Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469840
62 S U M M E R 2 0 2 2 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y OUTSTANDING PRODUCT – POST-PRODUCTION DOLBY ATMOS RENDERER v3.7 by MATT FOGLIA CAS The Dolby Atmos Renderer v3.7 brought a number of feature updates that really helped streamline the implementation of the renderer into the DAW work environment; enough to earn this year's Outstanding Post- Production designation. The updated Dolby Audio Bridge making clocking easier and audio/video multiplexing options when exporting to MP4 are just two. I reached out to David Gould, Dolby's Senior Director, Content Creation Solutions, to discuss this renderer version. In 2013, Dolby Atmos won what was then called the CAS "Technical Achievement in Post-Production" Award. At that time, Atmos was just starting to penetrate the theatrical market. Since then, Atmos delivery has reached video streaming services, broadcast, and, most recently, music streaming services. How has Dolby helped with expanding the format into these other areas? We've been able to expand the adoption of Dolby Atmos by continuing to focus on the core set of beliefs that has helped us grow adoption in theatrical—that creatives have stories they want to deliver to their audiences. By focusing on helping those creatives solve problems in delivering on that vision, we can naturally bring Atmos to more use cases and audiences. In parallel, we worked to develop many new form factors for consumer playback, making access to Dolby Atmos experiences more accessible than ever. This can be seen in full discrete speaker systems, sound bars, built-in TV speakers, smart speakers, and even mobile phones, but always with a focus on ensuring we respect the art and intention of the creator. With the expansion of the DAR's userbase, has the development team's size increased? Yes, as the Atmos ecosystem has expanded, we have grown our development capabilities with a large development center in Barcelona, as well as a team in the Bay Area. Given that the Renderer is able to integrate with multiple DAW's, do you have team members who focus on specific DAW's? From a development point of view, it is a single codebase, but from a QA (Quality Assurance) point of view, we obviously have to test across a lot of different workflows. It's not that we have specific team members focused on specific DAW's (although there are, of course, different people who are experts in different DAW's), but more that throughout our development and QA process, we are sure to test across different workflows, and adjust our development to ensure we fit in correctly. MEET THE WINNERS L-R: Dolby's Andy Potvin, Bryan Arenas, Jim Wright, Bryan Pennington, and Jonathan Lessner. Photo: Alex J. Berliner