I recently streamed the Taylor Swift Eras concert movie through Apple TV (Dolby Atmos) and Amazon Prime (Dolby DDS I think?) to compare (through a Denon X6200W with a 9.1 speaker setup).
Yes, I paid the $19.89 two times. For science.
The audio quality with Atmos was substantially better.
I canceled Prime after they added ads. I might have canceled it anyway at some point, but this was a very clear and significant reduction in value. They never really competed all that well, but there were some interesting original shows on there that kept me interested enough to keep a subscription. But they were really bad about having the original language audio, and they rotate content out pretty fast, my watchlis…
I respectfully disagree. Amazon became Amazon, because it really did some things well and forced some good standards ( 2 day shipping, almost zero friction when it came to purchases -- and returns ). It is not a horrible experience yet, but the direction is clear.
> The Rings of Power... now in HDR10+ for ad-tier users. I'm not sure even the power of Dolby Vision could make Rings of Power worth watching, though.
This is the real problem with Prime Video. The first party content is terrible .
The app sucks, the way they present content sucks.
There was a series on prime called Mammals that remains seared into my brain. I have no idea why I started watching it, or why, because nothing about the show is my taste. By the end I was oh so glad I did... I have yet to find someone else who has seen it.
Technical question, a typical 2 hour movie represents how many bytes of stereo audio signal, how many bytes if atmos. How many streams served with stereo, how many with 5.1/atmos/whatever. Are they actually saving any real money here or is it just a pain point to milk the whales? I'd be willing to bet that 80%+ of households don't even have equipment that can properly render atmos or even 5.1.
Its amusing to think that part of this decision is to save on bandwidth costs.
I’m letting my Prime lapse for the first time in well over a decade. I don’t watch Prime Video much, but this rubbed me the wrong way when they’re making money hand-over-fist on top of recent Prime increases.
Just dropped it as well after maybe a decade of membership. Waiting an extra couple days for shipments has been fine. We don't trust Amazon as a store anymore anyway so we don't order much from there.
I would be interested to know the actual audio setup of most video watching ... I suspect that even if you ignore whatever (probably huge?) percentage is on mobile, that much of it comes out of whatever TV speakers are being used. Even my 7.1 receiver is down to a single laughable channel, because I've not been arsed to fully set it up and a wire is loose.
My guess is a lot of people with bigger TVs are getting soundbars. They are easy to setup and doesn't require wires. I won't switch from 5.1 setup but if I ever move I would give it a try. Built-in speakers I've used in hotels/airbnbs are not great.