Why Does Cinema Sound Quality Mostly Fail to Realise Its Potential? Some Interesting Results from The SMPTE's 2014 Report on Cinema Sound Systems

Glenn Leembruggen, Philip Newell, Brian Vessa

In late 2014, SMPTE issued a substantial report titled “Frequency and Temporal Analysis of Cinema Sound Systems”, which has become an important milestone for the SMPTE's review of the B Chain systems. Presented in the report are detailed measurements of the time and frequency domain performances of the multi-channel sound systems in four commercial cinemas and two dubbing stages, and a detailed commentary about the process and results. This paper examines some of the interesting results and trends in those measurements, which point to reasons why cinema sound is currently far from ideal.

Published
2015-07
Content type
Original Research
Keywords
cinema sound systems, dubbing stage, B Chain, X curve, frequency response, impulse response, cumulative energy, time windows, frequency responses with different length windows, screen losses
DOI
10.5594/M001746
ISBN
978-1-61482-958-4