Dolby Atmos on Netflix isn’t as straightforward as you think it is ‣ Diverse Daily

It was brought to my attention that some folks may think the audio you get from Netflix’s premium tier, which is supposed to be Dolby Atmos, is actually just virtualized. That could be an astronomical problem because when you pay for the premium tier from Netflix, they advertise that “You can watch Netflix in Dolby Atmos audio on select TV shows and movies,” and you wouldn’t be getting what you’re paying for.

If you have a soundbar, though, you may know that there can be virtualized versions of sound outputs, and if you listen to or read the wrong information, you too may think you aren’t getting what you’re paying for. I’m going to lay it all out below and include some instances where you may be expecting Dolby Atmos but aren’t actually getting it. Let’s get into it!

Yes, you’re getting real Dolby Atmos

There are some things you should know, though

Sony Bravia Theater Trio with a Fire TV, on a TV table

I’ve been a film and television editor for the past 31 years, and counting. My father is a retired film and television editor. I’m very familiar with broadcast and streaming standards, as well as picture and sound formats, so I think I know where some confusion may come from. I’m going to oversimplify this because the hell I had to go through when new formats/standards/codecs were coming out seemingly monthly, as I was supervising post-production for a colleague, is unnecessary for you to walk through, too.

When an audio engineer is setting up her deliverables, there are guidelines they have to meet for Netflix. The audio is a “gift” to Netflix, and they’re going to deliver it in a box, or “container.” Until you open that container, you may not see what’s inside but some people like to guess. In the case of Dolby Atmos mixes being delivered to Netflix, they’re in a container that looks like Dolby Digital Plus, or DD+. Dolby Digital/Digital Plus uses a lossy 5.1 mix, whereas Atmos contains 3D objects that can be placed in space to give you a more immersive experience. We go into detail on that here. Basically, using the older Dolby Digital Plus container we first began seeing in 2004, in the mid-2010’s a new trick was devised, called Joint Object Coding, which allows them to deliver a full Atmos scene on top of your standard 5.1 mix. Essentially, they figured out how to throw some extra gifts in the box.

There may also be some additional confusion because Netflix has a Spatial Audio function that takes an Atmos mix and downmixes it to a 2.0 stereo mix. Again, this is simplified. They do this for earbuds that support spatial audio and spatial audio with head tracking, as well as hardware that lacks the physical height channels of an Atmos system, like a basic 2.1 soundbar or your terrible TV speakers.

Do you hear the difference?

It’s all in the bitrate

A menu for adjusting streaming settings in Asobi.

Something that could possibly muddy the waters is how much water the dam allows through. Remember, I said that Dolby Digital Plus is lossy? If you listen to a movie streamed through Netflix or pretty much any other streamer, that DD+ audio streams at around 750kbps or lower, while lossless formats like Dolby TrueHD on a 4K Blu-ray disc have a much larger 3 to 6Mbps bitrate. So, DD+ is the dam allowing a small amount of water through, while lossless is the floodgates fully open.

Streamers do this because lossless formats are so large that they can’t guarantee a satisfactory listening experience, since too many variables exist between their “broadcast station” and your living room. Your ISP’s internet speed, your router, the number of devices in your home fighting for bandwidth, and many other factors outside their control would make streaming lossless a hair-raising experience for them. So they stream at a much lower, more manageable bitrate to ensure a more consistent customer experience.

The power is in your hands

Not virtually, but physically

Person holding Roku remote in front of TV.

When you’re streaming from Netflix, there are a couple of other times when you might be fooled into thinking you aren’t getting the Atmos experience you’re paying that premium for. First up, you may have your sound system improperly configured. If your soundbar isn’t receiving the proper pass-through signal from your TV or streaming device, then you may not be getting an Atmos mix. We’ve written about that at length here on Pocket-lint.

Assuming you’re using the right pass-through mode on your TV or streaming device, and your soundbar, the next point of failure could be Netflix itself! Reading their Help Pages, Netflix makes it clear that not all movies, TV shows, or every season of a TV show supports Atmos. Reading through Reddit’s home theater sub, there are people there who talk about watching the first season of a show with an Atmos audio track, then out of the blue, a newer season didn’t support Atmos. So they expected to hear what they were already accustomed to from an earlier season, only to have those expectations dashed with a newer season. Caveat emptor!