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[murray]

I use madvr with MC and have always been using bit streaming in JR. I have always had re clock turned on but never knew it wasnt actually working for the last year or so as I just learnt today reclock doesnt work when bitstreaming...
Ive just been testing it in PCM and reclock is working fantastic now, my logs show no repeated or dropped frames throughout a whole ripped BD.

My issue though is though I have Atmos and Auro 3D and a setup of 15 speakers and four 18" subs in the room.
Im happy to now run in PCM rather than bitstream so I get re clock working, but can all my speakers and true Atmos still work?
I currently have PCM configured to 7.1, but I need to setup all my speakers and subs... The subs are on one channel only....

My processor McIntosh MX160 plays Atmos, Auro 3D and also matrixes other channels so all 15 speakers can play. Just need to know how to setup JR audio under DSP....

I hope someone here can help me.

Thanks in advance...

[mattkhan]

There is no atmos decoder on the pc so you have to bitstream

[murray]

There is no atmos decoder on the pc so you have to bitstream

Is there one on MC22?
If not how can one automatically change between bitstreaming for Atmos/DTS-X and PCM to keep reclock?
How do Atmos tracks stay in sync then when you have to bitstream?

Ok if I cant play Atmos through PCM, do you know what configuration I have to use for all my speakers and subs in DSP?
Do I set it to just 7.1 or more speakers?

[mattkhan]

There is no atmos decoder on the PC full stop. You would need to a zone configured bitstream and a zone configured for PCM, add a zoneswitch rule to automatically switch between them based on the content being played back (approach discussed previously in https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=105848.0).

If you need more than 8 output channels in jriver then just pick an output format with more than 8 channels in it, this will give you that many output channels to play with and a 7.1 mix target. Use the DSP blocks as appropriate to route content to the additional channels.

[murray]

There is no atmos decoder on the PC full stop. You would need to a zone configured bitstream and a zone configured for PCM, add a zoneswitch rule to automatically switch between them based on the content being played back (approach discussed previously in https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=105848.0).

If you need more than 8 output channels in jriver then just pick an output format with more than 8 channels in it, this will give you that many output channels to play with and a 7.1 mix target. Use the DSP blocks as appropriate to route content to the additional channels.

Thanks for your help here its greatly valued.
So it looks like if one wants to play Atmos or DTS-X titles in there native audio we have to use bitstream without any audio clock.... Oh dera back to repeated or dropped frames in the video....

Is there no audio clock system that will work with bitstreaming???

[blgentry]

...or just forget about the flavor of the month audio format.  Surround sound is fun, but it's all ultimately cow dung.  There's nothing true or correct about it.  It's all just like splashing paint all over a canvas.  Inexact, sometimes pleasing, not repeatable, and ultimately not in any way a true art form at all.

So fall back to DTS-HD or the equivalent.  Enjoy the video with no dropped frames.  The audio will still be rather pleasing.  Or ignore me completely. 

Brian.

[murray]

I love Atmos like thousands of others who have invested in it, so I will ignore the comment!

[Hendrik]

I'm sure a bunch of those thousands only like it because if they would face the truth that their money was wasted would be a really sad day. :p
Atmos is not magic, it just adds a few more speakers, but most movies don't even fully use 7.1 with the rears going nearly ununsed.

[murray]

Seems funny that those involved with JR dont like Atmos or DTS-X as JR cant play them correctly, thats really funny!

[mattkhan]

Seems funny that those involved with JR dont like Atmos or DTS-X as JR cant play them correctly, thats really funny!

was it you posting on the doom9 thread? if so, are you going to use the custom resolution approach?

[Hendrik]

Seems funny that those involved with JR dont like Atmos or DTS-X as JR cant play them correctly, thats really funny!

No software player on this planet can because Dolby doesn't want them to, other then bitstreaming and letting some hardware decoder deal with it - which MC supports perfectly. But bitstreaming has other disadvantages, as you figured out.

[murray]

Its so strange, as the OP I asked a question about playing Atmos on JR and all I get is JR developers or those who work for JR telling us all how crappy Atmos is, looks like some form of jealousy to me, and Im sure also to others who read this!

Wouldn't it make more sense to those of us that pay for JR, see on these pages, that those who are involved with JR state what JR will do and wont do rather than slamming new technologies that JR cant do. Its kind of poor form and un-professional. My 2 cents!

[murray]

was it you posting on the doom9 thread? if so, are you going to use the custom resolution approach?

Yes matt it was me and I will probably go that way since its not all that great the JR way. Just a shame some on here are a bit aggressive over new technologies, doesn't happen on doom thread.

[JimH]

You're getting opinions about Atmos and about proprietary closed formats in general.  Nobody is trying to stop you from doing what you want to do.

Hendrik was the only JRiver developer posting in this thread.  I'm with JRiver, too.

[murray]

I know no one is trying to stop me from using Atmos, and I and thousands of others love it and will continue to use it even with all your bashing of it!
Being aggressive on others personal taste is poor form and childish.
We all like different things, and accepting others different likes and dislikes is a far more adult approach.
Long live Atmos and DTS-X

[blgentry]

I'm sorry if I offended you.  I am not affiliated with JRiver, other than being a customer and a frequent poster here.  My thoughts about surround formats are my own opinion.  What I expressed is the same opinion I have held about movie surround sound for 15+ years.  Even 5.1 surround is "made up" and not based on any type of "real" multi-channel encoding.

But it doesn't really matter what my opinion is.  You like what you like and that's totally fine.  I hope you enjoy your setup with Atmos and other surround formats. 

Brian.

[Hendrik]

Wouldn't it make more sense to those of us that pay for JR, see on these pages, that those who are involved with JR state what JR will do and wont do

There is nothing we can do. Atmos and DTS:X are closed formats, and no software decoders exist. We already fully support bitstreaming of all HD audio formats, including the TrueHD Atmos streams and DTS:X streams.
.. and even if we could decode them, HDMI can't even transport more then 8 channels of uncompressed PCM as of now, so unless you get a USB DAC with 12 channels, you are stuck there.

I'm not sure what the expectations towards these formats are. You can play them, but you lose VideoClock in the process, but that is not something we can resolve as the concepts fundamentally collide.

[murray]

Thank you for your reply Hendrick, that explains things well now!

Two last questions...
Using PCM to get the clock, what is actually happening to any 7.1 material thats Dolby True HD or DTS MA when it plays in PCM, is it exactly the same as when bitstreaming, is anything lost?

You say that HDMI through PCM can only transport 8 channels, yet DSP has something like 11/16 channels inside it, does that mean they all just dont work when using HDMI?

[Hendrik]

Using PCM to get the clock, what is actually happening to any 7.1 material thats Dolby True HD or DTS MA when it plays in PCM, is it exactly the same as when bitstreaming, is anything lost?

With VideoClock, the audio is stretched to match the video clock exactly (without altering pitch, using the SoundTouch library). This process is rather high quality and I doubt anyone would ever be able to hear it, but technically its a lossy DSP process.
Everything else should be the same, our TrueHD and DTS-HD decoders are bitexact to the specification.

You say that HDMI through PCM can only transport 8 channels, yet DSP has something like 11/16 channels inside it, does that mean they all just dont work when using HDMI?

That is correct, the audio device would not accept such a channel count.

[mojave]

...or just forget about the flavor of the month audio format.  Surround sound is fun, but it's all ultimately cow dung.  There's nothing true or correct about it.  It's all just like splashing paint all over a canvas.  Inexact, sometimes pleasing, not repeatable, and ultimately not in any way a true art form at all.

What I expressed is the same opinion I have held about movie surround sound for 15+ years.  Even 5.1 surround is "made up" and not based on any type of "real" multi-channel encoding.

I've been in multiple commercial Atmos theaters, at least 7 Atmos home theaters (some of which I've calibrated), and attended the Dolby Atmos room at the LA Audio Show this past weekend. I disagree with you. If you discuss or read about surround sound and Atmos with guys like Mark Fishman or Marty Humphrey at The Dub Stage you will find that there is much art in the exact placement of every sound throughout the entire room. The new Atmos/Aero-3D/DTS:X formats are object or array based and allow one to place a sound just about anywhere in the room. When you listen to Blu-ray concerts, a tremendous amount of work has gone into precisely locating the instruments and audience to match what you see on the screen. If the singer is in the front left, he only sings out of the left speaker.Audience sounds only come out of the surrounds.

At a demo earlier this year, I played the car crash scene at the end of No Country For Old Men. Here is some info regarding that scene:

The monstrous complexity of Lievsay’s work – the quest to make films sound the way the world sounds – may not be immediately apparent. When a movie finishes shooting, it enters the labyrinthine world of post-production, in which the best takes are selected and spliced together into reels – roughly 20-minute segments of film that are worked on and then stitched together at the end of post-production. Each reel goes through picture editing (for such things as visual continuity or colour) before being handed off to the sound supervisor, who oversees all the various elements of sound design, editing and mixing.

The distinction between these three processes is subtle: design and editing have more to do with the creation and selection of the sounds that make up each scene, and the development of a cohesive aural aesthetic for a movie. Mixing involves taking sounds created by the designers and editors and integrating them in each scene so that everything sounds “natural” – in other words, making sure the sound of the butterfly landing on the hood of the car isn’t louder than the car backfiring. (Like some of his contemporaries, Lievsay does both sound editing and mixing.)

At the beginning of this process, editors remove the audio recordings taken during filming and break down each scene into four sonic elements: dialogue, effects, music and Foley, which is the term for everyday sounds such as squeaky shoes or cutlery jangling in a drawer. For every scene, each of these four elements needs to be built and then edited separately, and at WBNY, the New York production company Lievsay runs with fellow editor Paul Urmson, each gets its own dedicated editor. Then, Lievsay or Urmson take the team’s work and layers it to make scenes that sound like the world sounds.

Consider the scene at the end of No Country For Old Men when Javier Bardem’s character has a car accident. After the crunch of impact, there are a few moments of what might be mistaken for stillness. The two cars rest smoking and crumpled in the middle of a suburban intersection. Nothing moves – but the soundscape is deceptively layered. There is the sound of engines hissing and crackling, which have been mixed to seem as near to the ear as the camera was to the cars; there is a mostly unnoticeable rustle of leaves in the trees; periodically, so faintly that almost no one would register it consciously, there is the sound of a car rolling through an intersection a block or two over, off camera; a dog barks somewhere far away. The faint sound of a breeze was taken from ambient sounds on a street like the one depicted in the scene. When Javier Bardem shoves open the car door, you hear the door handle stick for a moment before it releases. There are three distinct sounds of broken glass tinkling to the pavement from the shattered window, a small handful of thunks as he falls sideways to the ground, his laboured breathing, the chug of his boot heel finally connecting with the asphalt – even the pads of his fingers as they scrabble along the top of the window. None of these sounds are there because some microphone picked them up. They’re there because Lievsay chose them and put them there, as he did for every other sound in the film. The moment lasts about 20 seconds. No Country For Old Men is 123 minutes long.

[mojave]

No software player on this planet can because Dolby doesn't want them to, other then bitstreaming and letting some hardware decoder deal with it - which MC supports perfectly. But bitstreaming has other disadvantages, as you figured out.

Trinnov is a complete software solution on a Linux based system. Dolby has provided them a software decoder. Spent an hour or more on Saturday getting a demo from the US rep. Pretty cool stuff. Of course it costs $20,000+. 

[murray]

Great stuff mojave!
When one has spent an arm and a leg on equipment and building a good HT, some 600K in my case, Atmos and DTS-X sounds wonderful, its the closest thing to real life as the sound is where it actually truly is.

There are some who still think mono is the flavor of the month, to each his own 

[Hendrik]

Trinnov is a complete software solution on a Linux based system. Dolby has provided them a software decoder. Spent an hour or more on Saturday getting a demo from the US rep. Pretty cool stuff. Of course it costs $20,000+. 

I'm sure Dolby has software to decode it, and Trinnov basically makes super high-end AV equipment so they might get a deal on that to put into the firmware of their devices (the 3D sound software upgrade is $2000 alone on these, those people are crazy). But thats not really what I meant with a "software decoder", ie. you won't find it in any software Blu-ray player, for example (of which very few remain anyway) - they all bitstream.

[blgentry]

I've been in multiple commercial Atmos theaters, at least 7 Atmos home theaters (some of which I've calibrated), and attended the Dolby Atmos room at the LA Audio Show this past weekend. I disagree with you.

You certainly have more real world exposure to this technology than I do.  That's a fact.

If the singer is in the front left, he only sings out of the left speaker.Audience sounds only come out of the surrounds.

I'm not sure I should even go down this road but...  Just putting a singer in one speaker is a far cry from an actually acoustic representation of what that singer would sound like, at that relative position, in the acoustic environment in which it was recorded.

You're probably familiar with the head related transfer function, and how this relates to human beings' ability to locate sounds around them in both angle and elevation.  Spitting the sound out of the left front speaker certainly allows the listener to point at that speaker and say "it's there".  But does it sound *anything* like the environment in which it was recorded?  Does it sound real?  I personally don't think so.

But again, I really shouldn't even be arguing this point.  Surround sound is fun!  It makes movies more fun.  Especially when the surround field is lively.  It's just that adding more channels seems counter productive to me.

Though I admittedly have no exposure to very precisely placed and calibrated theaters.  In Murray's case, I certainly don't have experience with a home theater that cost over a half million dollars.

So just ignore me and enjoy your surround sound experience.

Thanks,

Brian.

[jmone]

We already fully support bitstreaming of all HD audio formats, including the TrueHD Atmos streams and DTS:X streams.

Would it be possible to add a separate Atmos bitstreaming option in Tools--> Options--> Audio--> Settings--> Bitstreaming--> Custom?  Easier than setting up a ZoneSwitch (and having to tag these disks by hand) or resorting to bitstreaming all TrueHD tracks.
Thanks
Nathan

[Hendrik]

Would it be possible to add a separate Atmos bitstreaming option in Tools--> Options--> Audio--> Settings--> Bitstreaming--> Custom?  Easier than setting up a ZoneSwitch (and having to tag these disks by hand) or resorting to bitstreaming all TrueHD tracks.

Not really, no. We don't even know if a TrueHD stream has atmos extensions.

[jmone]

Would it be possible to make (at some point) MC recognise the Atmos extension as well then? 

I know that LAV has been Atmos aware for years, and progs like MediaInfo report this as well.... but I'm unclear what libraries is used and when for MC to make it's determination on what to do.  Is it during import/analysis or at the commencement of playback / switching tracks (I presume the latter).

0.63.0 - 2014/10/03
LAV Splitter
- Fixed: TrueHD streams with an Dolby Atmos sub-stream were not demuxed properly

LAV Audio
- Fixed: TrueHD streams with an Dolby Atmos sub-stream did not decode