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[Mitchco]

Long time 2 channel guy, never owned an AVR, so could use some assistance in this MCH HTPC configuration for a friend. 

He has both a two channel music setup and multichannel movie setup in separate rooms. The two channel PC setup uses JRiver’s convolution engine to host room correction filters. He wants to do the same for his AVR 7.1 MCH surround system, but use his existing AVR (https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/av_receivers_amps/rx-a880_u/index.html) to power the speakers.

He wants to buy an HTPC with a Blu-ray drive (or an external one) to play movies (not Atmos) using JRiver for video decoding and audio convolution. I have never owned an AVR so taking a guess. HTPC HDMI output to AVR input. HDMI from AVR to TV monitor. In JRiver Options->Audio->Audio Device select the AVR/HDMI audio device. In DSP studio->Output format choose 7.1 channels. Load the convolution filter into JRiver’s convolver which also contains the channel mapping/routing. Play movies. Possible?

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Mitch

[wer]

Yes, possible.  You could certainly do it the way you describe.

Yamaha receivers, like many others, have their own built in room correction capability. You would need to make sure that is turned off, or at least consistently activated during measurements, if you want to use MC room correction.

There are also separate hardware devices you can insert in the audio chain that do Dirac Live room correction.  So you have several options. Doing it using the convolution engine will be the most labor intensive way, if he's wondering about other easier options.

He would probably be best served by using 2 zones and zoneswitch, so that he can have different convolution profiles for multichannel playback with a sub vs normal 2 channel audio playback.

[Mitchco]

Thank you wer! Understood about the other options. This is for a specific use case to use JRiver's convolver. The room correction filters are packaged as linear phase FIR filters with 65,536 taps. In my own 2 channel system, albeit triamped, watching movies JRiver's convolver accounts for about 3/4 second of filter delay and the lip sync is perfect. I would assume it would be the same for the 7.1 setup?

Any concerns about the Blu-ray player, whether internal or external? I mean being able to spin the disc given the above chain no stuttering or the system trying to keep up? My 2 channel system seems to keep up when I watch movies with similar convolution filters on a not very powerful computer. i.e. not sure how much real power is required here from the HTPC. He was is of running it off a laptop like: https://deals.dell.com/en-us/mpp/productdetail/62w4 with an external Blu-ray player... I don't know how realistic that is?

[wer]

That's not the sort of thing I usually do, so I wouldn't be the best person to advise you on the speed requirements of specific convolution solutions whilst decoding bluray. 

I would expect an internal SATA bluray drive to have lower CPU requirements than a USB device, but on a modern CPU I doubt it will be a critical difference.  But I always rip to MKV. I have no interest in playing with disc menus and watching forced trailers and copyright warnings: I just want to get to my content.  That's what I would recommend, but I know some people like the menus and extras, etc.  Ripping eliminates any concerns about spin-up delay, noise, retries, glitches etc associated with live playback as well.

Perhaps someone else will come along with experience more aligned with your specific use case... There are several people here who do convolution with home theater, so one of them might see this.

[Mitchco]

Thanks wer, I really appreciate it!

[mattkhan]

no problem using convolution in this case and yes jriver delays video as necessary to keep it in sync with audio, a quick look at the yamaha manual says it has a "straight" mode which appears to be the no processing mode for multichannel LPCM.

playing DVDs with convolution does not work (as per https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=79916.0). I don't recall playback from a BD being a great experience (can be a bit glitchy) though I don't do it often and have spent no time tryin to optimise as I rip everything (full disc rips). IME PC BD drives are also pretty noisy so I hope the (HT)PC is in another room. UHD needs more horsepower to play smoothly for sure but BDs don't need so much.

[wer]

Straight mode on Yamaha doesn't actually deactivate the room correction... That's a separate step.

[Mitchco]

Thanks Matt! Yah, I remember having problems with DVD playback at one time and somehow it was back working, albeit not very well. I gave up on it and ended up what wer has suggested, I burn everything to mkv. I will be sure to let my friend know. PS. Thanks for the tip wer. There are quite a few settings on that Yamaha AVR looking at the manual. I can see how settings can get overlooked.