Netflix Studio Quality Sound
On May 1st 2019 Netflix announced that they would be bringing ‘studio quality’ sound to their video streaming service. This has been in the works for some time since the Duffer brothers, who produced Stranger Things 2, complained about their sound being somewhat less than stellar after Netflix had compressed it “to death”.
Netflix have decided at their urging, and I think as the competition mounts from the likes of Disney, Comcast, AT&T, Apple and Warner Media, to add another “string to their bow” by upping the audio ante on some of their programming. The new system uses adaptive bit rate streaming that will provide the viewer with the highest bit rate that their connection and the overall system bandwidth can provide. A similar approach to what currently happens with video. If the connection bandwidth drops the audio bit rate will seamlessly and gracefully drop, reducing the need for buffering and simply reducing the quality of the audio without any pops or hiccups. The idea here is to provide the viewer with an audio experience closer to what the director intended. It is claimed that the highest bit rates are “perceptually transparent” meaning that under most listening conditions the audio should be indistinguishable from the uncompressed LPCM version. At compression rates higher than 10:1 I am not too sure how “transparent” that audio will be when compared to the Blu-rays uncompressed soundtracks.
The Audio Expereince
This new standard will be applied to both 5.1 and Dolby Atmos audio:
- 5.1: From 192 Kb/s up to 640 Kb/s (good to excellent)
- Dolby Atmos: From 448 Kb/s up to 768 Kb/s (Only available for members who subscribed to the Premium plan – $15.99/month)
Netflix says that “We expect these bitrates to evolve over time as we get more efficient with our encoding techniques”. Sorry, but I read this as bit rates will drop as compression technology and techniques improve!
My 2 cents: As an audiophile and a bit of a videophile, quality always comes first. Even though I am subscriber to Netflix HD, my life long pursuit of ‘the best quality’ has resulted in most of my movie viewing being off the plastic disc. However, for many users the convenience and media choices offered by Netflix and the upcoming streaming services provide the average user with an excellent choice that for Netflix users now offers the promise of enhanced sound quality.
