Geoff Martin wrote:

Hi again,

Instead of waiting on an "official" answer, I just ran a quick check on our BV11 in the listening room, using SW v.1.0.6.35496 (the latest release).

2-channel 88.2 kHz, 24 bit FLAC files can indeed be played via the Homemedia player (as can 44.1, 48, 96, and 192 kHz).

2-channel 176.4, 352.8, and 384 kHz are not currently playable in the Homemedia player in this SW release version.

I didn't check any other formats or bit depths.

Cheers

-geoff

Thanks for checking, Geoff! As I mentioned, I've been able to enjoy my SACDs played through my set-up, which involves an Oppo player connected to a Beovision 11 with Beolab 9s. I'm very happy with this set-up right now!

Best,

TA

 Millemissen wrote:

Seems that the HomeMedia/MediaPlayer is a pretty good music player - (if it had a search function, it would be perfect).

I agree! 🙂

Geoff Martin wrote:

John wrote:

Without wishing to put Geoff to any great trouble, I wonder if he could comment if this issue with the processor/DAC re M/C SACD in the V1/BV11 family has been addressed.  

Hi,

I've already started asking about this - since it's an issue that affects me at home as well..

The answers I've received so far are:

No changes have been made to the sampling rate compatibility of the HDMI inputs. This means that 88.2 kHz and 176.4 kHz are currently not supported. This, in turn, implies that the Oppo BDP-105D must be outputting its PCM converted DSD at either 44.1, 48, 96, or 192 kHz. Looking at the Oppo manual, it is unclear what they're doing exactly. On page 63 it talks about the sampling rate being, in part, determined by the number of audio channels (which is new information to me with regards to the HDMI standard). It is also unclear whether the setting of the upper sampling rate (p.64) also has an effect on the HDMI output. It's not explicitly stated that it does NOT, which is not terribly helpful.

There MAY have been changes made in the Media Player to accommodate 88.2 kHz - I'll find out more about this later in the week if I get a chance!

Cheers

- g

As always Geoff, thank you so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to comment.

It sounds as if I'm still out of luck playing M/C SACD's via my Sony Bluray player through the HDMI input then for the time being.

At the time I tried it and got no sound, I checked the Sonys specs, and it outputs DSD converted to PCM at 88.2 as I recall.

It's a glitch I hope can be fixed in firmware/software re the V1/BV11 family, otherwise It's probably time to start saving for the Cambridge Azur Bluray player which up-samples to 96khz if I recall correctly, if I want to play my collection of M/C SACD's.

if there's any further info coming from 'official' channels in Struer on the matter and you are able thus to comment, that would be great!

Many thanks again for the most helpful comments

Kind regards

John... 🙂

John wrote:

It sounds as if I'm still out of luck playing M/C SACD's via my Sony Bluray player through the HDMI input then for the time being.

At the time I tried it and got no sound, I checked the Sonys specs, and it outputs DSD converted to PCM at 88.2 as I recall.

Hi John, 

Apologies if I trouble you, but have you tried to play your SACDs recently? I'm curious as to whether you would get a different result, specially because apparently the BV11 media player now supports 88.2kHz sample rates (as confirmed by Geoff).

As mentioned, I've been able to play my SACDs and DSD64 files on my oppo connected to a BV11 via HDMI, but we don't know at what sample rate the oppo player is converting the DSD codec...

Thank you and best regards,

TA

The DSD to PCM conversion by Oppo is at 88.2 kHz.

But if the receiver (f.e. the BV11)  of the hdmi signal can not reproduce the audio signal, the oppo player wil convert it to a signal which the reciever can reproduce (44.1, 48, 96 kHz).

Oppo does not specify the format after conversion though

Does that mean that the Oopo decodes to 96 kHz, when the receiver (V1/BV11/Avant) can handle that?

Or do you have to specify that manually in the settings?

MM

John wrote:

It's a glitch I hope can be fixed in firmware/software re the V1/BV11 family, otherwise It's probably time to start saving for the Cambridge Azur Bluray player which up-samples to 96khz if I recall correctly, if I want to play my collection of M/C SACD's.

The Cambridge Azur upsamples everything to 24/192 - that is part of the Cambridge 'philosofy'.

I am not quite convinced, that this is the right way to go, and would prefer the V1/BV11/Avant to play back the 88.2 from the OPPO.

By the way there is a huge discussion on the 'net' which PCM format is equivalent to DSD.

Probably the 88.2 is what the OPPO people think is the nearest PCM format to DSD.

But exactly why Oppo has chosen the 88.2 as the output, you don't find defined anywhere.

MM

talfaia wrote:

John wrote:

It sounds as if I'm still out of luck playing M/C SACD's via my Sony Bluray player through the HDMI input then for the time being.

At the time I tried it and got no sound, I checked the Sonys specs, and it outputs DSD converted to PCM at 88.2 as I recall.

Hi John, 

Apologies if I trouble you, but have you tried to play your SACDs recently? I'm curious as to whether you would get a different result, specially because apparently the BV11 media player now supports 88.2kHz sample rates (as confirmed by Geoff).

As mentioned, I've been able to play my SACDs and DSD64 files on my oppo connected to a BV11 via HDMI, but we don't know at what sample rate the oppo player is converting the DSD codec...

Thank you and best regards,

TA

No trouble at all Talfaia

No, I haven't tried playing them again recently.

As I understand it, the media player would come into it when you have a NAS directly attached to my V1, say by USB, or streaming over a network via DLNA  - but I'm a Mac user, so no bluray or DSD support, or native DLNA support either - hence I use my Sony Bluray player (which supports SACD and can send out either DSD or PCM via HDMI from an SACD M/C disk) to play my SACD disks - well in theory, because so far it hasn't worked.

From what Geoff has posted, there has been no change as yet to the HDMI inputs, so I would not be crossing my fingers that playing SACDs via my Sony Bluray player/HDMI will work - granted though, it is a much simpler player than the likes of the Oppos or the Cambridge Azurs.

Nonetheless, I'll give it a try again when I have some time next week, just in case.

But really, this is something B&O needs to address IMHO.

Kind Regards

John... 🙂

Millemissen wrote:

Probably the 88.2 is what the OPPO people think is the nearest PCM format to DSD.

But exactly why Oppo has chosen the 88.2 as the output, you don't find defined anywhere.

Hi,

I can answer this one - since I asked that question to the people at Cambridge. At home, I own a Cambridge DVD/DVD-Audio/SACD player which also spits out an 88.2 kHz PCM signal when the source is DSD (I checked using an HDMI analyser that we happened to have lying around here in Struer...) - so I asked if I can change the output sampling rate.

Their answer was no - for my player, it's stuck at 88.2. The reason is that the sampling rate of SACD's is a multiple of 44.1 kHz (64 times, to be exact - so the sampling rate is 2.8224 MHz). Most players take the easy route and simply run the DSD and PCM clocks synchronously - so the PCM output has to be a factor of 2.8224 MHz. A few players, like the Cambridge Azur Blu-ray player, do asynchronous sampling rate conversion - so they can (at least in theory) output at any sampling rate.

So, the only remaining question is why the players that deliver an 88.2 kHz PCM output from the DSD-to-PCM converter (like my Cambridge DVD player) can't be set to output a 44.1 kHz signal instead. It might be that this is what the Oppo is doing automatically based on the HDMI handshake - but that's just a guess.

Cheers

-geoff

Reading the above feedback from Geoff made me realize what a strong performer the Homemedia player in my V1 is!

I spend the week-end enjoying Agnes Obel in Hi-res StudioMaster (24bit / 192kHz) playing via Homemedia to the Beolab 9's. Really wonderful!!

However, it would be even better if  the Homemedia User Interface could be further enhanced. Maybe we should make it a separate thread on the Forum to discuss this, but here is my wishlist for enhanced Homemedia Functionality.

- NetRadio (maybe in the next software release)

- A good search function (ideally, a search function which across my music libraries on the NAS, and the music services I am using (Spotify, Deezer, ...)

- Ability to make Playlists

- And, preferably, all of the above not only via the TV screen, but also in a convenient App  (I admit all of this is inspired by my Sonos User interface 😐)

Curious what other Beoworlders will add!