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[vigotone]

Hi All,

I've been determined to add Dolby Atmos TrueHD music ripped from Blu-rays to my library, and I wanted to post about my experiences as a Mac user. First of all, my setup is as follows:

Mac Mini M2 Pro connected via HDMI to Marantz 8805 Pre/Pro
Media is on an OWC 18TB HD connected to the Mac Mini via Thunderbolt
Oppo 205 connected to Pre/Pro via HDMI and Analog
Stereo files are in ALAC
5.1 files are in FLAC

Typically I play music by sending it to the Oppo 205 via DLNA. Sometimes I play it via the HDMI connection to take advantage of Audyssey room correction (though this is limited to 24/48), and sometimes I listen via the analog outs to take advantage of the DACs in the 205. The disadvantage to both is the lack of gapless playback in DLNA. When I want gapless, I'll play directly from the Mac Mini via the HDMI out, this may or may not downsample to 24/48 due to limitations of the Mac (I'm not sure).

The first order of business was to figure out how to play an Atmos track ripped from Blu-ray. Originally I thought I should be able to rip an Atmos Blu-ray to MKV using MakeMKV and play it via HDMI out of the Mac Mini. I used MakeMKV to rip the Atmos layer from the Rush "Signals" Blu-ray. I dragged the file into JRiver and it registers as Video (which I expected). Unfortunately, the Mac Mini does not support Atmos (as far as I can tell) and there is no way to bitstream via the HDMI output. So the resulting playback was just 5.1.

Then I tried sending the MKV to the Oppo 205 via DLNA. At first, the playback was just 5.1. Then I realized I had HDMI set to Auto on the 205. I changed it to Bitstream, and voila! Dolby Atmos TrueHD playback! I was so happy when the Pre/Pro properly registered the signal as Atmos. The biggest problem was that I couldn't advance chapters (hitting the "Next" button went to the next video file, not the next chapter). When I go into the Oppo 205's network menu, select the JRiver DLNA server, and "pull" the MKV in (rather than the previous method of pushing it from JRiver to the Oppo), I am able to move forward by chapter.

So I was elated that I got this far. But it soon dawned on me that this isn't really sustainable because of the inability to tag the files. I can name the MKV, but that's really it. Then I tried using MKVToolNix to split the album into individual mka tracks. They imported into JRiver as audio, and I could tag them perfectly, BUT... they won't play as Atmos tracks, just 5.1. I tried it by pushing from JRiver to the Oppo and pulling it using the Oppo, but the result was the same. The only way to get the mka tracks to play is to change the Media Type (in the Tag window) to Video, at which point, I lose all tagging and the files are no longer grouped as one album. Also I have no idea if gapless would be supported this way (I doubt it since none of my playback via DLNA has been gapless thus far).

As a Mac user, I am not able to use the excellent Music Media Helper (though HomerJAU/Garry is working on a Mac version). I understand there are XML sidecar files that can be used in JRiver, but I don't know how to make or use those. Garry also sent me an .m4a to test out, but I couldn't get JRiver to play it at all.

So I am still in search of a solution that allows me to integrate a Dolby Atmos TrueHD album into my library that can be properly tagged and played back easily. I know there are PC solutions involving a NUC, a NAS, Kodi, a Nvidia Shield, etc. but I feel like these would all involve me changing my setup drastically. I'm open to it, but it would be great if there was a way to continue to ouse JRiver to accomplish this. Are there settings I'm unaware of?

Thanks in advance!

[santar]

Hi, I rip Atmos music Blu-rays to .thd files using DVD Audio Extractor using Direct Stream Demux mode. These .thd files then need to be renamed as .mkv files to import them into JRiver. I find these are automatically tagged as music but you can change the "Media Type" tags if necessary. The individual tracks can then be tagged with name, album etc. and art added as per other audio files (.thd files do not hold metadata so I assume the information is held in the MediaCenter Library). Playback from a MacMini via hdmi to a Marantz audio processor. Make sure JRiver/DSP Studio is not re-encoding in any way (turn "Output Encoding" to "None").

[EnglishTiger]

vigotone if you go to Tools >> Options >>  "Importing & Tagging"  the "Sidecar tagging mode"  and "Write to external sidecar files for media types:" both provide means of writing any tags you want to apply to a "Video" to a Sidecar file instead of to the video file.

[vigotone]

Thanks for your replies. I bit the bullet and got Parallels for Mac. With Garry's help, I got MMH up and running, and it's been a lifesaver. Now I can use MakeMKV to extract the Atmos layer from Blu-ray and save it as an MKV, then I use MMH to convert that big MKV file into individual tracks in MKA. MMH then tags the files and creates a sidecar xml file that allows JRiver to treat the MKA's as audio. Voila! Now I've got lossless Atmos albums in my server right alongside the 5.1 FLACs. I send them to my Oppo 205 via DLNA, which sends the signal via HDMI (set to Bitstream) to my Pre/Pro. It makes me so happy to see my Pre/Pro register what I'm playing in JRiver as Atmos.

The only hiccup is that there is still no gapless playback via DLNA, so live albums and (mostly) gapless albums like Abbey Road and DSOTM have to be sent as one long MKV, which means JRiver will treat them as Videos, and they don't sit cozily alongside my music library. Not the end of the world, but I do hope gapless comes to DLNA one of these days.