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Netflix adopts xHE-AAC variable bitrate audio codec on Android

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Prasad 25 January 2021

Netflix Online services

Netflix is rolling out an update on the Android version of its app that promises to bring "studio-quality" sound to your daily TV or movie watching experience.

Netflix adopts xHE-AAC variable bitrate audio codec on Android

The company is switching over to xHE-AAC or Extended High Efficiency AAC, which is a newer version HE-AAC that the company has been using so far. It was introduced back in 2012 by Fraunhofer IIS and was primarily designed for use in online streaming and broadcasting services due to its high compression ratio and efficiency, with bit-rates as low as 6kbps for mono and 12kbps for stereo, going up to 500kbps and beyond. It's also a variable bit-rate codec that can change based on the connection strength and bandwidth.

Netflix adopts xHE-AAC variable bitrate audio codec on Android

The other main feature of xHE-AAC is that it features mandatory loudness and dynamic range control at the encoder level, generating multiple profiles of dynamic range meta data for different listening setups — such as playing on a phone's speaker, listening through headphones, or through a home theater setup — and then switches automatically to the relevant one.

Netflix claims this improves the discernibility of dialogue even when watching to content on a phone's speaker in noisy environments as the volume has been normalized to the dialogue and the overall dynamic range has been compressed to stay above the ambient noise levels. It's not clear, however, how Netflix determines what the ambient noise levels are to do these adjustments.

Netflix adopts xHE-AAC variable bitrate audio codec on Android

In its A/B testing, Netflix found that most people preferred the audio quality of the new codec, and were less likely to switch to using earphones when watching on their phone as the compensation applied through the phone speaker made it clear enough.

The new codec is only available on Android now, which has become Netflix' favorite platform to experiment new features with, but the company says it will be bringing it to other platforms that support the codec. Considering almost all platforms, including iOS, macOS, and Windows, already support xHE-AAC, it probably shouldn't take long for them to be switched to the new codec.

Source

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Reader comments

D
  • Dude
  • 8DF
  • 31 Jan 2021

Opus is better than AAC https://listening-test.coresv.net/results.htm

  • Reply
?
  • Anonymous
  • 4Ai
  • 31 Jan 2021

Why does everyone love Opus? It's only good at voice, not music. It excels at voice, but each codec has something it's good at. And if you're using HE-AAC, well... beggars can't be choosers. It'd be much smarter to download s...

  • Reply
?
  • Anonymous
  • S9u
  • 26 Jan 2021

This is bad, and it is continuing to resize sound quality to even worse, you tube on 128 kbps, other paid streaming services on maximum 256 kbps. It's not matter how quality the hardware equipment (aka headphones, speakers, sound systems......

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Total reader comments: 12

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