The Cinema Designer (TCD) has unveiled that users can now use the software to quickly design high render channel count home cinemas.
Designed to ensure home cinema professionals can perfect speaker placement in a room, The Cinema Designer has collaborated with Trinnov as part of its most comprehensive update yet.
The cloud-based tool now incorporates the manufacturer’s recommended speaker white paper to allow home cinema installers to confidently design technically accurate 32 channel count Dolby Atmos and DTS:X home cinemas in minutes.
“Designing high channel count theatres for optimal results is something few people have much experience doing,” commented Jon Herron, high end audio – director of sales for the Americas at Trinnov Audio. “The Cinema Designer incorporates the experience we have gained by being involved with virtually all of the high spatial resolution residential systems completed to date.”
He continued: “Even within the high-end community most systems have been stuck at around 11 channels, plus subwoofers,” said Herron. “Many designers are not entirely comfortable with the naming conventions, much less the use of all the ‘new’ speaker locations available to them, nor which ones are the most important when deciding to increase the channel count beyond 11.1.”
“This fact is not helped by the fact that Dolby, Auro and DTS all use different nomenclature for their ‘extra’ speakers. TCD incorporates industry standards and Trinnov’s own experience in designing these high channel count theatres into its design algorithms.”
TCD allows users to produce a standards-based, scientifically designed set of drawings, complete with information about the performance that should be expected from their particular combination of speakers and amplifiers. Designers can also receive assistance on specifying the optimal range of equipment for the particular project with the software, allows them to produce a 30+ page proposal (complete with audio and video calibration reports) for the client for review with 5-10 minutes – including creating a 3D CAD drawing in 30 seconds.
As part of the announcement, Trinnov has also announced that it is now a requirement that any company looking to achieve Level I Certification with the manufacturer must attend a live training event and either sign up and demonstrate their ability to use TCD (or demonstrate that they have all the engineering resources in place to do an equally good job designing these more complex theatres).
“Even those with suitable engineering resources, designers would be well advised to use TCD for proposal generation and first-pass AutoCAD drawings,” concluded Herron.