Eight members came to Warsash this month. Dolby Atmos has been a big noise in video, gaming and music for a while now, and Apple has been big on supporting it- in hardware (the MacBook Pro & Air and the Studio Display all have Atmos-ready speakers, for example), and in software- almost the entire Apple Music catalogue is available for streaming in Atmos. Stuart's talk was an explanation of the technology and how we got there. Unlike Dolby Digital and other surround systems, Atmos can scale up and down to give convincing effects with anything from a pair of headphones to a full cinema setup. However, in practice it just isn't that easy. With a MacBook Pro (which does have excellent speakers, not just for a laptop), it's almost impossible to tell if the content is playing with Atmos effects or just (very good) stereo, and there's no way to find out what actually is being output. His take-away was that though surround sound is anything but a waste of time or a gimmick, trying to do it on all-Apple kit is an expensive and frustrating experience. A few members enjoyed trying out binaural audio ('headphone surround') which can work on anything that plays stereo (even an old tape deck). After that, the usual breakout discussions followed.
