Netflix just got a killer audio upgrade for Android users

Netflix just got a killer sound upgrade for Android users

(Epitome credit: Future)

Netflix users on Android just got a major audio upgrade. The streaming giant has updated its Android app to allow for the xHE-AAC sound codec.

The company claims that xHE-AAC volition evangelize "studio-quality" sound, even when on the become. Just be certain to pack your best headphones. Availability on iPhone and iOS devices was not appear.

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The Extended HE-AAC with MPEG-D DRC codec, or xHE-AAC for short, is an adaptive bitrate audio compressor/decompressor that aims to bring uninterrupted audio streaming when on the become. It allows for seamless bitrate switching, meaning that sound quality tin can shift to a lower standard smoothly during sudden bandwidth drops.

And so, if you're on the subway and go into a tunnel, the codec volition switch to a lower bitrate to ensure your stream of Stranger Things goes uninterrupted. Bitrates can range from 12 to 500 kilobits-per-second.

Information technology's not just dynamically shifting bitrate that xHE-AAC brings to Android users. The motion picture-watching experience is as well improved thanks to dynamic loudness direction. Let's say you're watching an action flick. You might have the volume upward to hear the dialogue. But if at that place'southward an explosion, you lot might exist scrambling for the buttoms to turn the volume down. Loudness management aims to have relatively consistent volume beyond the board.

"When it is working finer, once you set your book to a comfortable level, you never have to alter information technology, fifty-fifty as you switch from a moving picture to a documentary, to a live concert," per the Netflix Applied science Web log.

Netflix has likewise implemented Dynamic Range Command. This characteristic essentially allows the app to optimize your listening experience based on what audio devices you lot're using. If you have a dwelling house theater setup, then yous'll exist given the full range of sound. Merely if yous have a cheap pair of headphones, or are listening through your phone'southward speaker, then that range is reduced so that the most important pieces of audio make information technology through.

Ultimately, Netflix has made the aural feel that much meliorate for those on Android devices. Whether you're using cheap gas station earbuds a fancy home theater, this new update should make constantly adjusting book a thing of the past.

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Imad Khan is news editor at Tom's Guide, helping direct the day's breaking coverage. Prior to working at the site, Imad was a full-time freelancer, with bylines at the New York Times, the Washington Post and ESPN. Outside of work, y'all can detect him sitting blankly in forepart of a Discussion document trying desperately to write the first pages of a new volume.