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[vigotone]

I stream DSF files over DLNA from my Mac Mini to my Oppo 205 flawlessly. My Marantz Pre/Pro registers the incoming signal as DSD, so everything is perfect.

Today I tried doing the same with DFF files and they just won't play! Is there a setting in Media Network options that needs to change?

Thanks in advance.

[bob]

If the Oppo can actually play dff files over DLNA you may need to play with the mimetype in MC's fileassociations.xml.
I'd check into the Oppo docs first. Note that it can play more formats on a USB card than it can over a network so you may or may not be able to get this to work.

[vigotone]

Thanks Bob. From what I can tell, the Oppo can play DFF files, but no telling if it can do so over DLNA. How do I monkey around with the mimetype?

I guess I could convert the DFF files to DSF, but it sounds like it would have to go through a PCM step to accomplish that, which would negate the whole point of having DSD in the first place.

[bob]

Thanks Bob. From what I can tell, the Oppo can play DFF files, but no telling if it can do so over DLNA. How do I monkey around with the mimetype?

I guess I could convert the DFF files to DSF, but it sounds like it would have to go through a PCM step to accomplish that, which would negate the whole point of having DSD in the first place.

Just tested my Oppo BDP-103 and it plays both dsf and dff fine without any changes.
The Oppo does only support 1x though (DSD64) through DLNA at any rate.
If yours is a higher sample rate only have the option of converting it and in MC that means going through a PCM stage.

[vigotone]

Thanks Bob. These dff files are 1x DSD64, so they should play to the Oppo via DLNA. Any idea what settings I can toy with to get it to work? Everything else (Atmos mka, dsf DSD, 5.1 FLAC, etc.) plays flawlessly, but dff just isn't working!

[JimH]

Try renaming the file.

[vigotone]

Changed the file name from .dff to .dsf, but I get the same result. It buffers for about a second, then gives up. Could the lack of a sidecar file have anything to do with the issue?

[JimH]

Probably not.  The oppo just doesn't like the file.

[vigotone]

Understood. Looks like the only way I can play the file is by using "Player" in MC, which sends Core Audio via USB to the Oppo 205 as a DAC. Since the USB input on the Oppo only accesses the stereo DAC, I won't be able to play any multichannel dff files, but at least I can get the stereo tracks to play.

Thanks so much for your help, Bob!

[Awesome Donkey]

If you have a Mac handy you can try the old dff2dsf app which will repackage a DFF file to a DSF file without doing any sort of conversion. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any equivalent for Windows or Linux. Otherwise if the DFF files were created from a SACD ISO (and you still have it) you may have to redo the extraction process to DSF instead of DFF.

[Awesome Donkey]

Oh, there's a new app called Deffy that says it'll convert DFF to DSF without any PCM conversion step. Did a quick test and it does seem to do it very well, might be worth a try!

https://www.mymymyohmy.com/software/deffy.html

[vigotone]

Thanks! I'm on a Mac, so I tried dff2dsf, but it says it can't process DST compressed data (no idea what that means).

I'll try Deffy using Parallels...

[Awesome Donkey]

DST means it's compressed. Deffy actually has an option to decompress DST to back to "normal" DSD while keeping it as a DFF file or it seems you can just convert it to a DSF file. Might be interesting to experiment with regardless, just know decompressing DST likely means filesize likely will increase.

[vigotone]

That worked! What a relief. Looks like I'll be using this to convert all dff files to dsf before adding them to my server (unless there's a reason to leave them as dff, but I can't imagine why if there's no compromise in sound quality and there was no PCM step introduced in the conversion).

Thanks so much, Donkey!

[Awesome Donkey]

Excellent! Glad it worked! Also glad to discover a new fun DSD utility too.

IMO there's no reason to use or keep DFF files (except *maybe* for DST compression if that actually matters). DFF (Phillips' DSD filetype) completely lacks metadata support whereas DSF (Sony's DSD filetype) supports it, so you can embed artwork and whatnot into DSF files. DFF does support compression (which is DST) however DSF lacks compression support. With DFF files you'd have to use sidecars or something like that to save metadata info. DSF is what I use for my 1,400 DSD files in my music library.

[vigotone]

Here's a weird result: the file I tested with plays fine, but for some reason, shows the duration as :16, even though the track is 2:13. The entire song plays, even though MC shows it as being onLY 16 seconds long!

[Awesome Donkey]

Hmmm. Do you still have the original DST compressed DFF file? If so could you upload it somewhere (Google Drive, Mega, Mediafire, etc.) and send me a link to it in a private message? I could tinker with it a bit and see if I can figure out what's happening.

[vigotone]

Just sent you a DM. Thanks again!

[Awesome Donkey]

Yep, sent one back with hopefully a fixed file.

Anyone else wondering how to avoid that issue you should try using the Strip selected files feature in Deffy first to decompress the DST compressed DFF file(s) to "normal" DFF file(s), which saves the decompressed (or stripped) file(s) in a Stripped folder. Then from there clear the list in Deffy then finally load the stripped/decompressed DFF file(s) from the Stripped folder in Deffy and proceed to convert it/them to DSF. Hopefully that gets it going with the duration displayed correctly.

[bob]

That's why it wouldn't play on the Oppo to begin with, it can't play compressed dff.