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What Is It?

SpiderVision - a system dedicated to visualizing surround sound compatibility. Whether your audience listens with Pro Logic®, Circle Surround®, Lexicon Logic7, or discrete 5.1, SpiderVision provides you with the complete picture to insure compatibility in all transmission modes -- mono, stereo, two channel encoded surround and discrete 5.1 -- for all surround decoders.

Why Do I Need It?

Your audience listens in a wide variety of audio formats. It is your responsibility to be sure that your audio is compatible with your entire audience base.

SpiderVision Allow the mixer/operator to spot problems at-a-glance, regardless of the mode they are monitoring in.

With 33 Million plus home receivers in use, Surround Sound dominates commercial audio. It has advanced from an exciting adaptation of movie theater sound to a pervasive consumer product in a few short years.

This shift to multichannel sound has brought a great boost to consumer and professional audio in general

Surround System Sales

Take a look at some penetration figures from Dolby Laboratories:

Products Licensed
Dolby Surround decoders: 116,936,900
Dolby Pro Logic® II decoders: 8,230,00
Products incorporating Dolby Digital
(AC-3) technology: 478,495,840

Receivers and Processors
5.1-chanel Dolby Digital decoders in home receivers: 33,268,620
5.1-channel Dolby Digital decoders for satellite and TV: 967,340
Two-channel Dolby Digital decoders for satellite and TV: 47,980,030
Two-channel Dolby Digital decoders for audio-only applications: 2,186,060

DVD Products
DVD-Video playback units with Dolby Digital Technology: 155,849,800
DVD-ROMs with Dolby Digital audio for PCs: 199,660,330

Updated: December 22, 2003 Data courtesy of Dolby Laboratories

2 Channel Inputs
Why does SpiderVision have only two audio inputs when 5.1 Surround is a six-channel system?

In a perfect world, every listener would be connected to the audio source by six or more discrete channels, and there would be little need for SpiderVision... but this just isn't the reality of today's listening audience.

Discrete 5.1 Surround provides brilliantly transparent what-you-hear-is-what-you-get sound. However, once those six channels are encoded into two channels, compatibility becomes a potentially large problem, because of necessary compromised in the encoding process. The need for the unique insight provided by SpiderVision comes from the market dominance of two channel encoded surround sound. It is all too easy to produce great sounding discrete 5.1 Surround that is NOT compatible when listened to in monaural, stereo, or one of the two channel surround systems.

Two channel surround encode is the critical end product, not the six channels of discrete 5.1. SpiderVision is invaluable when you produce surround material that may eventually be encoded down to two channel. (In order to ensure a quality end product, the original production monitoring system with a two-channel encoder, should also include a SpiderVision analyzer.)

Spider Display
The Spider Display includes the unique surround reading patterns SpiderMesh®, SpiderVector® and meter bars. The Spider Display is user configurable -- allowing you to analyze a combination of the Mesh and Vector or each individually. Metering of Lt and Rt is always present on the right of the Display.

SpiderMesh is an intricate web that visualizes the entire sound field, and allows you to immediately determine if your audio is correct.

SpiderVectors offer a simplified view of the SpiderMesh as two lines, or vectors, that provide an average or central tendency of the SpiderMesh. They also can be read and interpreted in an instant. Meter Bars shown on the right of the Spider Display provide at-a-glance reference to Left total and Right total channel line levels. The threshold and meter bar color(s) are user configurable and overmodulation is represented by a visible color changes to the top half of the meters.

XY & Meter Displays

Phase (XY) Display
The second screen provides a traditional XY (Lissajous) display with some added features. XY may display either left/right or sum/ difference (L+R / L-R). In addition the user may select either a linear scale, or an expanded dB scale.

Meter Screen
The meter screen provides a 60dB metering range and displays columnar real-time read-outs of Left Total, Right Total, Left Original, Right Original, Center and Surround Channels respectively. Available user configurations for the meter screen include audio threshold levels, studio operating level, dBFS and VU or Peak settings, and colors.

All user set-up is performed using the simple touch screen interface. After adjusting SpiderVision to your personal configuration, the setup can be saved in any one of six user files. Four factory-preset configurations are also provided so you can get up and running without having to make a lot of choices.

Applications

SpiderVision Engineered to Meet Your Needs.

1. Live Sports Production:
Assures real-time quality for all viewers, and eases the sound mixer's burden. By providing an instant picture of total audio compatibility, SpiderVision delivers real-time feedback of the overall quality of your sound. In the real world, the mixer can only monitor one mode at time, but with SpiderVision the mixer can verify all modes in just one glance-mono, stereo, 2-channel surround and discrete 5.1.

2. TV Master Control:
SpiderVision is an invaluable quality control tool for on-air television sound. All audio defects are visible at-a-glance -loss of channel, loss of channel balance, clipping, sibilance, over-modulation, and loss of compatibility to any class of viewer. Even when the program material has no surround component, SpiderVision provides rapid insight into the quality of monaural and stereo material. While the master control operator usually cannot cure most problems, corrective actions, such as rebalancing channels or dropping into monaural can often minimize the impact of a problem audible to your audience. Future problems are reduced since the time and origin of problems are established.

3. Original Mix:
While mixing down from an original recording, SpiderVision saves vast amounts of time by insuring compatibility. The quality of the mix in mono, stereo, and various two channel encoded formats can be verified simultaneously while listening in discrete 5.1. This is done during the mix itself, or in just one pass, rather than auditioning the same material in four or five listening modes.

4. Transfer of Feature Films to DVD:
SpiderVision saves time, reduces cost and improves quality. With one pass, any scenes, with compatibility issues are identified, and auditioned. This saves time over multiple auditions using different listening scenarios - monaural, stereo, and various surround.

5. Remastering:
During remaster, where existing material is remixed to ring out its latent surround components, SpiderVision offers invaluable insight in analyzing the existing material to determine how much surround information is already present, and in assuring the compatibility of any synthesized material.