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[mmcdona6]

Hi all,

This a subject which is discussed a lot in the forums/wiki and trust me I have read everything!!! I have recently upgraded from MC 21 to MC 23. I have one central JRiver server which contains my libraries, and a few client PCs around the house which access the central server but do not have libraries of their own. If you don't have a local library, then the 'backup library' option is greyed out, meaning there is no way to back up and restore your other settings, like DSP. Anyway, I uninstalled MC21 and installed MC23 on one of my client PCs and now I can't remember how I have my Audio Device / DSP set-up and as a result I can't playback my movies in Dolby Digital or DTS. I can only get 2 channels.

My set-up is:

A Windows 7 PC, connected by Digital Coax to an old Denon AV receiver (capable of decoding DD/DTS) without any HDMI capability. My PC has a built in Realtek high definition audio driver.

I have tried:-

Direct Sound v WASAPI
Adjusting output sample rates  to 44.100Hz, 48, 96 etc so it matches what the PC sound card is expecting
Adjusting output channels to 'source number of channels', 5.1
Adjusting mixing to JRSS, No upmixing or downmixing

Using WASAPI, whenever I play a 5.1 channel movie, I get the error 'playback could not be started using the format 48Khz 32 bit 6ch, this format would work: 48Khz 32 bit 6ch’
Using Direct sound, the multi-channel movie plays OK, but the AVR is only seeing 2 channels.

I have tried playing the same movie, on the same PC and AVR, using VLC media player and it plays with multi-channel no problem without any configuration, so I know there is no problem with the movie file or the PC or the AVR.

Has anyone got any suggestions of what else I can try? I have tried everything suggested on the wiki. I’m probably just doing something stupid of course.

Michael

[RD James]

You need to enable Bitstreaming in the audio options, and Dolby Digital encoding in Output Format.

[mmcdona6]

You need to enable Bitstreaming in the audio options, and Dolby Digital encoding in Output Format.

Thank you very much. In fact I only needed to enable bitstreaming and that fixed it.

[RoderickGI]

As a note for the future, you can back up your settings on a Client PC and restore them if they are connected to the local default Library at the time, rather than the Server. So if you connected to and then backed up the local MC21 Library before uninstalling, then restored that backup to MC23 once it was installed, you would have gotten all your settings back, and they would then be used when you connected to the Server Library.

I'm sure RD will chip in, but also note that you will need Dolby Digital encoding in Output Format if any of your source media is anything other than DD/DTS or Stereo PCM, because a Digital Coax cable can only carry stereo PCM or DD/DTS encoded into 2 channels for decoding by your AVR.

[mmcdona6]

As a note for the future, you can back up your settings on a Client PC and restore them if they are connected to the local default Library at the time, rather than the Server. So if you connected to and then backed up the local MC21 Library before uninstalling, then restored that backup to MC23 once it was installed, you would have gotten all your settings back, and they would then be used when you connected to the Server Library.

I'm sure RD will chip in, but also note that you will need Dolby Digital encoding in Output Format if any of your source media is anything other than DD/DTS or Stereo PCM, because a Digital Coax cable can only carry stereo PCM or DD/DTS encoded into 2 channels for decoding by your AVR.

Thanks for the backup tip.

I must say I don't fully understand the different music formats properly. If it is working and sounds good, I tend to leave it there. If there was a single article somewhere which explained it all clearly then I would love to read it. So far all my movies and stereo music are playing fine without setting Dolby Digital in the Output Format.

[RD James]

I must say I don't fully understand the different music formats properly. If it is working and sounds good, I tend to leave it there. If there was a single article somewhere which explained it all clearly then I would love to read it. So far all my movies and stereo music are playing fine without setting Dolby Digital in the Output Format.

If you are playing back DVDs, they will all be using Dolby Digital or DTS compressed audio.
Blu-rays and other multichannel audio sources may be using uncompressed PCM or losslessly compressed Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD audio.
Those formats cannot be sent over an S/PDIF connection. Enabling Dolby Digital encoding would convert them from lossless tracks to Dolby Digital compressed tracks for your AVR to play.
Bitstreaming always takes precedence over encoding, so tracks which are already stored as Dolby Digital or DTS will not be affected. However, encoding will also convert lossless stereo tracks to lossy Dolby Digital even though S/PDIF can handle lossless audio for stereo playback.