New ClearView Flex features! support for 5.1 surround sound for Apple TV and for 10-bit colour depth on supported platforms now available

Flora Reddaway, Head of Product, Sohonet

We are excited to announce the release of support for 5.1 surround sound for Apple TV  and for 10-bit colour depth on supported platforms. Both features have been deployed to improve the remote collaboration experience for all media professionals and have been trialled by a select group of Beta users who have put them through rigorous testing.

I’m pleased to say that they are now available to those on ClearView Flex Pro packages and our Weekly Plus Go credit users.

5.1 surround sound will be supported on Apple TV, with any viewers in the session joining on other devices receiving a downmixed stereo feed.  Those inputting 10-bit colour video content to their Flexbox will have their content delivered to viewer devices at 10-bit. If a viewer’s device is capable of 10-bit colour the viewer app will display content at this bit-depth.

How do I access the new features?

We have moved all the Flexbox settings to a new settings panel, found at the bottom right of your stream viewer in the Presenter app. On starting a  session you will see the current default input and output settings for your Flexbox.

The input and output settings allow you to control both what we are capturing on the Flexbox and the format of the encoded output of the Flexbox. Settings include the input type (HDMI/SDI), Capture Format (The colour space of your video feed coming into the Flexbox), Audio format, Output bit depth and a new separate video and audio bitrate setting. We have split out audio and video bitrate settings from the previous ‘stream quality’ control so that users now have more control over bandwidth usage, being able to prioritise audio quality over video quality and visa versa depending on their use case.

To edit these settings simply click the cog icon to the right of the panel and amend the settings as needed. Clicking ‘Save’ will amend the settings and restart the streaming process.

Please ensure your Viewers are using the latest versions of both the Apple TV app and our iOS apps.

If you have any questions or concerns get in touch with your Customer Success Manager: Drew.law@sohonet.com (NA (West Coast) & Australasia) or Stephanie.White@sohonet.com (NA East coast & Europe)