Netflix significantly expands the range of series and films with spatial audio

Netflix now supports many more movies and series spatialized audio, where the sound seems to come from different directions. Stereo sound is enhanced, without the need for surround sound speakers or a home theater system. Last summer, Netflix had already taken the first steps with spatialized sound, but the offer was still limited at the time.

Wednesday and Tour de France

Now it’sNetflix Space Audio‘ available for over 700 popular series and movies, such as Stranger Things, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Wednesday and The Watcher. The streaming service will also add spatialized audio to many new titles, such as the Tour de France documentary and the films Luther: The Fallen Sun and Your Place or Mine.

Users who search for the term “spatial audio” on the streaming service will see the full list of titles that support it. Netflix uses the Sennheiser AMBEO 2 Technology to convert audio to spatial sound, which works on any device with built-in stereo speakers, including laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Netflix-premium

For spatial audio, users need the most expensive subscription, called Premium. People with other subscriptions will get the feature in the future, according to Netflix, “only with a small number of titles.”

The Netflix Premium subscription has also offered 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos for some time and costs 15.99 euros per month in the Netherlands.

Download on six devices

With the Premium subscription, Netflix also increases the number of devices authorized to download movies and series, from four to six devices. The streaming service says users wanted the option to watch offline on more devices, “especially when traveling.” The six-device limit applies to the entire account.

With a Premium subscription, four simultaneous streams are allowed. This number will not change. The two cheapest plans have limits of one or two simultaneous streams and one or two download devices allowed.

Stricter approach to account sharing

The timing of the announcement coincides with further clarification from Netflix about its stricter approach to account sharing. For example, users who share their ID with someone outside their household will soon have to pay a few extra euros per month.

Netflix will check if users are watching outside of an account’s “primary location”. These users will then be prompted to verify the device with a verification code that will be sent to the primary account owner.

Users must also connect to the home Wi-Fi network once every 31 days. If they don’t, they will have to verify their device again. Netflix says users can continue watching anytime while on the go.