With Spatial Audio, Netflix wants to offer its viewers an even better sound experience for certain content.
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Netflix is now offering spatial audio for headphones on some content.
© netflix.com
The Netflix streaming service has announced that it intends to increasingly use spatial audio in the future. Starting with the new season of “Stranger Things”, other in-house productions and certain content from third parties will also use the new method. Netflix promises better sound with Spatial Audio, especially when using headphones. The process was developed together with the headphone manufacturer Sennheiser.
3D sound via headphones
In concrete terms, this should create 2-channel spatial audio from the source material in Ambeo. New technology is not required for this. Standard headphones are sufficient for this. For this purpose, the multi-channel sound, which is transmitted via stream, is converted into a two-channel sound, which is said to be significantly superior to the classic stereo mix. This means that not only owners of a surround system can enjoy three-dimensional sound accompaniment.
Not intended for home cinema
In the Netflix search bar, suitable content can be filtered with the term “Spatial Audio”. The new 3D sound is currently offered in season 4 of “Stranger Things”, “Red Notice” and “The Witcher”. Ambient noise and sound effects in particular benefit from spatial audio. Every Netflix subscriber can now find out for themselves whether their own headphones sound better with spatial audio than with the stereo mix. On the other hand, anyone who already has a 3D sound system will not benefit from the new technology. For this group of customers, Netflix offers a lot of content with Dolby Atmos. But for viewers who tend to use headphones on the go, spatial audio on Netflix could be exciting.
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