[nitrogen]

Still, Bluray discs with the downmix metadata set correctly should still sound better in stereo than a streaming source that was downmixed without dynamic range and mix preference metadata.

The technology is old enough to be long out of patent either way.

[dylan604]

Dolby's DialNorm setting was their true bit of gold. Incorrectly setting that value on surround encodings had a huge impact. Correctly getting that DialNorm value required Dolby gear. Many people could not afford that gear, so a -27 value was set across the board whether it was correct or not.

Metadata only isn't a panacea