Answered

Netflix High Quality 5.1

  • 1 May 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 2256 views

Userlevel 4
Badge +2
  • Avid Contributor III
  • 11 replies
With Netflix announcing support for Dolby Digital encoding at up to 640 kbps (ignoring Dolby Atmos for now), will those of us with PlayBars or PlayBases be able to take advantage of the higher encoding bit rates, or are we stuck at 192 kbps?

What is the highest bit rate that our products support via optical audio connection?
icon

Best answer by rubeo 2 May 2019, 01:50

View original

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

4 replies

Would like to know too!
First of all, Netflix uses Dolby Digital Plus, which is not supported by Sonos at any bitrate.

Although there are some users on here with far more knowledge about these codecs and the hardware that supports them, I am going to parrot what I have read on here earlier: Dolby Digital Plus cannot be streamed over optical, due to bandwidth constraints, if I recall correctly. So no, Sonos will not be able to support DD+ on Playbar and Playbase.
Yes, netflix is dolby digital plus, but many TVs will provide the content to a playbar or playbase in DD. I don't know if the playbar/playbase can do higher bit rates, but it will also depend on what your TV and source device are capable of.
Userlevel 4
Badge +2
I just found this:

"Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks are easily converted to a 640 kbps Dolby Digital signal without decoding and reencoding, for output via S/PDIF. The 640 kbps bit rate, higher than the 448 kbps used on DVDs, is fully compatible with all existing Dolby Digital decoding products such as A/V receivers and can provide higher than-DVD quality from Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks."

From: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/technologies/dolby-digital-plus-data-sheet.pdf

So it looks like we can take advantage of the higher bit rates once our streaming devices or TVs convert the DD+ stream to standard DD.