I just bought a BD-ROM player with a Netflix app that duplicates what I have with the Live Hub. I noticed that the audio was much better than what I’m getting from the hub. I got surround sound on some titles for which the Hub only gave me mono sound.
It seemed to me that originally I got Dolby Prologic surround sound on Netflix, but for a while now I’ve gotten surround only on the titles that specifically have 5.1 surround. Anything else that I watched only gave me a center channel when run through the Prologic decoder (via optical out to my receiver, or via HDMI to the TV and via coax from the TV to the receiver; no HDMI inputs on this receiver). I expect that on old titles with a mono soundtrack, but even older titles with a stereo soundtrack without Prologic surround shouldn’t decode down to only a center channel.
Well, watching an X-files show that started with an overlay announcing “in Dolby surround sound where available” gave me beautiful surround from the Blu-ray player. Same show decoded to center channel only from the Live Hub. I swapped in a second Live Hub from another room, same problem.
Now, the Blu-Ray player has the Netflix 2.0 interface and the Hubs have the Netflix 3.0 interface on the 2.05.08 firmware (which I stuck at because it has an improved interface brightness for photo display without the black clipping of the video diplay). I upgraded the hub to the 2.07.17 firmware which made no difference. I then rolled back the firmware to 2.04.13 which is the last with the Netflix 2.0 interface. Now the same titles that Prologic decoded to center channel only in the Netfliix 3.0 interface now decode properly to surround sound. I downgraded my other Live Hub to 2.04.13 and it also properly decodes Dolby Prologic surround in Netflix 2.0.
So now I’ve had to downgrade firmware again to fix a problem introduced by an upgrade. If I upgrade one step now I can get a good interface brightness (in 2.05.08 only, that improvement was removed in all following updates), but then Netflix audio will go back to mono on Dolby Prologic surround.
I don’t know if the change to the Netflix 3.0 interface affects any devices other than the Live Hub. My Blu-ray player hasn’t updated since I unboxed it. If it did exhibit the same problem after an update, perhaps a reset to factory defaults might bring it back to Netflix 2.0, but I don’t see any way to selectively downgrade like I can with the Live Hub.
I expect it’s limited to the Live Hub since I’d expect to see a lot of complaints about audio on Netfix 3.0 otherwise; then again, I’m surprised I don’t see it addressed in this forum already.
