E. K.

NAYANAR MEMORIAL MODEL POLYTECHNIC

COLLEGE
KALLIASSERI

MANAGED BY

INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

SEMINAR REPORT
ON

DIGITAL SURROUND SOUND

Submitted By

AKSHAY .P.S

2201200393

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING
(2024-2025)
 E. K. NAYANAR MEMORIAL MODEL POLYTECHNIC
COLLEGE
KALLIASSERI

MANAGED BY

INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that this seminar report is the bonafide record of the Seminar presented by
AKSHAY .P.S. (2201200393) on for the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of
Diploma in ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING of Technical
Education, KeralaState (2024-2025).

Mr. SAJITH P Mrs. NISHA.P.V Mrs. HASEENA.P.P

PRINCIPAL SEMINAR COORDINATOR SEMINAR GUIDE

EKNMMPT EKNMMPT EKNMMPT

COLLEGE COLLEGE COLLEGE
KALLIASSERY KALLIASSERY KALLIASSERY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

It is with great enthusiasm and the learning spirit that I bring out this seminar report. I also feel
that it is the right opportunity to acknowledge the support and guidance that came in from various
quarters during the course of the completion of my seminar.

I am extremely grateful to Mr. Sajith.P, Principal, for providing the necessary facilities,
excellent infrastructure together with awesome environment to complete the seminar.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mrs.Nisha.P.V , Head of Department for her
encouragement and guidance.

I express my sincere gratitude to Mrs.Haseena.P.P , Seminar guide for her encouragement

and guidance.

I also thank all the staff members of the department for extending their helping hands to make
this seminar a success.

I would also like to thank all my friends and my parents who have prayed and helped me during
my work
 CONTENTS

Sound, one of the five senses, plays an important role in entertainment especially in
the movie industry. With the advances made in special effects and the film projection
techniques, the need for better sound technologies was felt. the necessitated the development
of the surround sound system capable of giving a feeling of “Being there”. The advent of
digital signal processing added momentum to efforts in this direction, resulting in the
evolution of digital surround sound systems. In this seminar I cover the history of surround
sound, existing technologies, and present digital surround sound technology. Finally a
comparison is provided as well as a look into the future.
 CONTENTS

SL NO CHAPTER NAME PAGE NO

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 FEATURES 2

3 DESCRIPTION 3

3.1 3D OPTICAL STORAGE 3

3.2 HOLOGRAM 3

3.3 STORING & RETRIEVING DATA 4

4 METHODS OF OPTICAL STORAGE 6

4.1 2D RECORDING 6

4.2 VOLUMETRIC RECORDING 6

4.3 BIT-BY-BIT 3D RECORDING 7

5 STORAGE MATERIALS 8

5.1 READ-WRITE MATERIALS 8

5.2 WRITE-ONCE MATERIALS 8

6 HOLOGRAPHIC 3D DISKS 9

7 ADVANTAGES 10

8 DISADVANTAGES 11

9 FUTURE POSSIBILITIES 12

10 CONCLUSION 13

REFERENCES 14
 LIST OF FIGURES

FIG NO FIGURE NAME PAGE NO

3.2 Hologram 4

3.3 Data Storage 5

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Going to the movies today is a very different experience from going to the movies 70
years ago -- the picture is clearer, most of the movies are in color, and the admission price is
a lot higher. But the biggest change is probably the sound experience. In movie theaters of the
1930s, the entire soundtrack was played on a single speaker or collection of speakers
positioned behind the movie screen. Today, theater audiences expect to hear sound coming
from every direction.
We’ll take a look at the surround-sound systems that have become standard movie
theater equipment. We'll also look at home theater surround-sound setups and get you started
building your own.

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CHAPTER 2
WHAT IS SURROUND SOUND?

There are many ways to make and present a sound recording. The simplest method, and
the one used in the earliest sound movies, is called monaural or simply mono. Mono means that
all the sound is recorded onto one audio track or channel (a single spiraled groove in a record, for
example, or a single magnetic track on tape), which is typically played on one speaker.
Two-channel recordings, in which sound is played on speakers on either side of the
listener, are often referred to as stereo. This isn't entirely accurate, as stereo (or stereophonic)
actual refers to a wider range of multi-channel recordings. Two-channel sound is the standard
format for home stereo receivers, television and FM radio broadcasts. The simplest two-channel
recordings, known as binaural recordings, are produced with two microphones at a live event (a
concert for example) to take the place of a human's two ears When you listen to these two channels
on separate speakers, it recreates the experience of being present at the event.
Surround recordings take this idea a step further, adding more audio channels so sound comes
from three or more directions. While the term "surround sound" technically refers to specific
multi-channel systems designed by Dolby Laboratories, it is more commonly used as a generic
term for theater and home theater multi-channel sound systems. In this article, we'll use it in
this generic sense.
There are special microphones that will record surround sound (by picking up sound
in three or more directions), but this is not the standard way to produce a surround soundtrack.
Almost all movie surround soundtracks are created in a mixing studio. Sound editors and
mixers take a number of different audio recordings -- dialogue recorded on the movie set,
sound effects recorded in a dubbing studio or created on a computer, a musical score -- and
decide which audio channel or channels to put them on.
In the next section, we'll learn a little bit about how surround sound was created and
see how it was configured in older theaters.

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CHAPTER 3
EARLY SOUNDS

Over the years, there have many different approaches to surround sound. Walt Disney's
"Fantasia" (1941), one of the earliest surround-sound movies, immersed the audiences in
classical music. Disney sound engineer William Garity took separate recordings of each
orchestra section and mixed them to produce four distinct audio tracks, which were recorded
as optical tracks a separate reel of film.The four tracks drove different speakers positioned
around the theater. In an equipped theater, the music seemed to move around the auditorium,
an effect achieved by sound panning. Panning involves fading a sound (a violin melody, for
example) from one audio channel while building it on another.
To show "Fantasia" in surround sound, a theater needed an additional projector to play
just the soundtrack, as well as an expensive receiver and speaker assembly. This surround-
sound system didn't catch on (the necessary equipment was prohibitively expensive), but by
the late 1950s, many Hollywood movies were encoded with simpler multi-channel formats.
Several different theater setups emerged in this era, including the famous Cinerama and
Cinemascope, but most of them used the same basic sound technology. As a whole, these
systems were referred to as stereophonic sound, or simply theater stereo.
Stereophonic sound used four or more analog magnetic audio tracks and the edges of
the film. Magnetic tracks could not produce as clear a sound as the conventional optical audio
tracks, and they tended to fade over time, but they took up a lot less space on the film. The
standard film format did not have enough room for more than two optical tracks, but it was
possible to squeeze as many as six magnetic tracks around the film frame.
In the stereophonic system, three to five channels drove speakers behind the movie
screen. The popular four-channel system included one channel driving a speaker on the left,
one channel driving a speaker on the right, one channel driving a center speaker and one
channel driving surround speakers along the sides and back of the theater. Some systems
boasted five separate channels behind the screen and one surround channel.
In these movies, most of the sound is recorded on the front channels so that the words
seem to come from the screen. When an actor speaks on the left side of the screen, the dialogue

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sound comes from the left speakers. When an actor speaks on the right side, the sound comes
from the right speakers. Most dialogue is also channeled to the center speakers, which serves
to anchor, or focus, the sound on the screen. The rear track (or tracks) are typically reserved
for "effect sounds," such as ambient background noise or a voice coming from off-screen.
In the 1970s, Dolby Laboratories introduced a new sound format based on this same
configuration. In the next section, we'll see what made this system the new standard for theater
sound.

Fig 3.1
Typical layout for stereophonic sound

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CHAPTER 4
DYNAMICDOLBY

Like stereophonic sound, the original Dolby Stereo® had three front channels and a surround-
sound channel. But instead of using magnetic tracks, it reverted back to the superior optical track
technology to allow for clearer sound playback. Dolby stereo also used an advanced noise-reduction
process, which improved sound quality further. Today, Dolby Stereo is the analog sound standard,
thanks to its superior sound quality and relatively simple installation.
The heightened sound quality of Dolby Stereo led moviemakers to make more extensive use
of the surround channel. George Lucas' “ Star Wars” one of the first films encoded for Dolby Stereo,
used surround sound to heighten its epic space battle scenes. By gradually panning the sound of fighter
ships from the front channels to the rear channel, sound engineers made it seem like the ships were
flying off screen over the audience.
Later movies followed the “Star Wars” model, using the surround track to create fantastic
effects, as well as fill in background noise to establish a scene's setting. In later versions of the
surround-sound system, theater owners could hook up a subwoofer to handle extremely low-frequency
sounds (a crossover unit can separate out these sounds from both audio tracks). Many moviemakers
use the subwoofer to create a powerful rumbling in the theater, shaking the audience when there is an
explosion or earthquake on-screen. The subwoofer channel in both analog and digital surround-sound
systems is sometimes called the low frequency effects (LFE) channel.
In 1982, Dolby launched Dolby Surround®, a version of Dolby Stereo for home entertainment
systems. Dolby Surround reproduces the effect of Dolby Stereo in the theater, but it works a little bit
differently. The audio channels are encoded as magnetic tracks on video tape or broadcast as a
television signal, rather than put down as optical tracks. The speakers are set up in the same basic way
as in a theater, except the original home Dolby system only had three channels --- left speaker, right
speaker and rear speaker. In 1987, Dolby introduced Dolby Pro Logic®, which had an additional
channel for a front central speaker.
The real innovation of Dolby Stereo is how so much audio information is squeezed into a small
space on the film. When Dolby engineers started working on the new format, they figured out they
would only be able to fit two optical tracks in the available space. In order to allow for four separate

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audio channels, they developed a special 4-2-4 processing system. In this system, originally used in
the quadraphonic home stereo recordings of the early 1970s, four channels of audio information are
encoded into two tracks. In the next section, we'll find out about the clever trick that makes this
possible.

Fig 4.1
The Dolby Stereo theater layout

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CHAPTER 5
FOUR FROM TWO

The basic idea of a 4-2-4 processing system is to derive four streams of information
from two streams of information. Essentially, the four streams of information are:
• The information in stream A
• The information in stream B
• The information that is the same in stream A and stream B
• The difference between the information in stream A and stream B

The first two channels are fairly straightforward. The A stream feeds the left speaker,
and the B stream feeds the right speaker. But the "same" and "difference" channels are a little
more complex. To understand how this works, you need to know a little bit about how speakers
produce sound.
A basic speaker is built around an electromagnet, a metal cylinder with a wire coiled
around it. The electromagnet is surrounded by a permanent natural magnet. When you send
an electrical current through the electromagnet, it becomes magnetized and acts like a natural
magnet, with a north pole and a south pole. The coiled wire in the electromagnet is connected
to the (+) speaker wire on one end and the (-) speaker wire on the other end. The audio
amplifier is constantly changing the direction of the current so that the orientation of the poles
keeps switching.
Changing the orientation of the poles shifts the attraction between the electromagnet
and the surrounding natural magnet. This causes the electromagnet to move back and forth.
As the electromagnet moves, it pushes and pulls a speaker cone, which rapidly pushes out air
and then pulls back in. This movement of air particles produces the sounds we hear.
An audio signal, then, is just a fluctuating electrical current. When the current
fluctuates one way, the speaker cone moves in; when it fluctuates the other way, the cone
moves out. This signal can be represented as an oscillating wave. The particular sound
produced depends on how rapidly and how far the cone moves, which is dictated by the
fluctuation pattern in the electrical current.

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In a surround-sound setup, the signal for the center channel is recorded on both the A stream
and the B stream. The center signals on both streams are identical in amplitude and frequency,
and they are synchronized exactly.
A surround-sound decoder that supports a central channel will pick out the identical
signals in the A stream and B stream based on their pattern and amplitude. In a surround setup
with no center speaker, the perfectly balanced center signals will create a "phantom speaker"
(the illusion of a speaker) directly in between the left and right speakers.
The sound signal for the surround channel is also recorded on stream A and stream B,
but the identical signals in each stream are out of phase with each other. Instead of playing in
synchrony, they are shifted in time in both audio streams. The result is that the two signals
work opposite one another: When the surround signal in stream A tells the left speaker cone
to move out, the signal in stream B tells the right speaker cone to move in. Because of this,
the surround signal information coming from the front left and front right speakers largely
cancels itself out, and you don't hear it.
A surround-sound decoder receives both stream A and stream B and shifts them
relative to one another so the surround signals are in phase again. With this shift, the right,
left and center signals are all out of phase, and so tend to cancel each other out.
In addition to separating the different signals, proper surround decoders pass the
audio information through different filters and noise-reduction elements to balance sound
levels and reduce noise. Pro Logic decoders use active "steering" elements to control the
process more precisely. Lots of home audio hobbyists have figured out a way to partially
unlock the surround channel using only a two-channel home stereo and an extra set of
speakers. In the next section, we'll see how this bare-bones surround-sound setup works.

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CHAPTER 6
ACCESSING THE SURROUND CHANNEL

The easiest way to access the surround-sound channel is to get a receiver with a
surround-sound decoder. The decoder recognizes the out-of-phase information and extracts it
into a third channel. To balance the sound, the receiver also boosts the channel to an
appropriate level, and adds a slight time delay. It is possible to access surround sound with a
standard stereo receiver, however, since all the information is actually included in the left and
right channels.
To do this, get a pair of rear speaker and position them to the left and right of the
listener. Connect the (+) amplifier terminal for the right channel to the (+) speaker terminal
on the right rear speaker and the (+) amplifier terminal for the left channel to the (+) speaker
terminal for the left rear speaker. Then you connect the two (-) terminals on the rear speakers.
The stereo signals that are in phase in the front channels cancel each other out in the
rear speakers: The (+) currents for left and right will arrive at the (+) and (-) terminals of each
speaker at the same time, so the current won't change the electromagnet at all.
But the signals that are out of phase in the stereo channels will form an alternating
current -- the current for these signals will flow out of the (+) amplifier terminal for the left
channel while the (+) speaker terminal for current is flowing into the (+) amplifier terminal
for the right channel. The effect is that these out-of-phase signals move the electromagnet for
the rear speaker, and so control the rear sound.
To set up a simple central speaker -- one that anchors the left and right stereo speakers
-- just turn on your television. If it's a mono-speaker television, it will play both stereo
channels mixed together. Stereo televisions will also work decently for anchoring purposes,
because both channels emanate from the area of the television.
The other piece you need in this setup is a potentiometer, a device that can apply
different degrees of resistance to a current, thereby reducing the voltage in a circuit. In this
surround-sound setup, the potentiometer simply acts as a volume control for the rear speakers.
You can hook it up anywhere along the circuit leading to the rear speakers.
This setup won't give you the same quality surround sound as an actual surround-

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sound receiver, of course. But assembling a homemade system is a great exercise for
understanding how analog surround sound works in the first place.
In the 1990s, a new kind of surround sound started popping up in theaters, and since
then it has been gradually eclipsing the standard 4-2-4 approach. In the next section, we'll take
a look at these new digital theater sound systems.

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CHAPTER 7
DIGITAL DOMAIN

Today, many theaters boast digital surround-sound systems. Digital sound works on
a very different principle from analog sound systems.
In analog recordings, sound is encoded as a long, fluctuating stream of information.
In digital recordings, sound is encoded as a series of 1s and 0s, just like a computer program.
With this approach, you can encode a lot more information in a limited space, making for
crisper, more precise audio tracks.
Digital theater sound was introduced to the public with the release of “Jurrasic Park”
in 1993. "Jurassic Park" used a technology called DTS Digital Sound®, named for Digital
Theater System, the company that patented the process.
In this sound system, six separate audio channels are encoded onto one or two CDs.
The theater is equipped with a CD player and a decoder that splits these channels up and plays
them on different speakers arranged throughout the theater. As in Dolby Stereo, DTS has three
front sound channels and a subwoofer. But instead of a single surround channel, it has separate
channels for speakers on the left side of the theater and speakers on right side of the theater.
The CD is synchronized with the picture by a special time code on the film. The code,
a series of dots and dashes along the side of each frame, is read by a special optical reader
mounted on the projector. The reader shines light on the film with a light-emitting diode
(LED). The light that passes through the film hits a small photocell. The photocell sends pulses
of current representing these flashes of light to the DTS processor. The dash pattern
corresponds to a pattern encoded onto the CD. The processor makes sure the two codes are
synchronized so that the sound and picture fit together.
Dolby followed suit with its own digital format, Dolby Digital®. Dolby Digital is
also known as Dolby Digital 5.1® (for five audio channels and a subwoofer channel), Dolby
AC-3® (for Dolby's third audio-coding design) or Dolby SR-D® (for Spectral Recording
Digital). Dolby Digital has the same basic speaker arrangement as DTS, and it sounds similar,
but it works on a very different system. Instead of recording audio on CDs, digital information
is encoded as tiny patterns on the film in the space between the sprocket holes.

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The Dolby Digital reader shines an LED through this pattern as the film passes
through the projector. On the other side of the film, the light hits a charge coupled device
(CCD), the same sort of light sensor used in a digital camera. The CCD registers an image
made of hundreds of little specks that represent 1s and hundreds of spaces between the specs
that represent 0s. The Dolby Digital Processor unit interprets the digital information in this
image as an audio signal.
Dolby Digital Surround EX® works the same way as Dolby Digital, but it includes an
extra surround channel. The extra channel drives speakers along the rear wall of a theater.
Like the front center speaker, it can be used to anchor sounds from the left and right surround
channels.
The latest entry in cinema digital sound, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound® (SDDS),
boasts five separate channels at the front of the theater as well as left and right surround
channels.
Like Dolby Digital, SDDS encodes digital information with a distinct pattern of light
and dark areas on film. In this case, the reader includes a laser on one side of the film and an
array of photocells on the other side. The laser passes light through transparent areas of the
film, but not through opaque areas. The photocells that are not exposed to light pass a small
current on to the processor, but the exposed photocells do not. In this way, the processor
receives the digital pattern, which it interprets as a sound signal. Unlike the other digital
formats, SDDS uses two identical digital tracks to allow for better error correction.
Dolby and DTS have both released home theater versions of these popular formats.
While digital sound cannot be recorded on video tape or broadcast over conventional cable, it
is the only way to encode information on DVD. Digital sound is also broadcast on satellite
systems, as well as digital cable. For movie fans everywhere, surround sound has become an
integral part of the theater experience. And for moviemakers, putting together the surround
mix has become a crucial step in the production process. Surround sound has effectively
expanded movies into three dimensions, putting the audience in the middle of the action like
nothing else can.

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CHAPTER 8
ADVANTAGES

• Better directional sound: True surround sound can produce better directional sound because
of the more drivers positioned around the ear.
• Compatibility: Digital audio is compatible with modern technology.
• Convenience: Digital audio is convenient.
• Accuracy: Digital audio is accurate.

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CHAPTER 9
DISADVANTAGES

• Power consumption: Surround sound systems can drain power.

• Size: True surround sound devices are usually larger and heavier.
• Mechanical complexity: True surround sound devices are mechanically complicated.
• Not ideal for casual listening: Surround sound systems aren't ideal for casual listening or
gaming because most music is mixed in stereo.

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CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSION

As in any industrial field a number of competing technologies have been As in any industrial
field a number of competing technologies have been developed. Among these the DOLBY DIGITAL
teccnology from Dolby Labs, USA, one of the pioneers in noise reduction and analog surround sound
technology, has received much attention and acceptance. Based on psychoacoustic masking, this
technology is all set to become the industry standard. The developments in the audio industry
especially those linked with the movie industry has come a long way from the noisy bandwidth
limited mono sound to present 8 channel surround sound.

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REFERENCES

• www.howstuffworks.com
• https://www.scribd.com/document/54303407/Digital-Surround-Sound
• www.dolby.com
• www.sdds.com
• www.techalone.com

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