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[AllanM]

I don't have any old BluRay players, but they come up for free or cheap often. I know I could set up a Pi as a renderer  (actually, I have), but was just curious if

• it's possible to use a BD player as a renderer
• it's any better than a pi (with a cheap coax out "hat" from aliexpress
• if I can just set up the BD player and forget it and have it just sit on the network as a music renderer

[JimH]

Maybe, if it supported UPnP or DLNA.

[AllanM]

Maybe, if it supported UPnP or DLNA.

It’s my understanding they all do as that is part of the spec. Let me rephrase my question. Does anyone use a BD player as a DLNA renderer with JRiver, and if you do, can you please answer the above three questions. Your help is appreciated.

[Scobie]

I used my old Sony BR as a DLNA renderer for a time for music and it did the job no problem set and forget.

Trying to remember but it was finicky re video formats, which is to be expected, but if it was able to play a format it did so no drama.

[AllanM]

I used my old Sony BR as a DLNA renderer for a time for music and it did the job no problem set and forget.

Trying to remember but it was finicky re video formats, which is to be expected, but if it was able to play a format it did so no drama.

thanks!

[jctcom]

I currently use my Panasonic DP-UB820 to play my music via it's HDMI to my Yamaha RX-A2A.

My Pros:

it sounds fantastic (Even though it converts DSD to PCM 176.4).
It plays both stereo and multi-Channel.
It is rock solid and never disconnects (Unlike my Yamaha RX-A2A if I play to it directly)

Cons:
Even though in the specs it states that it plays gapless for both stereo and Multi-Channel I cannot seem to get it to do that. So I use it mostly for mixed playlists.

Re my comments about the sound quality above.  I am not sure why but when I output sound direct from JRiver through my NVidia GTX970 even though it plays at up to 24But / 192kHz it just doesn't sound any where near as good as going through either the Yamaha or the Panasonic via DLNA.  There is just so much more depth and detail in the music.

They Yamaha sounds great even though it only does stereo.  it does do gapless.  But for some reason JRiver loses the connection to it and wipes the now playing list in the process.  This seems to happen anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour or so randomly.

It's too bad that CloudPlay does not yet work over DLNA.

Carl.

[AllanM]

Thanks Carl.  I also have a Yama in the HT, an RZ-A3080.  Love it

It’s possible the GTX card isn’t passing through bitperfect audio. It’s even possible it’s transcoding the audio or messing with it in some way.  When you play DLNA the receiver pulls the file from the server and plays it unless you have transcoding set (which I assume you do not)

Regarding the Panasonic player, do you have to change its mode to play DLNA, or is it alway advertising itself as a renderer and will play on demand?

[jctcom]

Thanks Carl.  I also have a Yama in the HT, an RZ-A3080.  Love it

It’s possible the GTX card isn’t passing through bitperfect audio. It’s even possible it’s transcoding the audio or messing with it in some way.  When you play DLNA the receiver pulls the file from the server and plays it unless you have transcoding set (which I assume you do not)

Regarding the Panasonic player, do you have to change its mode to play DLNA, or is it alway advertising itself as a renderer and will play on demand?

It always advertises itself as available (Or at least is always shows as available in JRiver which the Yamaha and Sony don't).  Even from off.  Though I do find that it takes a bit to turn on and JRiver will choke out some errors on the first song or 3 while it is trying to connect.  Then you have to go into the playlist and double click those songs if you want to play them.  Once it connects though it is rock solid.  Too bad about it not being gapless otherwise it would be my all time player for music.

Even though it transcodes DSD to 176.4 it still sounds way better than the GTX 970.  The GTX 970 is definitely transcoding or something.  But still it is supposedly capable of 24Bit / 192kHz X 7.1 channels,  you would think it would be able to do at least as well as the Panasonic?  But it is pretty old.  Not going to invest in another card though till I know they are actually doing something about the audio on them (Plus I will need a new computer at some point lol.  put some more life into this one by swapping out the 6 Core CPU for a 14 Core / 28 thread one which made a huge difference on the sort of database programs I tend to use (Collectorz Music, Movies, & My Movies etc... and of course JRiver)

With the 64G of RAM it really does everything I need which is all multi-media and internet stuff.

I have an old Zonar HDMI Sound card.  But unfortunately it is an old version of PCI or something that will not fit into this board (Asus ROG STRIX X99)

And I have never seen another HDMI Sound card since.

Carl

[Manfred]

To look at the BD player DLNA capabilities use Whitebear DMR Analyser- search for it in the MC forum- it gives you recommended settings for your specific DLNA device.

Generally it should work. I had a Sony BD player 8 years ago and it worked.

For stereo I had always used SPDIF (coax) or Optical out. SQ much better than HDMI->TV->Optical->DAC.

On Audioscience Review you could find an interesting article about SQ using HDMI:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/a-deep-dive-into-hdmi-audio-performance.56/