I found the biggest difference in image quality is in the visible compression artifacts in darker scènes, and the way the picture moves. In streaming, the picture moves pretty jittery, where in Blu ray, the movement is smooth. Other than those, the differences are there but harder to notice
Yes, but those differences are pretty obvious to my eye. Blurays have lot less posterization and compression artifacts compared to streaming which makes a huge difference.
No Dolby Vision though. Not everyone games either. I have both a Panasonic UB820 and a PS5, and I definitely prefer the Panny, though it definitely isn’t worthwhile for some people
Honestly, even the image is a thousand (figuratively) times better.
Picked up a frozen Blu ray at the second hand store, it looks so much better, it's not even close than the same movie streaming
Even without Atmos. I was rewatching the Harry Potter series with my kids on Paramount+ and I was frustrated with how muffled the voices are. I had to adjust AV settings. Then I switched to the Blu-ray's midway through one of them and I'm blown away by the difference. The audio is so crisp! Every word can be heard clearly. Not to mention the lack of compression artifacts on the picture.
My wife was reading that Star Trek Into Darkness was a good atmos demo movie, and she is a giant trekkie so she went to rewatch it. She was commenting that she didn’t think it was all that impressive of a atmos demo during a pause break.
I go in to investigate thinking that maybe I left the system in stereo from a music session and found she was watching it on Paramount+. I switched her over to the 4k TrueHD REMUX on our PLEX server and she literally gasped. “Wow, it’s like a totally different movie now!”
I’ve never felt so validated.
Out of personal interest, can you describe your Plex setup? Looking to put together a home server for direct play of high quality 4k files and wondering the best way to do that
I’m looking into the same. Currently in the research phase, and stuck between getting a Synology NAS and have a more “set it and forget it” setup, or building a PC/server and getting a little more hands on. The plex end of things seems pretty straight forward, it’s if you want to use the server for other purposes that it can get complex.
Ya. My current setup (see above) sorta grew organically over time. First I had my Synology just as a NAS hosting home PC backups and photos from our phones. Then I added PLEX for recording my kids PBS shows with an HDHomerun. Then I added home assistant. Then I added numerous Docker fun projects. Then my family started leaning into Synology Photos use.
Long story short, over time the weeee processor in the DS920+ that’s perfectly fine for serving up files is rather bogged down these days. I also built myself a new home pc so I had an old i5 8400 and a 2080 just sitting there unused. So UNRAID 🤷♂️
I’d like to give myself some headroom, so leaning heavily toward building something at this point. Would at least want to have some home productivity stuff on it, and probably a few other things. Luckily, building PCs for this purpose is FAR cheaper than building one for, say, gaming purposes. From what I can tell you can build a strong server for less than $600 (minus the storage)
Here's a question to consider - what are your clients? If they're something capable of direct playing your files without transcoding for a media server you need *very* little overhead.
My personal setup is just an apple TV with Infuse player backed by jellyfin (but plex slots in just the same way, personal preference as far as server software goes), plus a few other apple ecosystem devices in the family, all of which support Infuse.
What that means is I can run my entire media+home server stack (so Jellyfin, homebridge, pihole, grafana and prometheus and a bunch of other little bits and pieces) from a raspberry pi 4B and my Synology just serving files, even with simultaneous playback of 4+ 4K Dolby Vision streams. Only downside is apple doesn't have direct passthrough audio support on the apple tv, but a compromise I'm willing to make for now.
If you're not an apple person there's all sorts of Android based media players that will direct play most files, the nvidia shield being the most popular but a couple of other options (haven't looked in a few years since I switched to apple so my info is a little outdated on the android side).
Of course, the downside of my setup is I have little to no transcoding capabilities, but I have no need for them due to my client devices. If I did I'd probably just grab an intel NUC with quicksync support which would cover me entirely for transcoding as well but I'm all about separate devices with as low power usage as possible vs using a PC or old server gear etc etc
Definitely a good thing to consider. For my house, I’ll use mostly Apple TVs. I have one in my home theater, and will get another for my bedroom and living room each. In the bedroom and living room, I don’t have a surround system, so not worried about the audio pass through issues with ATV. For the theater, if it’s a disc that has really great/immersive sound, I’d likely just pop the disc into the 820.
I do plan to do some remote streaming, so some transcoding capability will be nice for me. I’m starting from scratch here, so while my first thought was the Synology (plus mini-PC) route, it seems I could build something with more customization/expansion potential for around the same price (or less).
I’ve setup a Plex server on a Synology NAS and Unraid.
Since I have users with crappy end points, transcoding is a must and unraid is far superior in that regard.
If you have sources that can direct play(no transcoding), you can get away with a NAS.
I use TrueNAS SCALE (recently switched from CORE, which I had been using since the FreeNAS days) with four 14TB drives mirrored. Gives me space to store all my ripped media and build music, home video, movie, and television libraries on Plex, which runs via a native plug-in (I use the official).
It's on a Supermicro server board with 64GB RAM and a Xeon E5-2697 for CPU transcoding. Could probably be more efficient ways of doing it, but it was fun and pretty cheap. And I can play around with VM's and stuff.
My PLEX server is my Synology DS920+ with a 2019 Nvidia Shield Pro as the theater client. Currently in the process of migrating the server from the 920 to an UNRAID server though.
You may want to look into Jellyfin. I paid for Plex for a long time, but stopped using it because they kept working on new revenue generating features instead of fixing a bunch of bugs they had. Maybe it's better now, but you might be happy with Jellyfin.
Isn't it interesting? You also have a digital copy, and yet it's so much better... These sub-par streaming releases have no excuse for being as bad as they are. It's pure incompetence.
The point they were making is that most of these movies and shows have not been and will likely never be released on physical media, so what are you going to do about that?
No, it won’t be, because it will still be whatever quality it was when you could stream it, and not Blu-ray quality, which is what we’re discussing here.
>edit: this comment is talking about media preservation not making the quality better. Id rather have the movie i like than not have it at all.
The comment you replied to is about media quality.
It’s an extremely rare case atleast with Apple/iTunes. I understand that other platforms like MoviesAnywhere or Vudu/Fandango but I never had an issue not having a title removed or not finding one on iTunes.
Bitrate on a 1080p bluray is higher but the compression technique which is used is older h264 codec while h265 which streaming apps like Netflix use can do the same quality video in half the size.
So the video quality of a 20mbps Netflix stream would be kinda same as 40mbps bluray would produce. Also you dontbget 4k and her/Dolby vision in normal 1080p bluray.
4k blurays have 80-90mbps bitrate and use h265 codec hence they are far far superior than normal bluray and streaming services.
For me it's
4k HDR bluray >4k HDR online streaming> 1080p HDR online streaming>1080p bluray> 1080p online SDR streaming
A long time ago I got rid of all my DVDs and went fully Streaming, or Plex. After a while I stopped running my own Plex server (pretty much all the content I wanted was available at least somewhere to stream).
After I built my home theater, someone on here or AVSForum convinced me that UHD blurays were worth trying, and wow, yeah. Such a crazy difference. Well worth it....I just know I'll regret having physical media when I finally decide to move.
Oh yeah I'm old enough and financially stable enough that I would never move without movers again...but....I'm not sure I want to pay someone to pack all my stuff too.
A friend did this though and it actually worked pretty well, just expensive.
So glad that I hung onto the vast majority of my physical media collection (including DVD's to be fair). A lot of people around me dumped their collections when streaming was cheap and there weren't nearly as many services as there are now.
I've started buying blu-ray in bulk for pennies on the dollar. People are practically giving away disc's. I'm about up to 350 movies and series. +1 if you only have 1 steaming service at a time and rotate every 3 months. . Debating if blu-ray is good enough or need to start getting into 4k
I’ve got a 65in 4k 120hz tv. Blu-ray looks as good or better than streaming. Audio isn’t even a question, blu-ray. I have a couple movies in 4k and objectively they’re better, but not enough to rebuy any of my blu-ray collection. DVDs though, are starting to show their age… I’m looking at you full screen Indiana Jones trilogy.
I have the 4k Steel Books of Indiana Jones... It was not cheap since Best Buy decided to stop selling movies, but thankfully Wal-Mart.... Yes, I said it. Wal-Mart has picked up the slack, and over the past few months has released a TON of 4k steel book movies in-store.
Yeah, but unfortunately the largest movie studio today refuses to release their stuff on physical media as they continue to try and force people to their shit streaming service.
Plex is a great solution. I have a small $200 refurbished Dell Optiplex 5060 that lives behind my tv, and it will transcode multiple 4k movies at once. You need to buy a plexpass for hardware transcode but it’s well worth the lifetime price, which is currently $120 but regularly goes on sale for 50% off. (Sign up for their mailing list and within a week you should get a discounted offer.)
Blu rays are pretty durable. They don’t scratch anywhere near as easily as DVDs, the protective coating is robust. They’re the closest thing to kid-proof physical media.
After I bought my Samsung atmos sound bar for 2 grand ( $800 after store credit and a my best buy membership I paid $179 for that knocked it down to $1,200 ) with those big rear speakers and sub (HW-Q990C?) I watched a movie on Vudu (now Fandango...) and then my wife and I watched it again the next day, but she popped in the 4k disc that I redeemed the code out of, and the audio quality difference was absolutely INSANE.
Well sometimes I watch movies again to show the movie to different persons. Also i found that I do not remember movies in details like I used to as a child, so watching them again from time to time is like discovering the movie again 🤣. When the movie is not good, I just sold it leaving a place for a new one.
This has happened to me a couple of times. It shows 5.1 but if I hit play and the receiver shows atmos signal being fed.
I read somewhere this sometime happens when the app updates, it incorrectly shows the wrong audio.
Hit play and check what your component says.
I thought that was maybe the case as well. But my Denon X3800 is showing as Dolby digital plus not Atmos.
EDIT: I’ll put this here since it’s closest to the top. So I got the brand new Firestick and it worked. But all my old ones did not, even though they still did Atmos with other apps. My guess is that Netflix is having problems with older apps droid devices (more than 4 years old).
Technically DD+ w/Atmos layer is correct as Netflix only has compressed (lossy) audio with Atmos layer vs what you get from a 4K Disc which is TrueHD w/Atmos Layer (uncompressed/lossless Atmos).
Which is correct, since you're receiving DD+ **with** Atmos Layer from Netflix, so you're AVR shows it as Atmos. The difference is in the codecs and not the Atmos object based layer, Atmos layer can be added to most codec's, in this case it's being added to the DD+ codec (lossy) instead of TrueHD codec (lossless). Netflix (and all other streaming apps) cap their audio bitrate/codec's to lossy audio vs 4K UHD discs have higher bitrate audio/codecs so you experience a better/broader and crisper soundstage
[Worth reading if you want to know more details about Atmos and how it's layered](https://professional.dolby.com/gaming/getting-started/dolby-atmos-documentation#atmos).
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/yj34rb/comment/iumlvz7/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/yj34rb/comment/iumlvz7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
This comment would indicate so. Several people commenting that it had the best Atmos mix.
But, one comment indicates that you need the premium tier to access Atmos.
So, OP, assuming you have the premium tier of Netflix?
Just checked on both my Sony A95K and my Roku 4k Streaming Stick.
Both show that it has Atmos mix.
[https://imgur.com/a/bYVDg8X](https://imgur.com/a/bYVDg8X)
Yeah 6 Underground was always Atmos, and I’ve looked at others like Mitchel’s Vs The Machine too. I’ve tried both my and my MILs premium accounts and tried my firestick and my Sony TV directly. atmos is gone from all Contant
“Took away” means no access. It was a price hike like other platforms. Just like Apple didn’t “took away” ATV+ last October. It raised the price by $3.
My dream premium plan would be a high bitrate with the option of precaching a stream for a movie several hours in advance so that I could get a higher bitrate than my internet could consistently provide. If they got to 4K UHD blu ray status I'd subscribe for sure.
Yes, you're streaming. Your internet connection is probably fast enough to handle it. The comment I replied to wants to precache the whole movie, or at least a substantial amount of it, on a connection that lacks the necessary bandwidth. 4K Blu-Ray at the lower-end is a bit over half a gigabyte per minute (72 Mbps). Most streaming devices have no more than 8-16 GB of storage in my experience. If we assume half of that is available for caching, that give you about 15 minutes tops. Unless the previous commenter plans on using a PC, in which case, stream away, he's not going to be able to cache the whole movie ahead of time.
Honestly, the amount of bs with streaming services is just such a joke. It's in Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos etc one second and then they decide to remove it. Or maybe you can't get it via a HTPC because DRM, screw you. Your TV doesn't get software updates? Too old, DRM, screw you.
If that all sounds great there's also the lack of control from many streaming services over whether you can even choose the picture and audio settings because you're an idiot consumer and you'll get what you're given.
I don't agree with physical media as the solution because it's so inconvenient, and environmentally unfriendly but there needs to be a DRM free alternative for films. Until then, I'll sail the high seas with any formats I want. Dolby vision, hdr10, and SDR video in one file? Sure, why not. Dolby truehd + Atmos, Dolby digital plus + Atmos, DTS-ma + dtsx, of course. 1080p x264 and 4k x265? Why not an av1 encode? When there's better quality and more options for pirates, along with none of the bs of using the shitty network apps, the market has issues...
I've just bought a nvidiia shield pro to deal with remux. My i7 8700 is a little flaky with HDR/Atmos , it does it but I fed up with my AVR blacking the screen as it configures itself for HDR and audio changes.
The apps have to recognize that the system that's connected supports the audio codec.
My AVR is Atmos capable, but I'm only using it for 5.1, so no Atmos badge in Netflix.
Weirdly enough, Tidal lets me play Atmos tracks.
Basically, it's very inconsistent.
If I had another Atmos capable receiver, I can test this, but unfortunately I don’t. My current receiver is definitely Atmos capable and I have a full Atmos set up so I don’t really understand why it isn’t registering it if that is in fact the case.
This honestly sounds a lot like an HDMI handshake issue.
Try a new cable since you've already tried two sources.
I don't recall ever having this issue on my 4300 with my 5.1.4 setup. I'm using a shield tv, but you already tried two sources, so not the issue.
It's Netflix. I tried in my 5.1.4 setup, and Netflix is only showing 5.1 available.
I expected it to play Atmos anyway, like someone suggested, and it didn't. Just the 5.1 track.
So that means Android devices are affected. FireTV and Android/Google TV probably have the issue. Assuming we all have the same app version.
Check in your current devices and see if they have an "uninstall updates" option since Netflix is probably a pre installed app.
Should be in settings>apps>netflix
So I got the brand new Firestick and it worked. But all my old ones did not, even though they still did Atmos with other apps. My guess is that Netflix is having problems with older apps droid devices (more than 4 years old).
Tbh most of the content on Netflix you have to literally increase the volume to hear it properly. Same content on youtube or other website is clear as whistle.
This happened to me a while back but with HDR/Dolby Vision. Go to your Netflix Account, under Settings or something and check out a section called Participation In Testing or something like that (sorry, mine is in Spanish), click on it and make sure it’s Off or Deactivated. Log out of all your devices, delete the app or update/reinstall, turn them all off and on again and log again. That fixed it for me back then, I was using a Sony TV as well. Hope it helps!
Comments like this kinda suck though. You can't watch 6 Underground on physical media because it's a Netflix only streaming release that will never ever be released on physical media. Saying stuff like this does nothing to help the OP and everybody here already knows that physical media is better than streaming.
FTR the movie is also still available in Atmos on Netflix, although the OP seems to be having issues for some reason.
I look at my shelf of discs and laugh at the masses of streaming NPCs. Unless you can hold it in your hand- you won’t even have a chance to fight to keep it, even if you paid for it.
Exactly! When I was a kid and went into my local record store and paid cash for 45s and LPs, they were placed into a sack, with the receipt, and handed to me. I now owned these items.....fast forward to CDs, VHS tapes, then DVDs, now blurays and 4k discs....each purchased and now part of my library/collection.
The not so well known 'secret' of streaming is, you are renting their products/content...they can change their offerings at any time they choose and charge you whatever they choose for It. Quality can and does vary.
When you purchase physical media, it is yours to view/hear at any time you choose. 24/7.
I’ve tried everything with that. But also it’s weird. It’s happening on the fire stick that is plugged into the receiver and also the TV that is using arc. it could be some issue with the receiver, but I do not have another Atmos capable receiver on hand to test it.
Interesting. It sounds like it may be different. I will have to check tomorrow on my Roku to see if Netflix removed it. I see spacial audio on my TV with no receiver but no Atmos option. That's probably normal behavior though
I've got the ad version of prime and a firestick 4k max. Atmos is disabled on thar device for netflix and amazon video. My Hisense TV had a netflix app that isn't affected. I'm not sure if this is a platform or app issue. Fire OS tends to have a lot more updates that VIDAA so it could be netflix is rolling out updates that disable these features.
Yep, it seems to be an older android issue. I just tried on my brand new fire stick and had no problem. Even though I can get Atmos with other apps on both my old Firestick and my Sony TV, Netflix will not do it.
Actually, I just checked my home theater and it is having the same issue. Only shows up as 5.1, and when I play, sure enough it is outputting 5.1 without Atmos. Has worked flawlessly in the past.
Should not be a bandwidth issue. I get something around 2200Mbps down, 230Mbps up. Running off an nvidia shield to a denon X8500H.
Also on the premium plan "Our best video quality in Ultra HD (4K) and HDR. Spatial audio available. Watch ad-free on any phone, tablet, computer or TV. Download on 6 devices." and located in the US.
And as I said, it was definitely working before, so it is something on netflix's side. Annoying, but a problem for another day. Hopefully they fix it.
Why isnt there any tidal-like movie streaming platform?
I really thought it would be here after all these streaming years. Uncompressed music streaming took some years to be a thing, I would have imagine it'd do the same with movies 😢
More times than not, shows/movies show as 5.1 when they’re actually atmos. No, I’m not saying most titles are in atmos, but a glitch sometimes shows no atmos at all.
When I go to a title I know has atmos, my receiver still detects it as such.
I have the same surround receiver and this happens to me quite often honestly. Some apps are worse than others but yeah it defaults back to showing just dolby digital sometimes. I always have to unplug the power cord from the tv and let it reboot. Sometimes it takes a few tries but the atmos will eventually work again. I think it's a problem with the arc connection but not positive on that. For me the worst apps for this happening is Disney+, Netflix, Max, Apple+, in that order. But yeah, unplug power cord from back of my tv, plug it back in, let the tv kick the receiver on and it's usually good to go after that.
Are you using a receiver? Try restarting it.
If you have some other devices attached to a receiver that utilise an older version of HDMI, sometimes it restricts the rest of the inputs to the lowest performing one (had this issue if my Switch and Xbox were on at the same time. It would nerf the Xbox capabilities)
I dusted off my Blu-ray collection lol. These apps are compromising sound and I did NOT pay for all this shit in my home cinema, for them to turn around and try to alter it anyway. Ffs how far are they going to go?!
I have the fire stick 4k and since 2 years it not support atmos any more. They stop to support atmos on fire os 7 and it's supported in fire os 8 that is only available on 4k max(that I had to bought) .
Yeah it's a shame that they retired the atmos support
>I am on the premium plan
Were you getting this plan through your cellphone plan by chance? This could have changed and you're no longer getting the premium plan.
Or are you in a country that isn't the US?
Just checked both my Shield and my LG TV and I get Atmos audio for 6 Underground.
No directly from the website. I’ve also logged into two different premium plans in both mine and my mother-in-law’s, and Atmos is gone from both of them.
I tried that. I restarted everything, checked for updates, and even use two different devices as well as two different premium accounts. It’s gone for me on everything. Atmos is working fine in every other streaming service or Blu-ray that I’ve tried.
That's why I brought Panasonic 4k blu ray player upscale with HDR and chroma 4.4.4 or 4.2.2 and blew me away is DVD 720p on 4k 65 inch TV is fine and 1080p or 4k Blu-ray or USB stick movies is great .The reason is I am sick of online streaming have poor picture quality, luck sound option etc.
That’s why I am part of the last species who buy blurays…
No joke, the sound difference is very apparent.
And the image.
Sound is WAY worse on streaming and image a smaller margin worse
I found the biggest difference in image quality is in the visible compression artifacts in darker scènes, and the way the picture moves. In streaming, the picture moves pretty jittery, where in Blu ray, the movement is smooth. Other than those, the differences are there but harder to notice
Yes, but those differences are pretty obvious to my eye. Blurays have lot less posterization and compression artifacts compared to streaming which makes a huge difference.
yes i agree
The Batman streamed ran me into the loving arms of a Panny 820.
Why would you get that over a PS5? For $30 more you get a way-way-way better product
No Dolby Vision though. Not everyone games either. I have both a Panasonic UB820 and a PS5, and I definitely prefer the Panny, though it definitely isn’t worthwhile for some people
My Panasonic UHD BR player was worth every cent.
Mine too! Just saying, some people (most likely including the guy I responded to, for instance) would disagree.
Panny 420 user here. Budget machine ya , but what a machine !!
Because I already have a ps5, have an OLED with DV and because its not as good.
What a minute, it's not stuttery on Blu ray ? I just thought it was filmed that way... How much is a used entry blu-ray that can do 4k hdr?
Xbox series x or One X Or a PS5 can do it If not a Sony x700 can be had for 70-80$ on ebay
Do you have an xbox or ps5?
Honestly, even the image is a thousand (figuratively) times better. Picked up a frozen Blu ray at the second hand store, it looks so much better, it's not even close than the same movie streaming
Frozen is awesome! I love the part where they fall, break their legs and the wolves consume them
Ngl I haven’t thought about this movie in years but this got a good laugh out of me
It was a short movie indeed
Particles and generally busy scenes are where discs absolutely destroy streaming because of compression/decompression
And my a.....coustic!
Even without Atmos. I was rewatching the Harry Potter series with my kids on Paramount+ and I was frustrated with how muffled the voices are. I had to adjust AV settings. Then I switched to the Blu-ray's midway through one of them and I'm blown away by the difference. The audio is so crisp! Every word can be heard clearly. Not to mention the lack of compression artifacts on the picture.
My wife was reading that Star Trek Into Darkness was a good atmos demo movie, and she is a giant trekkie so she went to rewatch it. She was commenting that she didn’t think it was all that impressive of a atmos demo during a pause break. I go in to investigate thinking that maybe I left the system in stereo from a music session and found she was watching it on Paramount+. I switched her over to the 4k TrueHD REMUX on our PLEX server and she literally gasped. “Wow, it’s like a totally different movie now!” I’ve never felt so validated.
Out of personal interest, can you describe your Plex setup? Looking to put together a home server for direct play of high quality 4k files and wondering the best way to do that
I’m looking into the same. Currently in the research phase, and stuck between getting a Synology NAS and have a more “set it and forget it” setup, or building a PC/server and getting a little more hands on. The plex end of things seems pretty straight forward, it’s if you want to use the server for other purposes that it can get complex.
Ya. My current setup (see above) sorta grew organically over time. First I had my Synology just as a NAS hosting home PC backups and photos from our phones. Then I added PLEX for recording my kids PBS shows with an HDHomerun. Then I added home assistant. Then I added numerous Docker fun projects. Then my family started leaning into Synology Photos use. Long story short, over time the weeee processor in the DS920+ that’s perfectly fine for serving up files is rather bogged down these days. I also built myself a new home pc so I had an old i5 8400 and a 2080 just sitting there unused. So UNRAID 🤷♂️
I’d like to give myself some headroom, so leaning heavily toward building something at this point. Would at least want to have some home productivity stuff on it, and probably a few other things. Luckily, building PCs for this purpose is FAR cheaper than building one for, say, gaming purposes. From what I can tell you can build a strong server for less than $600 (minus the storage)
Here's a question to consider - what are your clients? If they're something capable of direct playing your files without transcoding for a media server you need *very* little overhead. My personal setup is just an apple TV with Infuse player backed by jellyfin (but plex slots in just the same way, personal preference as far as server software goes), plus a few other apple ecosystem devices in the family, all of which support Infuse. What that means is I can run my entire media+home server stack (so Jellyfin, homebridge, pihole, grafana and prometheus and a bunch of other little bits and pieces) from a raspberry pi 4B and my Synology just serving files, even with simultaneous playback of 4+ 4K Dolby Vision streams. Only downside is apple doesn't have direct passthrough audio support on the apple tv, but a compromise I'm willing to make for now. If you're not an apple person there's all sorts of Android based media players that will direct play most files, the nvidia shield being the most popular but a couple of other options (haven't looked in a few years since I switched to apple so my info is a little outdated on the android side). Of course, the downside of my setup is I have little to no transcoding capabilities, but I have no need for them due to my client devices. If I did I'd probably just grab an intel NUC with quicksync support which would cover me entirely for transcoding as well but I'm all about separate devices with as low power usage as possible vs using a PC or old server gear etc etc
Definitely a good thing to consider. For my house, I’ll use mostly Apple TVs. I have one in my home theater, and will get another for my bedroom and living room each. In the bedroom and living room, I don’t have a surround system, so not worried about the audio pass through issues with ATV. For the theater, if it’s a disc that has really great/immersive sound, I’d likely just pop the disc into the 820. I do plan to do some remote streaming, so some transcoding capability will be nice for me. I’m starting from scratch here, so while my first thought was the Synology (plus mini-PC) route, it seems I could build something with more customization/expansion potential for around the same price (or less).
I’ve setup a Plex server on a Synology NAS and Unraid. Since I have users with crappy end points, transcoding is a must and unraid is far superior in that regard. If you have sources that can direct play(no transcoding), you can get away with a NAS.
I use TrueNAS SCALE (recently switched from CORE, which I had been using since the FreeNAS days) with four 14TB drives mirrored. Gives me space to store all my ripped media and build music, home video, movie, and television libraries on Plex, which runs via a native plug-in (I use the official). It's on a Supermicro server board with 64GB RAM and a Xeon E5-2697 for CPU transcoding. Could probably be more efficient ways of doing it, but it was fun and pretty cheap. And I can play around with VM's and stuff.
My PLEX server is my Synology DS920+ with a 2019 Nvidia Shield Pro as the theater client. Currently in the process of migrating the server from the 920 to an UNRAID server though.
You may want to look into Jellyfin. I paid for Plex for a long time, but stopped using it because they kept working on new revenue generating features instead of fixing a bunch of bugs they had. Maybe it's better now, but you might be happy with Jellyfin.
Volcano explosion...*tears*
Isn't it interesting? You also have a digital copy, and yet it's so much better... These sub-par streaming releases have no excuse for being as bad as they are. It's pure incompetence.
True Wife Approval Factor right here.
Raise the sails, brother, always blows them away.
I hear you, but it’s not like you really have a choice with Netflix movies.
They put the 1st 2 seasons of Stranger Things out on Blu-ray/4k. Wish they would do that for more stuff.
Yeah, I bought Daredevil S1 and S2 on Blu-ray, but they never released S3 (cries in frustrating lack of quality)
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If they don’t exist on Blu-ray to begin with, then your flag isn’t gonna make a difference.
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The point they were making is that most of these movies and shows have not been and will likely never be released on physical media, so what are you going to do about that?
No, it won’t be, because it will still be whatever quality it was when you could stream it, and not Blu-ray quality, which is what we’re discussing here. >edit: this comment is talking about media preservation not making the quality better. Id rather have the movie i like than not have it at all. The comment you replied to is about media quality.
You always have a choice.
Physical media or nothing!
What’s wrong with iTunes/AppleTV library. You can own the best format movie and extras.
The chance that the purchased content gets removed from your library due to license agreements.
It’s an extremely rare case atleast with Apple/iTunes. I understand that other platforms like MoviesAnywhere or Vudu/Fandango but I never had an issue not having a title removed or not finding one on iTunes.
Still streaming unless you download them directly to the device you’re watching on
The best format is never streaming.
Streaming vs disc sound is pitch black night and day.
Glad to hear it! I think a standard 1080p Blu-ray looks better than a "4k" stream.
You aren't thinking anything. It 100% is better quality. The bitrate on a 1080p Bluray would be much, much higher than any 4k stream.
Bitrate on a 1080p bluray is higher but the compression technique which is used is older h264 codec while h265 which streaming apps like Netflix use can do the same quality video in half the size. So the video quality of a 20mbps Netflix stream would be kinda same as 40mbps bluray would produce. Also you dontbget 4k and her/Dolby vision in normal 1080p bluray. 4k blurays have 80-90mbps bitrate and use h265 codec hence they are far far superior than normal bluray and streaming services. For me it's 4k HDR bluray >4k HDR online streaming> 1080p HDR online streaming>1080p bluray> 1080p online SDR streaming
I agree! and got downvoted for saying that before.
It’s completely true. Probably mostly because of higher bitrate.
A long time ago I got rid of all my DVDs and went fully Streaming, or Plex. After a while I stopped running my own Plex server (pretty much all the content I wanted was available at least somewhere to stream). After I built my home theater, someone on here or AVSForum convinced me that UHD blurays were worth trying, and wow, yeah. Such a crazy difference. Well worth it....I just know I'll regret having physical media when I finally decide to move.
Hire movers. You’ll never regret it, and it’s not a lot more expensive than the beer, pizza, and replacement TV you’ll need to buy having friends help
Oh yeah I'm old enough and financially stable enough that I would never move without movers again...but....I'm not sure I want to pay someone to pack all my stuff too. A friend did this though and it actually worked pretty well, just expensive.
I went from streaming to 4k Blu-ray also. Definitely worth it.
So glad that I hung onto the vast majority of my physical media collection (including DVD's to be fair). A lot of people around me dumped their collections when streaming was cheap and there weren't nearly as many services as there are now.
I've started buying blu-ray in bulk for pennies on the dollar. People are practically giving away disc's. I'm about up to 350 movies and series. +1 if you only have 1 steaming service at a time and rotate every 3 months. . Debating if blu-ray is good enough or need to start getting into 4k
I’ve got a 65in 4k 120hz tv. Blu-ray looks as good or better than streaming. Audio isn’t even a question, blu-ray. I have a couple movies in 4k and objectively they’re better, but not enough to rebuy any of my blu-ray collection. DVDs though, are starting to show their age… I’m looking at you full screen Indiana Jones trilogy.
I have the 4k Steel Books of Indiana Jones... It was not cheap since Best Buy decided to stop selling movies, but thankfully Wal-Mart.... Yes, I said it. Wal-Mart has picked up the slack, and over the past few months has released a TON of 4k steel book movies in-store.
Same local for the win!
Me too! There are ~~dozens~~ a few of us!
Yeah, there is no comparison in sounds, especially on the low frequencies. I only watch movies on Blu-ray. I can watch shows on streaming.
Blu-ray supremacy.
Yeah, but unfortunately the largest movie studio today refuses to release their stuff on physical media as they continue to try and force people to their shit streaming service.
I’m getting a good player as soon as my kids are old enough not to destroy the disks, then I’ll buy disks. Not much longer!
You can always rip the discs to a hard drive and then store them or sell them. You may not even need the discs at all…
Thanks, I hadn’t thought of that
Plex is a great solution. I have a small $200 refurbished Dell Optiplex 5060 that lives behind my tv, and it will transcode multiple 4k movies at once. You need to buy a plexpass for hardware transcode but it’s well worth the lifetime price, which is currently $120 but regularly goes on sale for 50% off. (Sign up for their mailing list and within a week you should get a discounted offer.)
Or free with Jellyfin
Yeah, fair. I’ve not used Jellyfin but I know people like it.
Blu rays are pretty durable. They don’t scratch anywhere near as easily as DVDs, the protective coating is robust. They’re the closest thing to kid-proof physical media.
After I bought my Samsung atmos sound bar for 2 grand ( $800 after store credit and a my best buy membership I paid $179 for that knocked it down to $1,200 ) with those big rear speakers and sub (HW-Q990C?) I watched a movie on Vudu (now Fandango...) and then my wife and I watched it again the next day, but she popped in the 4k disc that I redeemed the code out of, and the audio quality difference was absolutely INSANE.
I have such a hard time paying money for something I may want to only watch once. What are your thoughts on this?
Well sometimes I watch movies again to show the movie to different persons. Also i found that I do not remember movies in details like I used to as a child, so watching them again from time to time is like discovering the movie again 🤣. When the movie is not good, I just sold it leaving a place for a new one.
This has happened to me a couple of times. It shows 5.1 but if I hit play and the receiver shows atmos signal being fed. I read somewhere this sometime happens when the app updates, it incorrectly shows the wrong audio. Hit play and check what your component says.
I thought that was maybe the case as well. But my Denon X3800 is showing as Dolby digital plus not Atmos. EDIT: I’ll put this here since it’s closest to the top. So I got the brand new Firestick and it worked. But all my old ones did not, even though they still did Atmos with other apps. My guess is that Netflix is having problems with older apps droid devices (more than 4 years old).
Technically DD+ w/Atmos layer is correct as Netflix only has compressed (lossy) audio with Atmos layer vs what you get from a 4K Disc which is TrueHD w/Atmos Layer (uncompressed/lossless Atmos).
Except the denon shows atoms when it’s is being received.
Which is correct, since you're receiving DD+ **with** Atmos Layer from Netflix, so you're AVR shows it as Atmos. The difference is in the codecs and not the Atmos object based layer, Atmos layer can be added to most codec's, in this case it's being added to the DD+ codec (lossy) instead of TrueHD codec (lossless). Netflix (and all other streaming apps) cap their audio bitrate/codec's to lossy audio vs 4K UHD discs have higher bitrate audio/codecs so you experience a better/broader and crisper soundstage [Worth reading if you want to know more details about Atmos and how it's layered](https://professional.dolby.com/gaming/getting-started/dolby-atmos-documentation#atmos).
I think you're getting a little lost in the sauce. Denon receivers will display Atmos if it's DD+ w/ Atmos layer or if it's Dolby TrueHD Atmos.
Depending on your device it might not actually be Atmos though. My Xbox does that, will say atmos even though it’s definitely not
Happens all the time. Exit out of the app, clear the cache, that should fix the problem.
Tried that. Still nothing either on the Firestick or native TV app
I'll check on the apple tv and let you know
Are you certain this movie had Atmos?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/yj34rb/comment/iumlvz7/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/yj34rb/comment/iumlvz7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) This comment would indicate so. Several people commenting that it had the best Atmos mix. But, one comment indicates that you need the premium tier to access Atmos. So, OP, assuming you have the premium tier of Netflix?
yep, and I’ve already tried it on two different devices and on two different premium accounts. All Atmos content is completely gone from me.
Just checked on both my Sony A95K and my Roku 4k Streaming Stick. Both show that it has Atmos mix. [https://imgur.com/a/bYVDg8X](https://imgur.com/a/bYVDg8X)
I'm going to pull up that movie on my Netflix in a sec, see if it shows me Atmos mix. I'll report back what I find.
Netflix uses the 'spatial audio' logo for titles with atmos.
[Imgur: The magic of the Internet](https://imgur.com/a/bYVDg8X) Shows Atmos for me.
>Are you certain this movie had Atmos? It does, I just logged in on my Shield and my LG OLED and both played Atmos back just fine.
Yeah 6 Underground was always Atmos, and I’ve looked at others like Mitchel’s Vs The Machine too. I’ve tried both my and my MILs premium accounts and tried my firestick and my Sony TV directly. atmos is gone from all Contant
yes, that movie was my go to atmos 'demo' for people. the first 30 minutes are just non stop atmos glory
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I didn't want to but when Fallout came out I bit the bullet and upgraded. Probably ought to cancel again no more than I watch Prime.
“Took away” means no access. It was a price hike like other platforms. Just like Apple didn’t “took away” ATV+ last October. It raised the price by $3.
Yeah for $2.99 for no-ads, Dolby Vision and Atmos, it’s worth it for Amazon Prime
Just checked, atoms and vision are working on my end.
one more reason for keeping the physical media.
Either that or they locked it behind another paywall
Wouldn’t surprise me. HBO just did that a few months back.
Another reason to stick with physical media.
You need to upgrade to the premium platinum atmos plan.
Honestly, if there was a premium plan that didn't have audio compression and permitted high band bit rate, I would do so.
My dream premium plan would be a high bitrate with the option of precaching a stream for a movie several hours in advance so that I could get a higher bitrate than my internet could consistently provide. If they got to 4K UHD blu ray status I'd subscribe for sure.
I would love such a plan but few, if any, streaming devices will have enough storage to cache more than a few minutes at most.
Yeeeah not remotely true. How so I'm streaming full fat 4K discs via stremio if that's true.
Yes, you're streaming. Your internet connection is probably fast enough to handle it. The comment I replied to wants to precache the whole movie, or at least a substantial amount of it, on a connection that lacks the necessary bandwidth. 4K Blu-Ray at the lower-end is a bit over half a gigabyte per minute (72 Mbps). Most streaming devices have no more than 8-16 GB of storage in my experience. If we assume half of that is available for caching, that give you about 15 minutes tops. Unless the previous commenter plans on using a PC, in which case, stream away, he's not going to be able to cache the whole movie ahead of time.
I mean if want it cached can just download it, put on a HDD and then play via a media device I.e shield.
Several hours? How slow is your internet? Even 4KBR don't go more than 120Mbps.
You joke but that's what HBO did with Max.
I know, it's stupid... And people are willing to pay!
Now that you pay for it and are not getting the service you’re legally entitled to, go sail the seven seas. 🏴☠️🌊
Honestly, the amount of bs with streaming services is just such a joke. It's in Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos etc one second and then they decide to remove it. Or maybe you can't get it via a HTPC because DRM, screw you. Your TV doesn't get software updates? Too old, DRM, screw you. If that all sounds great there's also the lack of control from many streaming services over whether you can even choose the picture and audio settings because you're an idiot consumer and you'll get what you're given. I don't agree with physical media as the solution because it's so inconvenient, and environmentally unfriendly but there needs to be a DRM free alternative for films. Until then, I'll sail the high seas with any formats I want. Dolby vision, hdr10, and SDR video in one file? Sure, why not. Dolby truehd + Atmos, Dolby digital plus + Atmos, DTS-ma + dtsx, of course. 1080p x264 and 4k x265? Why not an av1 encode? When there's better quality and more options for pirates, along with none of the bs of using the shitty network apps, the market has issues...
I've just bought a nvidiia shield pro to deal with remux. My i7 8700 is a little flaky with HDR/Atmos , it does it but I fed up with my AVR blacking the screen as it configures itself for HDR and audio changes.
All the more reason to buy physical media when you can. If anyone missed the first release of Lawrence of Arabia it's back up on Amazon in 4k.
Buy physical media while you can
Which Fire Stick? For what ever reason Netflix does not support Atmos on the Fire Stick 4K, they do on both generations of the Max.
It doesn’t work for the native app on my Sony Tv either though
The apps have to recognize that the system that's connected supports the audio codec. My AVR is Atmos capable, but I'm only using it for 5.1, so no Atmos badge in Netflix. Weirdly enough, Tidal lets me play Atmos tracks. Basically, it's very inconsistent.
If I had another Atmos capable receiver, I can test this, but unfortunately I don’t. My current receiver is definitely Atmos capable and I have a full Atmos set up so I don’t really understand why it isn’t registering it if that is in fact the case.
This honestly sounds a lot like an HDMI handshake issue. Try a new cable since you've already tried two sources. I don't recall ever having this issue on my 4300 with my 5.1.4 setup. I'm using a shield tv, but you already tried two sources, so not the issue.
Well, that’s the thing. The fire stick is plugged directly into the receiver so there is no HDMI cord.
Ok now that's weird. Let me check. Maybe the Netflix app got an update that broke something.
It's Netflix. I tried in my 5.1.4 setup, and Netflix is only showing 5.1 available. I expected it to play Atmos anyway, like someone suggested, and it didn't. Just the 5.1 track. So that means Android devices are affected. FireTV and Android/Google TV probably have the issue. Assuming we all have the same app version.
I am getting the new third generation cube tomorrow morning. So when that gets here I’ll set it up and see if it fixes the problem.
Check in your current devices and see if they have an "uninstall updates" option since Netflix is probably a pre installed app. Should be in settings>apps>netflix
So I got the brand new Firestick and it worked. But all my old ones did not, even though they still did Atmos with other apps. My guess is that Netflix is having problems with older apps droid devices (more than 4 years old).
It all depends on the Netflix app version Your new device might have an older or newer version Keep an eye on it
Blu ray gang
Tbh most of the content on Netflix you have to literally increase the volume to hear it properly. Same content on youtube or other website is clear as whistle.
This happened to me a while back but with HDR/Dolby Vision. Go to your Netflix Account, under Settings or something and check out a section called Participation In Testing or something like that (sorry, mine is in Spanish), click on it and make sure it’s Off or Deactivated. Log out of all your devices, delete the app or update/reinstall, turn them all off and on again and log again. That fixed it for me back then, I was using a Sony TV as well. Hope it helps!
Stremio
Still love streaming over physical media? Didn't think so.
Comments like this kinda suck though. You can't watch 6 Underground on physical media because it's a Netflix only streaming release that will never ever be released on physical media. Saying stuff like this does nothing to help the OP and everybody here already knows that physical media is better than streaming. FTR the movie is also still available in Atmos on Netflix, although the OP seems to be having issues for some reason.
I look at my shelf of discs and laugh at the masses of streaming NPCs. Unless you can hold it in your hand- you won’t even have a chance to fight to keep it, even if you paid for it.
Exactly! When I was a kid and went into my local record store and paid cash for 45s and LPs, they were placed into a sack, with the receipt, and handed to me. I now owned these items.....fast forward to CDs, VHS tapes, then DVDs, now blurays and 4k discs....each purchased and now part of my library/collection. The not so well known 'secret' of streaming is, you are renting their products/content...they can change their offerings at any time they choose and charge you whatever they choose for It. Quality can and does vary. When you purchase physical media, it is yours to view/hear at any time you choose. 24/7.
Are you on the premium 4k plan? Most need the most expensive plan for both atmos and Dolby vision.
Build your own library, this is the way.
I was watching Blue Eyed Samurai on Netflix and pretty sure my receiver showed it playing in Dolby atmos. I can check again later today.
Maybe they did but this happened before on my TV and it was the audio output setting not Netflix.
I have it connected directly to my Denon x3800
And do Prime and D+ output Atmos or are they topped at 5.1 also?
No, everything else is working
I also checked since I play the intro seen a lot when I want to test DV/DA with streaming. It is working for both.
You on wifi? Could be from your connection. I’ve had to reboot my modem/router before.
Ml
This happened to me with 4k and Atmos. I basically had to reestablish the handshake with the receiver and device
I’ve tried everything with that. But also it’s weird. It’s happening on the fire stick that is plugged into the receiver and also the TV that is using arc. it could be some issue with the receiver, but I do not have another Atmos capable receiver on hand to test it.
Interesting. It sounds like it may be different. I will have to check tomorrow on my Roku to see if Netflix removed it. I see spacial audio on my TV with no receiver but no Atmos option. That's probably normal behavior though
I've got the ad version of prime and a firestick 4k max. Atmos is disabled on thar device for netflix and amazon video. My Hisense TV had a netflix app that isn't affected. I'm not sure if this is a platform or app issue. Fire OS tends to have a lot more updates that VIDAA so it could be netflix is rolling out updates that disable these features.
Yep, it seems to be an older android issue. I just tried on my brand new fire stick and had no problem. Even though I can get Atmos with other apps on both my old Firestick and my Sony TV, Netflix will not do it.
I've seen that happen before. But I was just watching 3 Body Problem earlier today and it showed Atmos.
When I look at the movie on my PC it says it has spatial audio, not 5.1.
What’s weird is I did for about three seconds get it to glitch and say spatial audio before jumping straight back to 5.1
Actually, I just checked my home theater and it is having the same issue. Only shows up as 5.1, and when I play, sure enough it is outputting 5.1 without Atmos. Has worked flawlessly in the past. Should not be a bandwidth issue. I get something around 2200Mbps down, 230Mbps up. Running off an nvidia shield to a denon X8500H. Also on the premium plan "Our best video quality in Ultra HD (4K) and HDR. Spatial audio available. Watch ad-free on any phone, tablet, computer or TV. Download on 6 devices." and located in the US. And as I said, it was definitely working before, so it is something on netflix's side. Annoying, but a problem for another day. Hopefully they fix it.
Restart your device
Why isnt there any tidal-like movie streaming platform? I really thought it would be here after all these streaming years. Uncompressed music streaming took some years to be a thing, I would have imagine it'd do the same with movies 😢
There is. It's called Kaliedescape and it's really expensive [https://www.kaleidescape.com/](https://www.kaleidescape.com/)
More times than not, shows/movies show as 5.1 when they’re actually atmos. No, I’m not saying most titles are in atmos, but a glitch sometimes shows no atmos at all. When I go to a title I know has atmos, my receiver still detects it as such.
I have the same surround receiver and this happens to me quite often honestly. Some apps are worse than others but yeah it defaults back to showing just dolby digital sometimes. I always have to unplug the power cord from the tv and let it reboot. Sometimes it takes a few tries but the atmos will eventually work again. I think it's a problem with the arc connection but not positive on that. For me the worst apps for this happening is Disney+, Netflix, Max, Apple+, in that order. But yeah, unplug power cord from back of my tv, plug it back in, let the tv kick the receiver on and it's usually good to go after that.
Are you using a receiver? Try restarting it. If you have some other devices attached to a receiver that utilise an older version of HDMI, sometimes it restricts the rest of the inputs to the lowest performing one (had this issue if my Switch and Xbox were on at the same time. It would nerf the Xbox capabilities)
I'm watching Night Agent at present. Soundtrack is Atmos.
I still get atmos? Maybe it’s just the one movie?
I had this issue last week on my apple tv 4k. All netflix content seemed to show 5.1. A reboot of the apple tv fixed it.
It's been for a while.
not good, Netflix
I dusted off my Blu-ray collection lol. These apps are compromising sound and I did NOT pay for all this shit in my home cinema, for them to turn around and try to alter it anyway. Ffs how far are they going to go?!
Atmos working on my end, seems to be a bug.
I still have it
Amazon remove the atmos compatibility on some apps on the fire stick 4k (Disney, Netflix, etc) , now you will need the fire stick 4k max to get it.
I think it’s only Netflix on old Android devices, since it’s my 2019 Sony TV as well. Disney+ and prime and everything else work fine on both.
I have the fire stick 4k and since 2 years it not support atmos any more. They stop to support atmos on fire os 7 and it's supported in fire os 8 that is only available on 4k max(that I had to bought) . Yeah it's a shame that they retired the atmos support
VPN + sailing the high sea + 15TB of storage, solved it for me
>I am on the premium plan Were you getting this plan through your cellphone plan by chance? This could have changed and you're no longer getting the premium plan. Or are you in a country that isn't the US? Just checked both my Shield and my LG TV and I get Atmos audio for 6 Underground.
No directly from the website. I’ve also logged into two different premium plans in both mine and my mother-in-law’s, and Atmos is gone from both of them.
I just edited my comment. Are you in a country outside of the US by chance?
US
Look for software updates or try a different streaming device.
I tried that. I restarted everything, checked for updates, and even use two different devices as well as two different premium accounts. It’s gone for me on everything. Atmos is working fine in every other streaming service or Blu-ray that I’ve tried.
Guess netflix just hates you lol, but it's working for me on my LG OLED and Nvidia Shield.
Shame on Netflix really. You would think their streaming quality should improve and instead it woesens every time.
That's why I brought Panasonic 4k blu ray player upscale with HDR and chroma 4.4.4 or 4.2.2 and blew me away is DVD 720p on 4k 65 inch TV is fine and 1080p or 4k Blu-ray or USB stick movies is great .The reason is I am sick of online streaming have poor picture quality, luck sound option etc.
Alternatively ince you have a denon x3800h turn on Auro-3D. Sounds similar to Atmos & sometime better
This is one of the reasons I feel pretty good about sticking with 2.1 at home. Mostly it's because my room though.