Audiophiles rejoice – Netflix declared that it was introducing high-quality audio. It promised users a “studio quality” experience.
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Netflix Introducing Adaptive Streaming For Audio
The company laid out its plans on its technology blog. It said it used adaptive streaming for audio to improve the quality. “By using adaptive streaming for audio, we allow audio quality to adjust during playback to bandwidth capabilities, just like we do for video,” the company explained. Consequently, it came up with an optimal “transparent” bitrate via listener tests and studying scientific data. It enabled high-quality audio on various devices, making it available to most users listening in 5.1 surround sound.
The company has offered 5.1 surround sound since 2010 and Dolby Atmos since 2016. However, it decided to further improve audio quality as a result of the increasingly bold and cinematic series mixes being produced. Netflix explained that “creative choices increasingly tested the limits of our encoding quality” and it needed better support that.
Netflix audio is often muddy and could be a lot better.
But I’m not willing to pay them an extra $2/month to fix it. 🙁