Question Why is some Dolby Atmos content only in 5.1 on Netflix?

[joe23]

I've dipped in and out of Netflix over the last few years (mostly out) but I've been finding more and more good stuff to watch of late. Over the weekend I watched The Two Popes which I really enjoyed and it looked absolutely stunning in Dolby Vision. Watching in the UK, the audio is only 5.1 and I realised from the end credits that the movie is actually available in Dolby Atmos, so given that I'm paying the Premium subscription I was intrigued as to why the Dolby Atmos soundtrack is not available in the UK region. A bit of digging revealed that in the US, the Atmos version is present, so I contacted Netflix to enquire as to the reason for this... The reply I got over their chat system was 'Oh, it's probably to do with licensing or something' and I was abruptly cut off. Given that this is actually a Netflix production, I was somewhat skeptical about it being a licensing issue, but does anyone know why some Dolby Atmos titles are not in Atmos on the UK Netflix? Is it purely to do with saving bandwidth, or something else?

 

[bigboss]

Few films are like that on different platforms. Even Soul on Disney+.

 

[bigboss]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DisneyPlus/comments/itd1fa

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/DisneyPlus/comments/itd1fa/misleading_lack_of_support_for_dolby_atmos/