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[pepar]

I am thinking about building a small streaming appliance and had thought Linux because of the cost advantage over Windows, but thought I should ask if Windows, specifically 7 as licenses are cheap, has any sonic advantages over Linux?

Jeff

[blgentry]

As I understand it, DSD will not run over HDMI at all with any currently available PC Video cards.

You can always convert to PCM on the fly and send PCM via HDMI to your device.  But if you believe in DSD, then that's not the same thing at all.

I find DSD converted to PCM to be quite wonderful sounding. But most DSD people tend to be rather purist about the format and insist on "real" DSD. Which HDMI can not support as far as I know.

Brian.

[kr4]

Of course, HDMI supports DSD in v1.2.  The issue is in the graphics boards' implementation.

[AndrewFG]

And coming back to the OP, the choice of OS would depend on whether there is a driver for the specific hdmi hardware and os combination; in my experience the choice of drivers is greater on Windows than on Linux.

[pepar]

Thanks, all.  Food for thought.  I was looking at JRiver over Kodi specifically because it could natively stream DSD.

[pepar]

Of course, HDMI supports DSD in v1.2.  The issue is in the graphics boards' implementation.

Hmmm, why does the graphics "card" enter into it? I am sitting here looking at the PCH VTEN that I am about to abandon and it can't have much in the way of graphics.  With the PCH and a JRiver box all audio will be passed through and, at least I thought, the video passes as well.  Well, at least I don't do any transcoding.

What am I missing?

I just noticed that Raspberry Pi can be used with JRiver ... that's gotta have minimal graphics power ...

Jeff

[kr4]

Hmmm, why does the graphics "card" enter into it? I am sitting here looking at the PCH VTEN that I am about to abandon and it can't have much in the way of graphics.  With the PCH and a JRiver box all audio will be passed through and, at least I thought, the video passes as well.  Well, at least I don't do any transcoding.

What am I missing?

I just noticed that Raspberry Pi can be used with JRiver ... that's gotta have minimal graphics power ...

Jeff

If it's got an HDMI output, it's a video output, as a card or on-board.  Not all will pass HD mch audio.  I don't know what a PCH VTEN is, but I was talking about PCs.

[ferday]

Hmmm, why does the graphics "card" enter into it?

as mentioned, PC's focus the HDMI on graphics and not audio, so even though the 1.2 spec may support it, the HDMI output on the PC (whether the native or the graphics card) may not support it through drivers.

[pepar]

Thanks all.  I have a lot of reading to do.

[dtc]

Things may have changed, but here is my understanding of DSD over HDMI from computers. If anyone has any updates, I would love to hear about them. This is one case that I would love to be proven wrong.

There were no reports that I know of of any Windows systems that support native DSD over HDMI. As others have said, this is a driver/board issue.

Apple only supports HDMI through DoP - no native DSD support. See DoP comments below.

Theoretically, you should be able to use DoP over HDMI if you can find a HDMI DAC/receiver that accepts DoP. As far as I know, no receivers, DAC or Blue Ray players support DoP input over HDMI.

Some background.

Native DSD is 2.8 Mhz and multiples of that. Receivers often support this over HDMI, but, as far as I know,  the only source that provides this is Blu Ray/DVD players.

DoP is a format where DSD bits are put into a PCM wrapper and converted back to native DSD by the DAC. The PCM stream is at 1/16th of the native DSD sample rate, so native 2.8 MHz is packed into 176 MHz PCM.  Many DACs accept DoP over USB, but I do not know of any  that do it over HDMI.

[blgentry]

There were no reports that I know of of any Windows systems that support native DSD over HDMI. As others have said, this is a driver/board issue.

So, like I said, it's pretty much not possible right now.  If it *is* possible, no one here has talked about it so threads about this topic normally end the same way:  You can't do it with today's boards and drivers.

I'm still of the opinion that Jason Stoddard knows what he is talking about on the subject of HDMI audio transmission.  He thinks it's one of the worst ways to transmit digital audio.  After reading the specs, I can see why he would think that.  I'm just saying that some group of audiophiles think HDMI is a poor choice if you can choose something else.  Jim H will disagree with me and tell me it sounds fantastic.  I don't have a dog in the fight.  I'm bringing this up because DSD advocates tend to be VERY audiophile and might want to consider the transmission method and whether it provides any real advantages, or if it is in fact a disadvantage.

So... you're really left with only a few options:  Use USB to send DSD to your DAC.  Or Convert DSD to PCM, on the fly inside MC and send that audio via HDMI.  You might try the conversion option as a test; just to see what it sounds like.  Or you might try a shootout with USB pure DSD versus DSD -> PCM over HDMI and see which one sound best.

Food for thought.

Brian.