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Netflix comes in a variety of sound formats, depending on which subscription plan you pay for. The streaming service's premium tier supports 4K streaming on all the best 4K TVs and Dolby Atmos sound. Meanwhile, their standard plan allows for HD streaming and up to 5.1 surround sound.
But not everyone has a surround sound system, although more of the best soundbars are able to emulate and pass through surround sound. But, if you find yourself without, the below fix could instantly improve the audio you get from Netflix.
James is the TV Hardware Staff Writer at TechRadar. Before joining the team, he worked at a major UK based AV retailer selling TV and audio equipment, where he was either telling customers the difference between OLED and QLED or being wowed by watching a PS5 run on the LG 65G2. When not writing about the latest TV tech, James can be found gaming, reading, watching rugby or coming up with another idea for a novel. "}), " -0-11/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); James DavidsonSocial Links NavigationTV Hardware Staff Writer, Home Entertainment James is the TV Hardware Staff Writer at TechRadar. Before joining the team, he worked at a major UK based AV retailer selling TV and audio equipment, where he was either telling customers the difference between OLED and QLED or being wowed by watching a PS5 run on the LG 65G2. When not writing about the latest TV tech, James can be found gaming, reading, watching rugby or coming up with another idea for a novel.
I use an HDMI switch with an SPDIF optical audio extractor to get the audio from the HDMI to my old surround amp which handles DD and DTS (not HD). This works well in surround sound with everything except for Netflix on Roku where I get 2.0 sound. The setup even gets DD surround with Netflix on a Fire Stick 2nd gen.
If your TV or A/V receiver isn't capable of playing Dolby Digital+ audio formats (as detected by the 'Auto' settings in Settings>Audio>Audio mode, you would only receive Stereo audio from the Netflix channel.
Plex is doing the transcoding, not the Roku. For what you are seeing, check to see of any of the audio processing functions are enabled. You can only access them when something is playing. Press the * button while the video is playing and look for any sound function and make sure it's turned off. It might be labeled volume leveling, or something different. But any audio processing must be turned off or you only get stereo sound.
Volume Leveling is turned off. The only other relevant setting I can see is Roku's main Audio Setting where I have tried all the options and none of them give surround sound with Netflix. Volume Leveling doesn't seem to stop surround sound on Plex.
On further investigation, it seems that if you set Volume Leveling before starting the video, then it does indeed set the sound to stereo. If you set Volume Leveling after starting the video it doesn't set the sound to stereo, however it doesn't seem to do any volume leveling either (until the video is restarted).
If I play a DTS movie via Plex, and the Roku setting it set to DD then it comes through as DD. If the Roku setting is set to either DD or DD & DTS then not surprisingly it comes through as DTS. So something is able to convert from DTS to DD, presumably the Roku since it is the Roku setting that determines the output format. I would have thought that same transcoder would convert from DD+ to DD if the Roku Audio setting is DD.
Seems like we have a similar setup. I never found a solution. Netflix has never worked for me in DD5.1 on Roku. I just use Netflix on my Firestick instead which does do DD5.1. However the Roku is much better when streaming movies from Windows via Plex and gets DD5.1, DTS5.1 and lip-sync much better.
I have used my 2.1 stereo speaker set through several Roku devices without any issue. Lately, it seems Roku has changed the way it encodes the audio signal, as if it's outputting for 5.1 or 7.1 speaker setups (i.e. surround sound) and no longer properly convertible to simple stereo. I have set all the audio options to stereo on my Roku device. Still during a movie the dialog and the ambient sounds alternate from loud to soft from one scene to the next, as if the speakers they're being assigned from front to back and vice versa, and these are speakers I don't have. Is anybody else experiencing this? It makes a lot of movies all but unwatchable for me at night, when I need to keep the volume at a minimum.
Thanks for the suggestion. It doesn't seem to be an option on my Roku. Anyway, in concept it sounds like a solution I'd only want to use in a pinch, supposing it would flatten the dynamics the movie makers intended people to hear.
To help determine if your Roku device supports volume modes, you need to know the device model. To find this information, go to the home screen on your Roku device and select Settings > System > About.
4) The purpose of using a Volume Mode in your case is to FORCE stereo output (Volume Modes disable multichannel output) such that your device would only receive/output AAC/PCM (and thus any multichannel output somehow being the source of the issue would not apply).
5) Its possible you enabled/changed a surround/virtual surround/audio processing setting in your TV/AVR/Speakers (you didnt mention your specific HT setup - how the Roku connects elsewhere) that is causing the audio behavior you are experiencing - verify no surround/spatial/etc settings have changed in your TV/AVR/Speakers.
6) There are known instances where upgrading from one RokuOS version to another with certain audio settings configured (especially when the audio options have changed/are removed, such as from OS10.5 to OS11) causes strange audio behavior which the audio settings can no longer correct/adjust - the only recourse in such situations is to Factory Reset (Settings/System/Advanced system settings/Factory reset) the device to get proper audio control back.
As I mentioned in my last reply, maybe not as clearly as I could have, leveling does not appear to be an option with my unit. Those instructions to access it do not work for me. Maybe this limitation has to do with the unit having been sold to me as "refurbished" and with the model code "3930R." The About page within the menu of the Roku GUI indicates it's a "3930X - Roku Express," and the Software Version as "10.5.0 build 4208-AE." I'm using a set of computer speakers that has built-in amplification and takes its input directly from the headphone jack on the TV, which I have made sure was and continues not to be set to output surround sound within its own menu of options, but rather to output stereo. The only change has been the Roku. I bought and received this unit in late December from the factory with what appears to be the latest OS available for it (when I check for updates), so if an update caused the problem, it's the factory that caused it.
You should contact support directly about this (you may have to indicate a different model to get to chat support) - make sure you provide them with the previous support article link to indicate your model is supposed to have the support.
Thanks, @UserOfStreamers, for that info and encouragement to pursue the factory restore, which did indeed make the "leveling" and "night" volume options available for me, after being invisible before.
I used leveling last night, and it evened out the sound out enough to prevent me from missing dialog using a volume level quiet enough to prevent waking anybody. So that's a great improvement, and yet I am concerned that Roku seems to have eliminated true stereo as an option and without warning to customers who don't want to have to go out and buy a new and more elaborate sound system. As a term "leveling" suggests to me that using it doesn't produce the dynamics of sound that the filmmakers intended, only that it's more even than the unnatural and unusable dynamics of a surround sound signal played through just two speakers, assuming that's the kind of signal this Roku Express is limited to putting out.
Well, the leveling option disappeared and the * menu options look as they did before, which if I didn't mention, are titled "Accessibility" and have an unchangeable grayed-out "default" setting under the nominal options for "Volume."
The OS version is 10.5, as before, but I didn't bother to check what it was during the session "leveling" was available, so I guess it might have briefly been 11. But when I go to update, it says 10.5 is the most recent version available for my system.
I wonder if the availability of leveling depends on the "stereo" settings I configure from the system/audio menu accessible from the device's home screen. It's possible that after I did my factory reset I went directly to testing the sound and the options for a Netflix video, and did not set them first. It's possible I set them always the same, but if I do, that's somewhat down to luck, because several options are unintelligible to me (eg I don't have Dolby or DTS and yet it seems I have to choose, and given that there are "digital" options for "stereo" IDK what are the options for "streaming"about? )
Meanwhile, I didn't notice an obvious return of the erratic volume changes, but I watched a different movie and to be sure would want to test a movie I clearly remember them affecting.
Incidentally, another problem I've had intermittently is that blackscreen popup message recommending I restart. Awhile back it was often that I made a habit of restarting immediately after bootup every time, without first loading an app to stream and find out if I'd be allowed. After the factory reset I didn't restart and didn't get the popup, but I'd never experienced that popup being a sure thing