Article: Lossless Immersive Audio is a Win-Win

[JoeWhip]

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[The Computer Audiophile]

Thanks for the article @JoeWhip! I'm with you 100%

 

We have tons of lossy content on Apple Music, and more appears every day. It seems like Deutche Grammophon uploads at least an album or two per day! They must be sitting on thousands of lossless TrueHD Atmos masters, making them no money and pleasing no music lovers. 

 

I have to tip my cap to labels like 2L, TRPTK, Spirit of Turtle, etc... for offering us lossless immersive downloads. Just like when high resolution stereo came out, these guys led the way. Heck, I spent $200 on eight Atmos albums from TRPTK last night alone.  They're so good, I can't stop!

 

What pains me is seeing all the new vinyl releases, created from digital files, but no blu-ray release. The lossless TrueHD Atmos exists, yet isn't released yet. I don't care if it's a download, Blu-ray, or even a USB stick in a cool package like the vinyl, it would be all good with me. 

[ted_b]

NativeDSD has announced Atmos deliveries to go along with our starting Auro-3D as well, and we have quite a few MKVs to offer for download (once the internal system can be tweeked to catalog and retail them properly).  Stay tuned. 

[JoeWhip]

Can’t wait Ted!

[jhwalker]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

NativeDSD has announced Atmos deliveries to go along with our starting Auro-3D as well, and we have quite a few MKVs to offer for download (once the internal system can be tweeked to catalog and retail them properly).  Stay tuned. 

 

Looking forward to this, but ...

 

Can someone summarize best practice for playing back these .MKV files?  The last article I read seemed to require a pretty convoluted method (it even made ME, an IT guy, raise my eyebrows).  Do any of the common players - let's say available for Mac - support playing back these files, in full Atmos lossless glory?  

 

There has been a lot of pressure on Roon, for example, to support playback of Atmos content for some time, with no results I can see - what OTHER players could I use against my Roon server store to playback these files?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 minutes ago, jhwalker said:

 

Looking forward to this, but ...

 

Can someone summarize best practice for playing back these .MKV files?  The last article I read seemed to require a pretty convoluted method (it even made ME, an IT guy, raise my eyebrows).  Do any of the common players - let's say available for Mac - support playing back these files, in full Atmos lossless glory?  

 

There has been a lot of pressure on Roon, for example, to support playback of Atmos content for some time, with no results I can see - what OTHER players could I use against my Roon server store to playback these files?

 

It all comes down to where you want to decode the audio. Lossless TrueHD Atmos can be done on a Mac or Windows PC, or a hardware processor with decoder. The Dolby Reference Player required for a computer can't read MKV files. I just use the free Music Media Helper app that uses the Dolby Reference Player, to extract to 7.1.4 WAV files, then I can play them in any Mac or Windows app that supports 12 channels. 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/immersive/lossless-truehd-atmos-just-got-much-easier-r1170/

 

 

 

To use a hardware decoder, the easiest way is with an NVIDIA Shield. It will see the MKVs and output bit perfect to a processor. 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/immersive/playing-truehd-atmos-music-downloads-blu-ray-rips-the-easy-way-r1129/

 

[bbosler]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I spent $200 on eight Atmos albums from TRPTK last night alone.  They're so good, I can't stop!

 

 I assume (hope) we will get a review with your favorites when you get the time?

 

I find your assessments very helpful for deciding what to buy. For instance, I bought a stack of 2L discs, and even though all are wonderfully recorded and most I enjoy, some of the "music"  is (to my taste) just too painful to sit through. I'm sure others find it glorious.

[The Computer Audiophile]

13 minutes ago, bbosler said:

I assume (hope) we will get a review with your favorites when you get the time?

For sure. It's fun and easy to do :~)

[ted_b]

I play my MKVs via either my Zidoo Z9X media player (local USB drive) or my Sony Blu-ray player (local USB drive) into my Lyngdorf pre/pro

[JoeWhip]

I use the NVIDIA Shield Pro with an external LaCie drive, hooked up via hdmi into my Anthem processor.

[The Computer Audiophile]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:33 PM, bbosler said:

I assume (hope) we will get a review with your favorites when you get the time?

Here's Part 1

 

 

[bbosler]

Quote

As of 31.0.10, Jriver Media center can now bitstream Atmos audio-only files. Currently they accept .mka and .m4a formats.

You can use DVD Audio Extractor (DVD Audio Extractor -- Full featured DVD audio ripper for your easy use (dvdae.com) )to do the actual work. The software will see the Atmos tracks as 6 channel, initially. When you proceed to step 2 of the rip, choose "Direct Stream Demux" as this will get the correct format without any conversions. The output of the files will all end with .thd (dolby true-hd). Currently Jriver does not know what a .thd file is, so you will need to rename them to .mka. Once finished, Jriver will bitstream them to your processor which should decode them as Atmos. Jriver also shows them as bitstream Atmos when you view the audio path. You will get all channels of output.

 

I got this from https://www.avsforum.com/threads/atmos-audio-only-how-to-rip-and-play.3275122/

 

Is this something new? It seems I may ask the same questions repeatedly, but the other solutions I see are not as simple as a player like this that can just stream to my Trinnov, and other ripping solutions took multiple steps if I recall correctly. This seems very simple in comparison to other solutions I've seen 

 

 

 

[El Guapo]

7 hours ago, bbosler said:

Is this something new?

I personally think that DVDFab is more simpler...