Ambidio Looking Glass Offered To Sound Editors, Mixers for Free During Pandemic

To help sound editors, mixers and other post-production professionals, who suddenly find themselves working from home, Ambidio is making its immersive sound technology, Ambidio Looking Glass, available for free.

Sound pros can use it as a monitoring tool for theatrical and television projects requiring immersive sound. Ambidio Looking Glass produces immersive sound that approximates what can be achieved on a studio mix stage, only it is playable through standard stereo speaker systems. Editors and mixers working from home studios can use it to check their work and share it with clients, who can also hear the results without immersive sound playback systems.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing sound editors and mixers to work remotely,” says Ambidio founder Iris Wu. “Many need to finish projects that require immersive sound from home studios that lack complex speaker arrays. Ambidio Looking Glass provides a way for them to continue working with dimensional sound and meet deadlines, even if they can’t get to a mix stage.”

Ambidio is also waiving its per-title releasing fee for home entertainment titles during the current cinema shutdown. It applies to new titles that haven’t previously been released through Blu-ray, DVD, digital download or streaming. The free offer is available through May 31. Sound professionals can apply for a free license through Ambidio’s website at www.ambidio.co/covid-19.

Ambidio Looking Glass produces high-quality, immersive sound using software only. Treating the brain as a decoder, Ambidio Looking Glass creates a continuous sound field with a sense of depth and dimension that can be experienced through any device with stereo speakers.

Sound editors and mixers can use the Ambidio Looking Glass plug-in as a monitoring tool, to process audio for playback in real-time. Ambidio Looking Glass can also be used to embed immersive sound directly into movies, television shows and other content to allow consumers to experience three-dimensional sound through laptops, TVs and some mobile phones.

Ambidio Looking Glass was an honorable mention winner at the Hollywood Professional Association’s 2019 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence. The plug-in, along with other HPA Award-winning products, was also used in an unusual test project conducted during this year’s HPA Tech Retreat in Palm Springs.

Sound mixers at Skywalker Sound used Ambidio Looking Glass to remotely prepare an immersive soundtrack for a short film. “While in February we did not expect that, a month later, we would all be working from home, we wanted to process as many tasks as possible remotely in the cloud,” explains Joachim “JZ” Zell, VP of technology at EFILM and chair of HPA’s Engineering Awards committee. “Skywalker Sound used Ambidio Looking Glass to create an Ambidio version of our mini movie from their 7.1 mix. It will soon be available to HPA members to download.”

Supervising Sound Editor and MPSE President Mark Lanza, MPSE, says that Ambidio Looking Glass is a useful tool that helps sound pros work more productively, creatively and efficiently. “Ambidio Looking Glass is a great plug-in that allows editors to change the direction of sound using only stereo speakers,” he said. “The result is a dynamic, immersive sound that can be experienced through virtually any stereo device.”