Netflix Says It's Not Testing Spatial Audio Support for AirPods

[ignatius345]

Spatial audio is a nice gimmick but use cases are severely limited. How often are people watching movies on their headphones and on their iPads, by themselves?

It’s cute and fun but yeah, the fact that I can’t use it on the best and biggest screen in my house makes it more of a novelty.

 

[SFjohn]

I have and how is that relevant to what I said?

You stated that Spatial Audio is not a standard. It is. In the larger conversation around Netflix, when their competitors are expanding the quality of audio & video (which a lot of people appreciate) it diminishes the value of Netflix compared to say Disney+ and others.

 

[bLackjackj]

In other news, Apple confirms that it is in fact not working on the next iPhone,..but working on a an 8 lense camera module that makes calls. 🙄

 

[Lumpydog]

F U Netflix. Weak sauce.

 

[wmitch]

Spatial audio is a nice gimmick but use cases are severely limited. How often are people watching movies on their headphones and on their iPads, by themselves?

Well now I feel judged. 😳

 

[GermanSuplex]

Apple’s products enhance Netflix, IMO. I think it stinks they won’t integrate with Apple’s features. Hulu, Disney Plus, HBO Mac and Peacock all do so.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I have to disagree, partly due to the fact that almost all of the other major players in streaming support it. Clearly either the barrier to entry is low (likely), or they see it as an easy value add to have adopted it so quickly. And yet here stands Netflix, alone and obstinate.

I think it’ll disappoint a very small fraction of their customers though. It’s a small percentage of Apple users who use AirPods, so contrast to a globally used service like Netflix and I doubt it was a priority right now. Maybe it’ll come later?

 

[TorbenIbsen]

Spatial audio is a nice gimmick but use cases are severely limited. How often are people watching movies on their headphones and on their iPads, by themselves?

I do that every evening with my Apple TV 4K box. So I do not disturb my wife. For me spatial audio on Airpod Max would be great.

 

[SpringKid]

That's like trying to take a mono soundtrack and trying to convert it to a stereo soundtrack.

No it's really not. You already have a discrete 5.1 stream, where you can position the channels in 3D space and adapt that directional position when the head is turned. This is not upmixing any number of channels.

 

[svanstrom]

Wouldn't Apple be able to do this system-wide? Let the device be a Dolby/DTS surround compatible device, if only virtually, and transcode that to their Spatial Audio pipeline?

That's like trying to take a mono soundtrack and trying to convert it to a stereo soundtrack.

I would actually be interested in hearing why @macfacts assumed this, if you don't mind?

But the facts is this… Taking a surround sound source and using it as part of "spatial audio" is, to force your comparison into it, like taking stereo sound and NOT converting it to mono. That's it; the information needed is already there, the player just needs to NOT destroy it.

There's nothing special about Apple's spacial audio as far as formats goes; instead they are doing exactly like @SpringKid said, they are taking the current multi-channel sources and like ridiculously fast calculate where those channels would originate as compared with how your head is positioned.

 

[honglong1976]

Spatial audio is a nice gimmick but use cases are severely limited. How often are people watching movies on their headphones and on their iPads, by themselves?

Fortunately, it's not a gimmick and is actually quite brilliant. I always watch a few films a week on my iPad in bed (it's freezing at the moment). Honestly, it's like having a mini cinema

 

[macfacts]

I would actually be interested in hearing why @macfacts assumed this, if you don't mind?

But the facts is this… Taking a surround sound source and using it as part of "spatial audio" is, to force your comparison into it, like taking stereo sound and NOT converting it to mono. That's it; the information needed is already there, the player just needs to NOT destroy it.

There's nothing special about Apple's spacial audio as far as formats goes; instead they are doing exactly like @SpringKid said, they are taking the current multi-channel sources and like ridiculously fast calculate where those channels would originate as compared with how your head is positioned.

I said what I said cause I didn't know what spacial audio was. Now I do it's even more of a gimmick, why would you watch a movie on an iPad but not look at the screen.

 

[agsystems]

Oddly enough, every stream inside an .mp4 container with AC3 or E-AC3 will automatically use Spatial Audio. It even works inside the Photos app. So either Netflix uses some odd container formats or doesn't support AC3 or E-AC3 on mobile devices. There isn't even additional coding required to implement the feature.

really - it wouldn't shocked me if this is just plist entry they have to make
- Netflix its definitely not re-encoding their entire library to enable this feature

 

[svanstrom]

I said what I said cause I didn't know what spacial audio was. Now I do it's even more of a gimmick, why would you watch a movie on an iPad but not look at the screen.

Once again you are trying to sound like you are talking about facts even though you are just making assumptions about things you are completely ignorant about.

 

[ErikGrim]

You stated that Spatial Audio is not a standard. It is. In the larger conversation around Netflix, when their competitors are expanding the quality of audio & video (which a lot of people appreciate) it diminishes the value of Netflix compared to say Disney+ and others.

The Spatial Audio we are talking about is the way Apple interprets surround standards LIKE ATMOS in AirPods Pro, Max and HomePod as default on Apple TV.

 

[Lazlow]

The one time i watched something on Hulu with my AirPods in I found the feature really annoying and turned it off. Any slight movement of my head and the sound would move.