Thank you, I am starting to understand. If I rip the ATMOS audio out of a Blu Ray disc as a FLAC file, add that file to my NAS, use JRiver to playback from my PC, USB out to the external DAC, or HDMI out to the AVR,
Is there DSP settings to use?
For instance I have a zone player that I call 5.1 which I use for playback of all 4.0 and 5.1 music. I noticed in the DSP settings there is up to 32 channels, if my new system is 5.1.4 with 3 subs that would be a total of 9 speakers and 3 subs, does that mean setting my DSP playback to either 9 channels or 12 channels would work for Dolby Atmos playback?
(rec_head response fast fast lol ... so need to add quote ... less it appears I am disagreeing with him lol)
Nope ... that’s not it
Atmos is addition to TrueHD ... so Atmos sound tracks are TrueHD tracks with Atmos metadata embedded in.
You have to understand that Atmos is not just decoded but also calculated base on number of height channels you have and their relative position. So my 4 height channels output might be different from yours cause their position is different from yours.
So to play Atmos ... the decoder/receiver must receive full TrueHD with Atmos metadata ... if receiver is capable to do Atmos - it will do Atmos ... if not - it will just do TrueHD
There is nothing on PC that can decode/calculate Atmos ... that’s include MC that can do only TrueHD portion
But MC can bitstream (send unaltered TrueHD with Atmos metadata) to receiver ... so receiver can decode/calculate sound for your heights. That’s the only way to play Atmos from PC.
In short ... for Atmos ... you need receiver that can do Atmos ... then use JRiver to bitstream Atmos to that receiver
PS. Rippining Atmos track to FLAC ... will only get TrueHD potion of track ... all Atmos metadata is loss in these sort of conversion
PSS. As I mention earlier ... as of now ... MC does bitstreaming only for files that contain video ... if you ripped Atmos as audio only in mka container (which preserves Atmos metadata), MC will not bitstream that ... so you will only get TrueHD potion ... Hendrick mention that bitstreaming audio only file are on their to do list ... but quite low priority