The Fan Carpet’s Jayne Thorpe shares her experience at the Dolby Atmos event of Game of Thrones classic ‘Blackwater’

When I told my friend we were going to watch a Game of Thrones screening of Blackwater (episode 9, season 2) I just about stopped her from dressing up as Daenerys Targaryen. When I told her some very nice people were sending me a full boxset of GoT what she texted back was barely printable. Naturally I had to be considerate of her pain (ie I rubbed it in whilst vegging on the sofa in a GoT binge).

HBO’s Game of Thrones is certainly a phenomenon that speaks for itself. For the last four years it has ruled all the kingdoms in the home entertainment charts and slain any challenger to remote control supremacy. Now a new dimension has been added to this with the addition of a Dolby Atmos soundtrack. My friend and I had no idea what to expect when we sank into our plush front row seats at the screening. Within a few seconds though we were flung backwards from the punch of the sound. I felt like one of those cartoon characters whose hair flies away from their face with the force of someone shouting at them.

“Good Lord!” my friend bellowed into my ear. “Do you want a seat on the back row instead?”

So what are the geek facts? What is it about Dolby Atmos that makes cinema experiences so different?

Dolby Atmos is surround sound technology – 360 sound.  This means that when you are sitting in a cinema and someone is sneaking up behind Tyrion Lannister with the intention of trying to whack him over the head it sounds like someone is sneaking up on you.  Object-based processing for sound now means that sound engineers can move sound around the cinema in a 3D manner rather than just in pans.  In experiential terms whilst watching GoT Blackwater bells were ringing in the rear of the cinema, drums were thudding in my chest, arrows were piercing the air either side of my head and Wildfire explosions were all but shaking my seat.  I’ll spare you a detailed description of how visceral the squelching sounds in the Blackwater battle were – you might be eating your lunch after all - but suffice to say I can only imagine what it would be like to combine 3D sound with 3D visuals. 

Dolby Atmos has been around for 3 years now and is available in 1200 cinemas worldwide. Your eardrums can be rattled by Dolby Atmos during 300 film titles and now on the superb Game of Thrones collectors release ‘Steelbook’, which comes complete with artwork from the Emmy Award-winning team that created the GoT title sequence. Dolby Atmos are working with AV partners to bring this tech into your home and have recently released the Dolby Atmos Soundbar in conjunction with Yamaha and other manufacturers. If what my friend and I experienced in our Game Of Thrones screening is anything to go by you might need to warn your neighbours from now on when you watch your home movies.

HBO releases Game of Thrones seasons 1 and 2 in the new limited edition Steelbook format on October 26th 2015 and will release Game of Thrones Seasons 3 and 4 shortly afterwards.

The Steelbook sets feature brand new box art designed by Elastic, the agency responsible for the series’ Emmy® Award-winning opening credits. Each Steelbook showcases a specific location that is significant to that season and includes usable magnets on the packaging, featuring Game of Thrones sigils and symbols:

Season 1 packaging features Winterfell, where fans are introduced to the Stark family in the series premiere. The magnet for Season 1 is the direwolf sigil of House Stark.

In Season 2, the Lannisters’ influence is keenly felt from the Iron Throne and their sigil is included on packaging set in King’s Landing, where the season’s pivotal Battle of the Blackwater occurs.

Season 3 features the magnet sigil of House Frey and their ancestral seat of the Twins—the location of this season's infamous Red Wedding.

Season 4 features the icy landscape of Castle Black and the Wall, where the brothers of the Night’s Watch fend off an army of wildlings from the far north. The magnet for this season features a crow and Jon Snow’s sword, Longclaw.

In addition to all of the bonus content from the previous Blu-ray sets, the Game of Thrones Steelbook is the first TV title on Blu-ray to be released with the revolutionary new audio technology Dolby Atmos. The Blu-ray features a newly remixed Dolby Atmos soundtrack, which places and moves sounds and music anywhere in the room, including overhead, creating a captivating experience that brings entertainment alive all around the audience. With the new Steelbook set, fans can hear Daenerys’s dragons swoop past them and feel the soaring score rise and fall around them. To experience Dolby Atmos at home, a Dolby Atmos-enabled AV receiver is required. To create the full experience with overhead sound, home theatre enthusiasts can choose from Dolby Atmos enabled speakers or add-on speaker modules. Overhead speakers that are mounted in or on the ceiling are also an option. However, Dolby Atmos soundtracks are fully backward compatible with traditional audio configurations and legacy home entertainment equipment and will automatically play in the best possible way.

The limited edition Steelbooks will be available to purchase on Amazon for the suggested pricing of 22.99 (HD)

About Game of Thrones®
Based on George R.R. Martin’s fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire, the Emmy® Award-winning drama series Game of Thrones follows kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and noblemen who are engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. The epic series’ storylines of treachery and nobility, family and honor, ambition and love, and death and survival have captured the imagination of fans globally and made it one of the most popular shows on television. The series recently broke HBO ratings records, averaging more than 19 million viewers throughout season 4. In 2014, Game of Thrones was the most searched TV show on Google and the #1 most talked about show on Facebook.

About HBO Home Entertainment®
HBO Home Entertainment develops, distributes and markets an extensive array of critically-acclaimed and groundbreaking programmes in three formats—Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD—throughout the world.  Releases include the global hit Game of Thrones®, the #1 selling TV on DVD/Blu-ray title in major territories throughout the world over the past four years, in addition to current hits and classic favorites including True Detective®, Girls®, The Sopranos®, Sex and the City® True Blood®, The Wire® and Entourage®. The company’s catalog contains hundreds of titles including multiple Emmy® Award-winning mini-series The Pacific® and Band of Brothers®, which holds the record through 2014 as the all-time best selling TV on DVD/Blu-ray title in the US;  provocative programs from HBO Documentary Films including The Jinx: The Life & Deaths of Robert Durst and The Case Against 8; innovative movies from HBO Films including Game Change and The Normal Heart; hit Cinemax® original series including BansheeSM and Strike Back®; and comedy specials featuring stand-up performers like Bill Maher and Billy Crystal.  Launched in 1984, HBO Home Entertainment has offices in New York, London and Toronto. The company’s releases are sold in more than 70 territories around the world and are digitally distributed on a transactional basis across an expanding number of territories and platforms.