that particular speaker. That's true.

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Speaker 1: Surround sound GET does that and makes it way more complicated. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I think I would throw in my my

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Speaker 1: my pet research project here, Okay, Yeah, because it's a

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Speaker 1: good bridging. Yeah, I was thinking about the areas we

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Speaker 1: were sort of what I was mulling over. UM. One

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Speaker 1: of the things I told Jonathan I wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about was quadraphonic sound UM, which I had always heard

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Speaker 1: about UM growing up in the seventies and eighties, but

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Speaker 1: never really had the opportunity to experience. And it's very

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Speaker 1: hard to experience now, But it was just because people

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Speaker 1: don't use it really anymore. But guadrophonic sound, if you've

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Speaker 1: ever heard of it, it is as you would expect

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Speaker 1: with the prefix quad uh four channel version UM with

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Speaker 1: left front, right front, left rear, and right rear speakers UM.

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Speaker 1: And this it was sort of an early seventies project.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the the high fidelity type audio manufacturers

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Speaker 1: came out with equipment that would support it. UM you

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Speaker 1: would see eight track tapes, vinyl records and real to

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Speaker 1: real audio tape with you know recordings and in quadraphonic format.

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Speaker 1: UM and it pretty much works very in very very

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Speaker 1: similar ways to UH to stereo sound. The problem I

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Speaker 1: think probably was judging from my research, is that it

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Speaker 1: required special equipment. The eight tracks that had it were

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Speaker 1: formatted differently. UM. They had only one side with fewer

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Speaker 1: programs rather than two sides. UM and uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: to to play a vinyl record, you had to have

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Speaker 1: a special stylist because the grooves were cut a little

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Speaker 1: differently to support the different channels. Since you have four

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Speaker 1: discrete channels of audio going to four different you know,

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Speaker 1: each channel is going to a different speaker. UM. The

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Speaker 1: of course, here, the idea is that the listener would

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Speaker 1: be in the center of this the square that's made

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Speaker 1: by the four speakers, and that through managing the levels

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Speaker 1: of each speaker and the types of sound that are

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Speaker 1: coming through speaker, you could create you know, a sound

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Speaker 1: scape if you want to. You know that that's a

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Speaker 1: pretty common term term soundscaping, where you're trying to create

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Speaker 1: a particular experience through sound to make it very immersive.

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Speaker 1: And uh and and you know, audiophiles are always looking

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Speaker 1: for the really immersive and really um um well true

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Speaker 1: to life, yeah, playback option because you want you want

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Speaker 1: to sound at least if you're an audio file, you

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Speaker 1: want to sound as close to as if you were

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Speaker 1: actually there when the sound was being generated as possible. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The uh, the system also required a special demodulator to um,

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Speaker 1: especially if you were going to play both stereophonic, well monophonic,

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Speaker 1: stereophonic and quadrophonic records on the same system. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: it really was kind of equipment intensive. Um. And then

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Speaker 1: there was another format of quadrophonic sound, Compact Discrete four

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Speaker 1: or c D four not to be confused at all,

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Speaker 1: the compact disc format UM, and it you know, it

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Speaker 1: was one of those things where it was a format war.

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Speaker 1: JVC was was behind this, and they apparently a lot

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Speaker 1: of people really liked it, uh or really really hated it,

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Speaker 1: depending on whom you ask. UM. But they were incompatible formats,

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Speaker 1: and I think the cost of the equipment and the

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Speaker 1: mess with all the different formats kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: caused the whole quadraphonic thing to fade away. And then

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Speaker 1: of course we got into uh as we moved into

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Speaker 1: the nineties, we got into CDs, and you know, people

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Speaker 1: weren't making CDs to to work with quadrophonic sound anymore,

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Speaker 1: so it just disappeared. Yeah. Um, I mean audiophiles will

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Speaker 1: probably still cry out and say, hey, I still have

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Speaker 1: my quadraphonic system and it's awesome, because they're very proud

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Speaker 1: of them. I mean they do. There are a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who still have them out there, But you

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Speaker 1: have to find the equipment that actually still works. Is

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Speaker 1: the problem, because no one's manufacturing it, right, the equipment

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Speaker 1: and the the you know, the stuff to play on it. Um,

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Speaker 1: and someone is manufacturing it, they're probably a very small manufacturer, right. So,

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Speaker 1: so true quadrophonic sound is you have four audio channels

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Speaker 1: and you have four speakers, and so you've got it's

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Speaker 1: it's four it's called four four four because it's it's

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Speaker 1: it stays four discrete channels through the whole um, the

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Speaker 1: whole process. You can also achieve quadrophonic sound, and some

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Speaker 1: quadraphonic systems were able to do this by getting four

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Speaker 1: lines of information out of two lines of information. This

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Speaker 1: gets really kind of a kind of confusing, but that's

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Speaker 1: called like the four to four processing system. Right, So

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Speaker 1: you start off with four different UM channels. You can

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Speaker 1: press that down into two lines of information, and then

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Speaker 1: you have a decoder that brings it back up to four.

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Speaker 1: And uh, I'll see if I can explain this in

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Speaker 1: a way that makes sense. It's hard to do when

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Speaker 1: you don't have a visual to go with it. So

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe at some point UM UH will do some

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Speaker 1: sort of video where we'll talk about this. But if

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Speaker 1: you do find this confusing, we have some great articles

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Speaker 1: on the site on both how movie sound works and

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Speaker 1: how surround sound works where you can kind of see

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Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. So with a four two four

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Speaker 1: system you have for the four different kinds of information

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Speaker 1: information are the the sounds that are unique to your

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Speaker 1: left speaker. This is again in a in like a

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Speaker 1: a regular surround sound system. You have the information that

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Speaker 1: is only going to the right speaker, you have the

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Speaker 1: information that's going to both, and then you have the

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Speaker 1: information that's only going to the surround speaker. So this

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Speaker 1: would normally be a speaker that's to your left, a

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Speaker 1: speaker to this's your right, and the speaker that's behind you, okay, um.

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Speaker 1: And the way that they get the the last two

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Speaker 1: to work. Uh. It all depends on whether or not

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Speaker 1: the signals are in phase or out of phase with

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Speaker 1: each other. So left and right is easy right, because

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Speaker 1: you're just sending the information to one speaker or the

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Speaker 1: other speaker. Sending it to both is also easy. You

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Speaker 1: send both both speakers the same information or both sides

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Speaker 1: the same information at the same time. So if you

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Speaker 1: were to look at the waves like the sound waves,

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Speaker 1: they would match up perfectly. It'd be the same amplitude

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Speaker 1: and same frequency. To do the surround sound. What they

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Speaker 1: do is too so that you don't get the sound

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Speaker 1: from the front speakers, the ones that are in front

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Speaker 1: of you, and you want to just get the ones

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Speaker 1: that are around you. Uh, you put them out of phase.

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Speaker 1: And by saying out of phase that what that means

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Speaker 1: is that when you have the peak of the sound

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Speaker 1: wave from one speaker, it matches the trough of the

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Speaker 1: sound wave of the other speaker, so it's opposite exactly,

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Speaker 1: it's opposite. So while one is speaking, the other one

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Speaker 1: is a trough. And this is important. This this relates

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Speaker 1: to how the speaker itself moves. There's a speaker cone

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Speaker 1: in your speaker that vibrates. That vibration is what generates

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Speaker 1: the sound you hear, which is also kind of amazing.

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Speaker 1: We'll have to do a podcast just about speakers at

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Speaker 1: one point to talk about how a little vibrating speaker

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Speaker 1: cone can generate all the different sounds you hear when

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Speaker 1: you listen to any prerecorded stuff, or actually any broadcast stuff,

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Speaker 1: anything that's coming over a speaker. I mean, it's it's

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Speaker 1: this little vibrating film that's generating that sound. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: the when it's out of phase like that, the two

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Speaker 1: sound waves cancel each other out, so we don't really

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Speaker 1: perceive them. Yeah, that's sort of, in a way, a

241
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Speaker 1: little bit like how noise canceling headphones work. Yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: it's exactly the way noise canceling headphones work. In the

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Speaker 1: sense that you want to be able to create a

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Speaker 1: wave that matches but is out of phase with the

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Speaker 1: the one that you're trying to dampen, right, and so

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Speaker 1: you get the dampened the dampened speakers, you don't hear

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Speaker 1: the sound from. You do hear the sound from the

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Speaker 1: surround sound speakers. Um, And all it takes is encoding

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Speaker 1: the these lines of information the right way so that

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Speaker 1: the waves match up or don't match up. And then

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Speaker 1: when it's played back through whatever system you're using, usually

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Speaker 1: like a DVD system or whatever, UM, there's a decoder

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Speaker 1: that takes those two lines of information and then decodes

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Speaker 1: that into the four the four different streams UM. So

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Speaker 1: that that's kind of that was kind of the next step.

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Speaker 1: And like I said, some of the quadriphonic systems were

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Speaker 1: able to do that. They weren't just the four four

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Speaker 1: four discrete systems UM those great little phase shifts. I

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Speaker 1: find that really fascinating. It also meant that if you

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Speaker 1: had a left speaker and a right speaker and they

261
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:38,200
Speaker 1: were playing the right frequencies, you would get an effect

262
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Speaker 1: as if there were a speaker directly in front of you,

263
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Speaker 1: and that that we call that the phantom speaker because

264
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Speaker 1: there's not a physical device that's generating that sound. It's

265
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Speaker 1: just because the way that the other two stereo speakers

266
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Speaker 1: are are generating sound at the same time, it gives

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Speaker 1: you the effect that there is a speaker there. Okay,

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Speaker 1: we'll see that. That makes so much more sense now

269
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Speaker 1: because I thought it was a speaker that could punch

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Speaker 1: you so hard that it would leave an impression of

271
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Speaker 1: its bringing your face. See, I thought it was a

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Speaker 1: speaker that was supposed to be developed to play all

273
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Speaker 1: these different video games, but never actually came out. We're

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Speaker 1: just making phantom jokes now, and someone's going to complain

275
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Speaker 1: because those are inside jokes, not even inside jokes, really, folks,

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Speaker 1: that's just reference. That's simon and inside joke. We're just

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Speaker 1: making very obscure references. Uh. So that that four too,

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Speaker 1: four is an example of a matrix system. The matrix

279
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Speaker 1: are the systems where the processing systems where you you

280
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Speaker 1: you combine various lines of of channels into one or

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Speaker 1: two or however many discrete. Um. Uh, Well, I guess

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Speaker 1: discreet would be the wrong word, because discreet would mean

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Speaker 1: that you would have one per one channel, person per speaker.

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Speaker 1: But it's when you combine these this lines of information

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Speaker 1: that will later be decoded to become UMU to go

286
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Speaker 1: to each individual speaker so that you get that surround

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Speaker 1: sound effect. Um. Did you want to talk about the

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Speaker 1: differences between things like five point one, six point one,

289
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Speaker 1: seven point one, etcetera. Well, yeah, that's uh, that's essentially

290
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Speaker 1: the number of speakers, or actually the number of channels

291
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Speaker 1: that you have. The first number is the number of

292
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Speaker 1: regular channels. In the second is the number of I

293
00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:29,280
Speaker 1: guess base, yeah, lf E low frequency UM channels. That's

294
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Speaker 1: what's going to your subwoffer. Yeah. Yeah, And it sort

295
00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:34,880
Speaker 1: of reminds me of what a friend of mine used

296
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Speaker 1: to call the earthquake speaker. I used to uh used

297
00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:40,040
Speaker 1: to go to a club that had one of the

298
00:16:40,600 --> 00:16:42,600
Speaker 1: you couldn't even tell it was on. It was this

299
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:45,080
Speaker 1: giant cube. It was one of the speakers that it

300
00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,640
Speaker 1: was created for the movie Earthquake in the seventies, and

301
00:16:48,920 --> 00:16:51,320
Speaker 1: its job was not to make a sound that you

302
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Speaker 1: could hear. It was. Its job was to make a

303
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,040
Speaker 1: sound that you could feel that made it feel the

304
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Speaker 1: floor feel like it was shaking, but you couldn't hear

305
00:16:57,760 --> 00:16:59,320
Speaker 1: anything coming out of it. Was just that the base

306
00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:02,880
Speaker 1: was that low, right, it was beyond beyond the range

307
00:17:02,920 --> 00:17:06,359
Speaker 1: of human hearing exactly. Yes, we can definitely sense it

308
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:09,560
Speaker 1: through uh, Like like you said, you could feel it, yeah,

309
00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:10,919
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's the same sort of thing that when

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Speaker 1: you go see a movie where there's a big explosion

311
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Speaker 1: and you feel you're feeling your chair rumbled. That's that's

312
00:17:15,320 --> 00:17:18,520
Speaker 1: what that is. So that's yeah, the five, the five

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Speaker 1: point the h and that speaker. The speakers in and

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00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:25,560
Speaker 1: home theater systems are not nearly as uh you know,

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Speaker 1: powerful as those used for the movie theaters and your

316
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Speaker 1: average home theater system last year, because there are there

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Speaker 1: are a few crazy people out there who have some

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00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:38,359
Speaker 1: really powerful speaker systems and a whole lot of money

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00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:40,280
Speaker 1: to blow on that, because we're talking like, you know,

320
00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:43,400
Speaker 1: the tens of thousands of dollars for for these kind

321
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Speaker 1: of speakers, but the kind that you would pick up

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00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:48,760
Speaker 1: at your local electronics store for most people is uh

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Speaker 1: probably these days, I would I would guess at five

324
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Speaker 1: point one or seven point one, in which case you've

325
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Speaker 1: got um, the center speaker. Uh. In the case at

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Speaker 1: five point one, two in the front and two on

327
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Speaker 1: the side, or you know, just behind you. Um, the

328
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,640
Speaker 1: seven speaker set up is a little more diverse. You've

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Speaker 1: got a couple behind you and maybe even I guess

330
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Speaker 1: a real real channel. There's a six point one too.

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Speaker 1: Well it's a single one behind you and then the

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00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,560
Speaker 1: other one has the two So yeah, it's it's just

333
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,600
Speaker 1: basically dividing the number of channels up and the more

334
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:21,880
Speaker 1: the more channels you've got the more speakers you've got,

335
00:18:21,920 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 1: so you you placed them strategically around you to create

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00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:28,440
Speaker 1: that that sound, and you just took up the channels indicated.

337
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:32,639
Speaker 1: And the strategically part is very important because the sound

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00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,359
Speaker 1: has been designed for specific for it to come from

339
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,200
Speaker 1: a specific direction exactly. In other words, with five point one,

340
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:41,119
Speaker 1: you couldn't just you know, put the five speakers around

341
00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:43,719
Speaker 1: you in any orientation. Yeah, you have to put them

342
00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:45,879
Speaker 1: in a certain place if you want to achieve the

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Speaker 1: desired effect. I suppose you could put them in in

344
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Speaker 1: just random places and it would be kind of weird,

345
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:52,919
Speaker 1: but yeah, it wouldn't don't match up to anything you

346
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:55,440
Speaker 1: were watching or now if you're just listening to music,

347
00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:57,560
Speaker 1: it might not make as big a difference. It just

348
00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:00,399
Speaker 1: wouldn't give you the effect that was intended. Now, so

349
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:02,359
Speaker 1: five point one, Yeah, you've got that. You've got your

350
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:05,560
Speaker 1: center channel. So that's that's usually in the movies, the

351
00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,040
Speaker 1: center channel is where most of the dialogue comes from.

352
00:19:08,560 --> 00:19:10,480
Speaker 1: That's because it appears to be coming from the screen,

353
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:12,680
Speaker 1: right right. Yeah, It's one of those things where we

354
00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:15,000
Speaker 1: just we've kind of trained ourselves that if we're looking

355
00:19:15,000 --> 00:19:17,800
Speaker 1: at a person and they're talking. Uh, the sounds should

356
00:19:17,840 --> 00:19:21,600
Speaker 1: pretty much come from that direction. Um. It's only if

357
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:24,399
Speaker 1: a character is off screen and talking that we normally

358
00:19:24,400 --> 00:19:29,040
Speaker 1: would hear that person speaking through one of the other speakers, uh,

359
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:31,159
Speaker 1: the other. So that you've got that's number one is

360
00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:33,119
Speaker 1: your center channel. Then you've got your front left in

361
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:36,320
Speaker 1: your front right, which are usually set you know obviously

362
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:38,119
Speaker 1: off to the side, to the left and right of

363
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:41,359
Speaker 1: the center channel. UM. Then you have your rear left

364
00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:44,680
Speaker 1: and your rear right audio and those would be behind

365
00:19:44,960 --> 00:19:48,520
Speaker 1: the viewer or listener. So that's the five. You know,

366
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,240
Speaker 1: you've got one five, the three in the front and

367
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:53,600
Speaker 1: two in the rear. Then you've got the point one

368
00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:57,399
Speaker 1: would be the sub Wliffer six point one. Usually, UM,

369
00:19:57,520 --> 00:20:02,359
Speaker 1: it depends because there's no set standard for surround sound.

370
00:20:02,359 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 1: There are many companies that have come up with different

371
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:08,440
Speaker 1: surround sound UM approaches, but in general a six point

372
00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:11,240
Speaker 1: one surround sound set up there's usually an additional rear

373
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Speaker 1: center speaker and that's normally used specifically for sound effects.

374
00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 1: So it's not you know, that's to give you that

375
00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:22,120
Speaker 1: more rich immersive experience, but it never it didn't really

376
00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: take off. Six point one just was one of those

377
00:20:25,200 --> 00:20:29,040
Speaker 1: things where you know it just it was it was

378
00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:31,399
Speaker 1: almost people begin to view it, I guess as we

379
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,160
Speaker 1: would get this just because we can. And it never

380
00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,920
Speaker 1: really took off, at least in the home market. Seven

381
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: point one does rearrange the orientation a little bit. Uh,

382
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:45,800
Speaker 1: So you've got instead of the additional rear speaker, Um,

383
00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:48,800
Speaker 1: you've got additional speaker to your left and one to

384
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,199
Speaker 1: your right. So you've got you've got the three in

385
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:53,720
Speaker 1: front of you. You've got one tier left, one tier

386
00:20:53,800 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 1: right like immediately to your left and right, and then

387
00:20:56,960 --> 00:21:00,000
Speaker 1: the two behind you. And so that's that's all seven

388
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:04,240
Speaker 1: right there. Uh and then right now is pretty much

389
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,120
Speaker 1: the top of the home theater system. But it's not

390
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:11,840
Speaker 1: people of course are not stopping there. Why would they.

391
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 1: But but yeah, that that's usually what you would see

392
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 1: in your local electronics store five five point one in

393
00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:20,280
Speaker 1: seven point one systems, Yeah, you might see some six

394
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:22,280
Speaker 1: point ones too, but like I said, they didn't really

395
00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,320
Speaker 1: take off very much. So usually you see, you know,

396
00:21:24,359 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 1: the five point one being the more um popular is

397
00:21:29,880 --> 00:21:31,680
Speaker 1: probably the wrong word, but just that's the one you're

398
00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: going to find the most often. I think seven point

399
00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:36,680
Speaker 1: one you'll find when you're looking at some of the

400
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,200
Speaker 1: higher end sound systems. I'm sure there's some that are

401
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:43,680
Speaker 1: in the more approachable like low end market by now,

402
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: but um, I haven't been in the market for home

403
00:21:46,280 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 1: theater system in a long time, so I don't I

404
00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,680
Speaker 1: wouldn't really know. But I wanted to talk just briefly

405
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:58,520
Speaker 1: about another experimental system which was developed by Tomlinson Holman

406
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: of t H Labs and uh really I wonder how

407
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 1: they got their name. Yeah, uh, yeah, he was. He

408
00:22:06,680 --> 00:22:08,600
Speaker 1: was a guy who was behind the the th h

409
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: X quality assurance standards. UM. So yeah, th h X.

410
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,040
Speaker 1: If you if you're familiar with th X sound, that's

411
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:20,560
Speaker 1: not actually a a sound recording or uh playback method. Really,

412
00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,320
Speaker 1: it's a set of standards that um that any sort

413
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 1: of system is supposed to meet in order to It's

414
00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:28,480
Speaker 1: almost like a certification like if you if you meet

415
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 1: certain requirements, then you can be th X certified. But

416
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:37,920
Speaker 1: he developed ten point to surround sound. Yeah, so ten

417
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,080
Speaker 1: point two. First of all, you got the point to

418
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:43,919
Speaker 1: which tells you that you have two sub wiffers. Do

419
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 1: they go in different places? Yes, you have one on

420
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 1: the left and one on the right, which is pretty

421
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: odd because usually most most surround sound system designers will

422
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: tell you it doesn't really matter where you put the

423
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:59,199
Speaker 1: subwiffer because again, you're not hearing it, you're feeling it.

424
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: So as long as as long as your subwoffer has

425
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 1: sufficient power and the room it's in is not you know,

426
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: the wrong size, like you don't want a little subwiffer

427
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:10,239
Speaker 1: in a huge room, right, Um, as long as as

428
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:14,920
Speaker 1: long as it's a big enough subwoffer and it's getting

429
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: enough power, it shouldn't matter where you put it because

430
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: you should still feel the effect. We're not quite so

431
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,680
Speaker 1: sensitive that we can detect the origin of that rumbling

432
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: that we're feeling as we're watching. You know, Bruce Willis

433
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:30,960
Speaker 1: run away from an explosion. But the ten point two

434
00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:33,360
Speaker 1: has two subworiffers, one on the left, one the right.

435
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 1: So the idea being that if you do tune it

436
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:40,640
Speaker 1: just right, you should be able to experience that rumbling

437
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 1: as it passes through the theater. So let's say you're

438
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: watching a movie like Twister and there's a tornado that's

439
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 1: moving from the left side of the screen to the

440
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: right side of the screen. If you timed it just right,

441
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 1: you might be able to give you that feeling that hey,

442
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 1: there's something really huge coming from the left and now

443
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 1: it's moved over there to the right. UM. I don't know.

444
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: I've never experienced this particular system, so I can't tell

445
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,640
Speaker 1: you how effective it is. Uh. But then let's see

446
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: they've got you've got your three speakers in the front,

447
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:11,439
Speaker 1: so you've got your center, your left center, in your

448
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:17,360
Speaker 1: right center. Then you have UM a left and right speaker.

449
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: Then you've got three additional UM left and right speakers,

450
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: so these are the ones that are going going around

451
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:26,719
Speaker 1: the back of you right, and then you have an

452
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: upper left and upper right speaker give your sense of height.

453
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: So that makes Yeah, the goal here is to give

454
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: you because we've got it. We've we've developed surround sounds

455
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 1: so that we get up pretty much a kind of

456
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: a one and eighty degree sound environment right where where

457
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: we could theoretically have in a really good surround sound system.

458
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,160
Speaker 1: Have a character as if this character we're walking around

459
00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,679
Speaker 1: us in a circle, like we're staying stationary in the center,

460
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: and this character walks around us and delivers a speech,

461
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:01,159
Speaker 1: it would sound as if this arter is actually walking

462
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: around us right right, because they're feeding the audio through

463
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: the different channels, right, and they're fading it out and

464
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: bringing it up at just the right moment to create

465
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 1: this illusion, this audio illusion. Well, the ten point two

466
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: is the goal is to create a three hundred and

467
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: sixty degree soundscape around you. So now the character could

468
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,960
Speaker 1: go overhead and continue talking and it would sound to

469
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: you as if the person was not only going around you,

470
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 1: but was going over on top of you. So Superman,

471
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:33,479
Speaker 1: for example, could do a little slow fly over and

472
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: speak to you and it would sound like he's going

473
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: directly overhead. Um, that's the goal. Again. I don't know

474
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 1: how successful it was, because I my invitation must have

475
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: been lost. I didn't get to go to this, uh,

476
00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 1: this experiment. You know, it would be interesting to see

477
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: what what kind of stuff they do have at CEES

478
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: related to surround sound, you know, and I've sat through

479
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: some surround sound demonstrations at c e S. But in

480
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: in general, the CS stuff is really just another example

481
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: of the technology we're already familiar with. It's just them

482
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:10,159
Speaker 1: fine tuning it, making the speakers more powerful, trying to

483
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: create sounds more accurately so that there there's a better

484
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: precision to playing back sound. UM, it's not really developing

485
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: the three dimensional aspect as much as it is you know,

486
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: making sure you're reproducing sound as accurately as possible. But

487
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: that's the general concept behind surround sound. I mean really,

488
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:35,360
Speaker 1: like we said, when you get down to it, the

489
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: idea behind it is pretty simple. You just want to

490
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: create the right kind of sounds that the right kind

491
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 1: of location to give you that immersive experience. But when

492
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 1: you actually get around to trying to develop the technology

493
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: to do it, uh, it gets really complicated. And even

494
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: though we've talked about five point one six point one,

495
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,640
Speaker 1: seven point one tin point to all this stuff, as

496
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:56,720
Speaker 1: we said at the beginning, there are multiple ways of

497
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,199
Speaker 1: achieving this. UM. The way that Dolby does it is

498
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: different from the way it's Sony does it. UM. They

499
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:07,160
Speaker 1: all have the same goal and they all essentially use

500
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 1: the same sort of speakers, but they use different encoding

501
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: methods and decoding methods. Which is why if you are

502
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: shopping for say a DVD player, some DVD players will

503
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: tell you that they can play uh, Dolby Digital, but

504
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: they can't. You know, they may not have anything on

505
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: there about other surround sound methods. Most of them have

506
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,880
Speaker 1: support from multiple surround sound uh technologies, which is good

507
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: because different companies use different surround sound vendors. So you know,

508
00:27:39,400 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 1: you could buy two different DVDs and one of them

509
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: sounds amazing on your system and the other one just

510
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,919
Speaker 1: sounds like regular mono to you almost or stereo um

511
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:54,479
Speaker 1: really Uh. It's important to to look at the the

512
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,400
Speaker 1: model of whatever technology it is you're buying, whether it's

513
00:27:57,560 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: a stereo system or theater in a box or a

514
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: DVD player, the decoder is the most important part of

515
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,479
Speaker 1: that um of that system as far as surround sounds

516
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,439
Speaker 1: is concerned, because you could have as many speakers as

517
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 1: you want, but if you don't have the right decoder,

518
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 1: you're not going to get that surround sound effect right

519
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 1: because otherwise, you know, it's basically running traffic. Yeah, you know,

520
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: to the different to the different channels. Yeah, it has to.

521
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: It has to be able to identify what sound goes

522
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: where and when. Um, which you know, again, we we

523
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: tend to to imbue our technology with a little artificial intelligence,

524
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: which is misleading, but you know it's it's just slightly

525
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: better than me saying it's magic, which I've always tempted

526
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 1: to do when I sit down here, just because it

527
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: would make these podcasts go a lot faster and I

528
00:28:47,440 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: can get back to other stuff. Elves. Elves make it work. Yes,

529
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: So anyway, that wraps up surround Sound. If you guys

530
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: have any comments or questions or you have suggestions for

531
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: other topics, like I that we will be doing a

532
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: movie sound and podcast in the future to kind of

533
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: be a partner with this one as well as part

534
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: of our movie making technology podcast. We'll even probably go

535
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: into more detail about the house around sound came about

536
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: in movie theaters and probably talk about Fantasia specifically. Um

537
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: so keep an ear out for that, huh, And did

538
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: you have something else said? No, I was gonna say

539
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 1: we probably, I would imagine get into a little bit

540
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: more about Delby and DTS and all that stuff into yeah, yeah,

541
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: because that's really applies a lot more right. It all

542
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: started in the movies and then migrated to home theater.

543
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: So if you guys are disappointed that we didn't go

544
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: into more detail about Delbi or DTS, we're really looking

545
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: at doing that for the movie sound. Actually, the movie

546
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 1: Sound may end up being two podcasts just because we'd

547
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: have to talk about how they get the sound to

548
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: match up with the movie, as well as the various

549
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: surround sound methods. But that's good. It just means that

550
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 1: we have fewer topics that we have to brainstorm. Yes,

551
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: just did we end up to saying which one when

552
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: we're going to get around to them? By the way,

553
00:30:03,200 --> 00:30:06,719
Speaker 1: the way we do that is through growing darts? Probably guessed,

554
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: but it's true. And we will talk to you again

555
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: really soon. If you're a tech stuff and be sure

556
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: to check us out on Twitter tech Stuff hs wsr handle,

557
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: and you can also find us on Facebook at Facebook

558
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: dot com slash tech Stuff h s W. For more

559
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

560
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: Works dot com and be sure to check out the

561
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: new tech stuff blog now on the House Stuff Works homepage,

562
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

563
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you