Netflix løfter surround & Atmos-lydkvalitet med 'high-quality audio'
01 May 2019 | Rasmus Larsen |
Netflix hæver fra i dag lydkvaliteten på streaming. Det sker ved at introducere 'high-quality audio', der konkret indebærer at bitraten hæves på 5.1 surround og Dolby Atmos.
Bedre lydkvalitet på Netflix
Streamere med gode lydanlæg vil fra i dag kunne opleve bedre lydkvalitet fra Netflix. Tjenesten introducerer 'high-quality audio', som tager "lydkvaliteten til næste niveau".
- "Today we’re excited to announce a new feature, high-quality audio, which takes our sound quality to another level. We gave it this straightforward name because it fits: high-quality audio delivers audio that sounds closer to what creators hear in the studio, so every little detail is captured for a richer, more intense experience. Additionally, if you have bandwidth or device limitations, we’ve made the feature adaptive so that we will deliver the best possible audio to match your capabilities. This is similar to what we already do for video," siger Netflix.
Der er konkret tale om, at bitraten hæves på 5.1 surround fra 192 Kbps hidtil til 640 Kbps samt at bitraten på Dolby Atmos hæves fra 448 Kbps hidtil til 768 Kbps. For at få lyd i Dolby Atmos kræves Netflix's Premium-plan.
Det oplyses, at den bedre lydkvalitet er implementeret som en adaptiv stream, hvilket vil sige, at såfremt brugerens enheder er kompatible - og internetforbindelsen kan trække det - så får man automatisk den højere lydkvalitet. Sådan fungerer mange streamingtjenesters skalering af videokvalitet også.
Netflix oplyser videre, at high-quality lyd er tilgængelig på alle film og tv-serier med 5.1 surround og Dolby Atmos. Der benyttes Dolby Digital Plus-format.
- "Our high-quality sound feature is not lossless, but it is perceptually transparent. That means that while the audio is compressed, it is indistinguishable from the original source. Based on internal listening tests, listening test results provided by Dolby, and scientific studies, we determined that for Dolby Digital Plus at and above 640 kbps, the audio coding quality is perceptually transparent. Beyond that, we would be sending you files that have a higher bitrate (and take up more bandwidth) without bringing any additional value to the listening experience," forklarer selskabet.
Selskabet fortæller, at projektet startede i slutningen af 2017 i forbindelse med Stranger Things 2, der ikke lød som ønsket.
- "In late 2017, we were reviewing Stranger Things 2 with the Duffer brothers in a living room environment so they could understand how viewers would experience it. At one point in the first episode, there was a car chase scene that didn’t sound as crisp as it did on the mixing stage. We immediately got our sound expert involved, spun up the engineering teams and were determined to make it right, no matter how much effort it was going to take. Fortunately, we were able to address the problem for Stranger Things 2 by delivering a higher bitrate for the audio, and since then have been working diligently to roll out improved audio more broadly."
