HD300 HBR (HDMI 1.3) bitstreaming

[stanger89]

Anyone using HBR/HDMI Bitstreaming on their HD300? So, I finally got my new SSP that can handle HBR bitstreaming, so now I can get full HD audio from my rips from SageTV. Thought I've run into a few questions issues....

On most (but not all) rips with TrueHD audio, I only get DD, anyone else run into this? Maybe something "wrong" with the rips.

It seems everything, is bitstreamed, whether it should be or not, like FLAC?

And on the nit side, it seems you've got to stop before starting the next playback or you get no audio.

Anyone else run into these? Found any solutions? I haven't seen much talk about HBR bitstreaming.

[Beefcake550]

Hey!

I've been doing TruHD and DTS-MA bitstreaming since I got a HD300 about 1.5 yrs ago.

To make my rips, I demux the video and audio track and create an additional AC3 track (using EAC3). Then, I remux back together with AC3 track as track 1 and TruHD as track 2. I make this additional track for my HD200 extenders everywhere else in the house. Yes, I have to hit the "audio" button at the beginning of playback on my HD300 to get the HBR track. This has worked flawlessly for me.

I have found the latest version of the HD300 firmware has audio sync/no audio problems. I have the "working" firmware revision # at home, but you may be able to search the forums for this issue to get that info. LMK if you need this info from me.

My receiver (low end Onkyo) does not do FLAC AFAIK, and since my entire audio collection is in FLAC, I can look to see what happens on my setup. I will check to see what lights up for the decoding. I would imagine that if a given receiver can decode FLAC, then it should be bitstreamed.

[stanger89]

Cool

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

To make my rips, I demux the video and audio track and create an additional AC3 track (using EAC3). Then, I remux back together with AC3 track as track 1 and TruHD as track 2. I make this additional track for my HD200 extenders everywhere else in the house. Yes, I have to hit the "audio" button at the beginning of playback on my HD300 to get the HBR track. This has worked flawlessly for me.

So I'm guessing you're muxing into MKV, so the TrueHD track loses it's embedded AC3 core? I may have to look into that. Most of my rips (aside from TV episodes) are in Blu-ray format from ClownBD, so they've all got the embedded AC3 core present and it appears that the extender bitstreams the core instead of the TrueHD in this case.

I have found the latest version of the HD300 firmware has audio sync/no audio problems. I have the "working" firmware revision # at home, but you may be able to search the forums for this issue to get that info. LMK if you need this info from me.

You mean latest beta firmware? I haven't noticed any of that, other than the need to stop before starting the next file. But I've noticed some peculiarities with back to back playback before.

My receiver (low end Onkyo) does not do FLAC AFAIK, and since my entire audio collection is in FLAC, I can look to see what happens on my setup. I will check to see what lights up for the decoding. I would imagine that if a given receiver can decode FLAC, then it should be bitstreamed.

Yeah, mine doesn't do FLAC either (I don't think), so since I get no sound I'm guessing it's mistakenly trying to bitstream that too. No biggie here, since I hardly ever listen to music that way.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by stanger89

So I'm guessing you're muxing into MKV, so the TrueHD track loses it's embedded AC3 core? I may have to look into that. Most of my rips (aside from TV episodes) are in Blu-ray format from ClownBD, so they've all got the embedded AC3 core present and it appears that the extender bitstreams the core instead of the TrueHD in this case.

I was under the impression there was an option to enable/disable HDAudio. This would cause it to choose the TrueHD instead of the AC3 core. I don't have a reciever connected to my single HD300 though, so I haven't verified this myself. (I'm trying to recall, but I THINK this is set in the standalone interface, for audio, instead of selecting bitstream, you have to select HDMI)

[stanger89]

There's an option in the Standalone setup, a choice between regular bitstreaming and HDMI bitstreaming. I chose HDMI, and I get DTS-HD MA just fine, but the TrueHD rips (which show TrueHD in the Sage OSD) only register as Dolby on the processor.

Thinking back, I think the time I saw "Dolby HD" on the processor was playing my rip of The Matrix Reloaded, which was an HD DVD rip so I think it didn't have the AC3 core.

Of course there could just be some undetermined thing wrong with all my TrueHD rips as I've never had a way to test them til I got my new AVM50V

[Fuzzy]

Yeah, that does sound more like a rip issue. Have you tried playing direct from the disc itself, un-remuxed, to see if it plays the proper track, and what options are available in Select Language?

[Whitey]

I have found that BD rips with Dolby True HD always default to AC3 so when the movie starts just go into the audio menu and select the True HD track. This doesn't seem to affect DTS-MA.

When playing back FLAC with my system the HD300 converts it to PCM 16/44.1 to bitstream

Whitey

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Whitey

I have found that BD rips with Dolby True HD always default to AC3 so when the movie starts just go into the audio menu and select the True HD track. This doesn't seem to affect DTS-MA.

Do you mean you have to reselect the TrueHD track? Do they show up as TrueHD in the Sage OSD?

When playing back FLAC with my system the HD300 converts it to PCM 16/44.1 to bitstream

In extender mode?

[Whitey]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Do you mean you have to reselect the TrueHD track? Do they show up as TrueHD in the Sage OSD?

Yes under audio selection. AC3 is usually track1 and that's why sage defaults to it. The only movie I have that doesn't require this is a HD-DVD that I converted to BD that had True HD audio and thats the only track.

Originally Posted by stanger89

In extender mode?

Yeah its the only way I use my HD300. I think its part of the HDMI spec for a device to know what it'll support. I don't know of any recievers that support FLAC over HDMI.

I have a Onkyo 808 BTW

Whitey

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

I have found the latest version of the HD300 firmware has audio sync/no audio problems. I have the "working" firmware revision # at home, but you may be able to search the forums for this issue to get that info. LMK if you need this info from me.

I did a bit of looking but couldn't come up with anything from a search.

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Yeah, that does sound more like a rip issue. Have you tried playing direct from the disc itself, un-remuxed, to see if it plays the proper track, and what options are available in Select Language?

Yeah I tried a few, they show up as TrueHD in Sage, but they just play the core on the SSP.

[stanger89]

Alrighty, so I found the following thread:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...itstream+audio

Appears the magic firmware is 20110114, downloaded it, updated my HD300 (was running to 0506 firmware), and so far so good. I can play files back to back without losing audio (well scratch that I did run into one file that had trouble without stoping the previous file before playing, OK actually a couple...), I get TrueHD and DTS-HD MA for everything that should have it, including all the stuff that I had trouble with before...

So yeah, so far, so good, thanks for the help...

Now to get caught up on my BD ripping

[stanger89]

So, apparently the 20110114 nor the latest stable firmware really solved my issues, but I discovered something interesting last night. I don't see the same issues in standalone mode that I'm seeing in extender mode? Anyone know of any properties settings that might influence that?