Netflix Studio Quality Audio Activated

Netflix Studio Quality Sound Offers a Better Listening Experience

Enjoy High Definition Audio For Your Ears Now On Netflix

Just this week you may notice something new because recently Netflix Studio Quality Audio has been turned on. This is something new from the number one most popular streaming TV service and your ears will thank you.

How often have you had to really tune in your ears to understand what was being said in a movie or TV show? Maybe the background noise was too loud, or the actors were mumbling. But there is nothing more annoying than a poor audio track where it's hard to understand the dialog when watching TV.

About Netflix Studio Quality Audio

Netflix Studio Quality Audio technology will offer a more enhanced quality sound for any device capable of supporting Dolby Atmos. Not all media players do, to see if your media player does we added a list further down this page.

This means crystal clear audio is now available due to higher bitrates. And it does comes with a higher price of more data being streamed to watch a movie or TV shows as compared to one where it is not enabled.

To offset this and offer the best user experience, Netflix has decided to automatically control when it is enabled based on an individual's Internet service.

Bitrate for Dolby 5.1 and Dolby Atmos

Bitrate is the number of bits transmitted in a second. It is a measurement that can be used for both audio and video files. And if the number of bits required when streaming exceeds what is available from your broadband provider buffering can occur.

Buffering is most noticeable when streaming a video, and the video stops for several seconds and starts up again. And this means your connection speed is not fast enough to keep up with the amount of data required to stream a video file.

Based on the level of compression and how efficient the video file is encoded bitrates can vary from one streaming TV service to another.

A Few Facts About Bitrate When Streaming

Dolby 5.1: Uses From 192 Kilobits per second up to 640 Kbps Dolby Atmos: Uses anywhere from 448 Kilobits up to 768 Kbps

To put this in perspective, this is for the Dolby audio file only. And a 4K video file uses much more. A whopping 16000 Kbps or 7 GB for an hour-long show.

Luckily, Netflix lets us control and set the stream quality on most devices to limit videos to 720p for example. And this dramatically cuts down on the data consumed to a frugal 1.6 GB per hour. This can be accomplished on various media players like Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV and Nvidia SHIELD by accessing Display Type and Video/Audio resolution in settings on each particular device.

For those with unlimited Internet broadband without data caps, one can leave the data spigot wide open and enjoy the best audio and video quality available. And if you are bumping up against imposed Internet data caps or dealing with a slow Internet connection. Fortunately, these settings can be adjusted to make allowances for slower connection or hard limits.

In the case of Studio Quality Sound, Netflix will automatically adjust the Dolby Studio Quality sound to adapt to available bitrate for streaming and to keep any buffering from happening.

They also limited audio bitrate to 640 Kbps instead of the full 768 Kbps limit. This was due to a study done by Netflix engineers after they determined there was no noticeable difference in sound when transmitting audio at a higher bitrate.

How to Take Advantage of Netflix Improved Dolby Audio Sound

To enjoy the new Studio Quality Audio recently activated in Netflix, you don't need to make any adjustments to your Netflix account. It was automatically switched on by default. If your hardware and broadband connection support Dolby 5.1 and Dolby Atmos and the video is encoded to play it which most are these days enjoy the new cleared sound.

A 5.1 Surround System that Supports Atmos Media Streamers that Support Dolby Atmos such as the:

On Roku - The latest Roku Premiere, Premiere+, Streaming Stick+ and Ultra models all support Dolby Atmos or TCL Roku Televisions.
Apple TV 4K - Requires TV OS 12 or newer.
Amazon Fire TV - only the 4K Fire TV Stick and the Fire TV Cube support Dolby Atmos.
Xbox One - The models Xbox One, Xbox One S and Xbox One X all support Dolby Atmos.
Nvidia SHIELD - Supports Dolby Atmos.