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[salvadordalisdad]

Hi Guys,

I have little knowledge or understanding of the inner workings of MC, so I'm throwing myself on the mercies of those who know...

I have been using MC since MC22, and am normally reluctant to update software because it breaks things.
However, the lure of "Dolby Atmos" capabilities suckered me in & I updated my main player machine (win)  to 32.0.20 (32-bit)
Unfortunately it now won't play some MKA files.
My main focus os on multi-channel music, much of which comes from DVDs and therefore monolithic MKA files offer the least processing to get MC to play them. They are 96khz, 32-bit, 5.1 or 7.1 contents

The error message says it can't play 192khz 8channels (huh? that's not what the contents of the fila are) - is it getting it wrong?

SInce I upgraded, MC seems to have reset all of any settings I used to have in the DSP & Output Format settings box (DSP Studio)
So everything got reset back to "no change"
Other MKA files with 96khz contents play fine.

Maybe my AMP (via HDMI) is limited to 96khz, so I have now set them all to 96khz regardless - still get same error.
I also enabled Dolby Digital (the amp has a decoder), but that limits me to 3.1 or 5.1 channels, so switched that off again.
I also set the output to 7.1
I also checked the contents of the MKA files - 96khz, 32 bits, channels 3F2M/LFE

Please can someone suggest the seettings I need to make it work again ?
Thanks in advance.

[Hendrik]

It sounds like you have bitstreaming turned on for DTS, which for DTS-HD has a transmission format of 192kHz at 8 channels - matching your error.
And your receiver is not liking DTS-HD bitstreaming.

You can turn bitstreaming off in the settings under Audio -> Bitstreaming, or even select individual codecs its enabled for (using "Custom") if you want only to use some of them (eg. TrueHD for Atmos). Although I'm not sure I have seen a AV Receiver that can process TrueHD but not DTS-HD, but I certainly don't know all the hardware there is.

[salvadordalisdad]

Wooohooo Hendrick, nice one!

You're correct, bitstreaming was set to YES.
Turning it to None (recommended) has fixed it, thanks.

However, it does beg another question...
MY amp is Dolby Atmos capable, (although I don't have the extra speakers on my ceiling yet)
Doesn't that need bitstreaming to work?  (I only think that because it said something like that in teh MC32 announcement, which I may have mis-remembered, of course!)

If that's the case, then is my amp lying about Dolby Atmos support ?

Thanks VERY much for the quick answer.

EDIT:
According to a review of this amp, "It handles DSD 2.8/5.6MHz, FLAC, WAV and AIFF up to 192kHz/24-bit and ALAC to 96kHz/24-bit."
The amp's manual is more explicit, but not specific about numbers, but has all of the types listed in MC32 except DSD.
So I have enabled them all as "custom" except DSD
Didn't work, same error, WASAPI couldn't handle it
So tried all of the options under "Audio Device"
The direct device (correctly identified as my amp model) also says "Intel SST Audio Device (WDM)(WASAPI)"
So I'm beginning to suspect it may be the Intel device driver which is at fault...maybe
So Atmos is another step away yet...?

maybe this is real & not malware?
https://www.getdroidtips.com/dolby-atmos-windows/


Comments & suggestions welcome

[Hendrik]

For Atmos support, you need Bitstreaming, correct.

Its certainly possible it supports some form of Atmos bitstreaming, but not DTS-HD. You can use the "Custom" bitstreaming mode to select which formats you want. Atmos can be either in E-AC3/DolbyDigitalPlus, or Dolby TrueHD, depending on your file.

What kind of model is it? We could look at a specsheet and see what they say about that.

[salvadordalisdad]

Hi Hendrick,
Sorry should have said what model!
Yamaha RX-V581

How do I find out what format the MKA is made up of?

Thanks again, much appreciated.
;-)

On reading a bit more, I'm beginning to wonder if the PC hardware is not capable...someone said something about must be HDMI 2.0 or something.
That's my difficulty - too little info & lots of rumours...as a techie I find that frustrating!

[salvadordalisdad]

OK, more reading, looks like the Yamaha RX-v581 is supposed to use bitstreaming, but it doesn't work.
It certianly has "Atmos" written all over it. Maybe that's just marketing and it's too early a release to cover all the options.
Interesting that although it's a bluray source, isn't TrueHD a lossy format?
Shouldn't they be using DD+ ? (asking for a friend)

I pretty certain I have a Dolby TrueHD MKA file, as it's confirmed when I choose "custom" and allow for Dolby TrueHD only.
but it still errors with
"Playback could not be started on the output WASAPI using the format 192 kHz 8ch"

However, if I switch off bitstreaming, the input/output cog says:
Input = 48kHz 24 bit 8ch
Output = 48kHz 16 bit 7.1 -> 5.1

So it should be able to output it in bitstreaming mode,
Still pretty impressive to listen to though, whatever the audio content or path...

I'd really like to understand it a bit more though.
Ta for any pointers.

[Hendrik]

TrueHD is lossless, DD+ is lossy.

The AV Receiver should be able to do bitstreaming just fine. Maybe its your HDMI port. Updating the graphics drivers and the included audio drivers might help.

[jctcom]

Could also be your HDMI Cable itself.  Cable has to be 2.0 or higher compliant.

Actually makes a huge difference.

Carl

[salvadordalisdad]

Hi All,

Thanks for the helpful answer, it's now working again for MKA files.
It refuses to do bitstreaming though.

I'm beginning to think that it's the whole chipset/drivers thing, rather than a cable thing (not saying it doesn't ALSO need a 2.0 cable!)
All the notes I'v efound from googling refer to really up-market graphics controllers, and I can't even get new drivers for mine!
So it's parked for now. Maybe I'll come back to it another time.

Thanks again, solved.

[jctcom]

I pretty certain I have a Dolby TrueHD MKA file, as it's confirmed when I choose "custom" and allow for Dolby TrueHD only.
but it still errors with
"Playback could not be started on the output WASAPI using the format 192 kHz 8ch"

However, if I switch off bitstreaming, the input/output cog says:
Input = 48kHz 24 bit 8ch
Output = 48kHz 16 bit 7.1 -> 5.1

Hi I noticed earlier that you said you don't have the ceiling speakers yet.  In that case most Atmos receivers have a "Virtual" ceiling speaker setting for "Virtual Atmos".  I wonder if that is turned on for your receiver.  If not your receiver might be reporting that it is only 5.1 (6 channels) capable rather than 7.1 (8 Channels). 

When you are converting to PCM MC is converting to 5.1 but I don't think it is capable of doing that when bit streaming since bit streaming does not use the JRiver engine.

That is how my Yamaha is set up since I also do not have actual ceiling speakers.

Carl.

[JrPinto]

Have you tried updating your graphics drivers with those provided by the manufacturer, instead of using those from Microsoft?