Dolby Atmos Binaural Render Modes Emulated in Davinci Resolve with dearVR Monitor + Pro (headphones)
(headphones only, binaural listening)
While Davinci Resolve's Dolby Atmos Renderer creates ADM master files containing the Dolby Atmos binaural metadata for off, near, mid or far rendering modes (edited in the index panel), there is no way to monitor the binaural effect when setting it, because there is no Binaural Dolby Atmos Renderer in Davinci Resolve, you will only hear the panning as if the binaural mode is set to off. In fact it seems, you have to use DAPS or DAMS to be able to monitor Dolby Atmos binaurally across most DAWs that include a Dolby Atmos Render natively which is all rather strange/frustrating.
The project playing began as a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 project that runs through a simple 7.1.4 speaker-test. Each run through the tests applies off, near, mid and far binaural modes accordingly and then the project was exported as a full Dolby Atmos ADM master file which includes all the binaural metadata for correct headphone playback. This master file was then re-rendered using the full Dolby Atmos Production Suite (thanks Emre Ramazanoglu) and the binaural render was saved losslessly to .wav. This binaural render was then imported into a new 2.0 track in Davinci Resolve project you see playing at the top coloured blue. The off, near, mid and far audio in the channels below is the audio that created the blue track above originally and contains all the same panning automation you will see moving while the project plays as little blue panning squares in the mixer. Each near, mid and far binaural mode is then 'emulated' using a combination of dearVR Monitor which takes the speaker test audio and binauralizes it. For each binaural mode, a corresponding dearVR Pro plugin on a send bus emulates the Dolby Atmos Binaural near, mid or far binaural mode. The combination of the two, is very, very close to the Dolby Atmos Binaural Renderer.
Initially, you hear the full Dolby Atmos Binaural render for off, near, mid and far speaker tests play in its entirety as it came out from Dolby Atmos Production Suite Renderer. Then you hear the full run of this being emulated using dearVR plugins and finally a run through switching the monitoring bus between the real Dolby Atmos binaural and the emulated Dolby Atmos binaural using dearVR. Each plugin is opened so you can copy the setting if you like.
As far as I have experimented, this is as close as you can get with third-party binaural plugins to the actual Dolby Atmos's binaural. MPEG-H Authoring Tool would be the ideal plugin to use instead of dearVR Monitor as far more powerful, but it doesn't allow a 'dry' binaural output or come with different rooms to emulate near, mid and far and applies a global 'mid' type of room size over everything. Ircam HEar V3 could be used, but limited to 7.1.2 only, not 7.1.4. In fact I have only found MPEG-H Authoring Tool & dearVR Monitor capable of taking 7.1.4+ speaker arrays and outputting binaural without any further reverbs and reflections applied.