[Sandyb]

Millemissen wrote:

@Sandyb It must be PCM, when it arrives at the BST, since the UHD player is doing the decoding. How is you speaker setup – 5.1 or 7.1? MM

Indeed, and I of course get that it should show PCM given my player settings. But showing the input signal as 7.1, not quite sure why the app would show that.

I’m not especially concerned, as the movie soundtrack sounded pretty good to me, and nothing seemed out of place.

[Sandyb]

Hard to know if exactly what the app is showing in these cases, from my limited experience

Just played the UHD Pulp Fiction disc on the UB820, which I’ve set to PCM any DTS content.  The discs main track (and what I have selected) is DTS HD Master Audio 5.1…….the B&O app shows the signal info as 7.1 and PCM.

Whether that 7.1 is due to something the UB820 is doing (quiet possible) or the app’s “fault” is hard to discern.

Sounds good though, and sounded fine when I watched the disc last weekend.

[Sandyb]

indeed, and I still havent decided how worked up to be about the Theatre and its lack of DTS support.

My Panasonic UB820 is set to output PCM (up to 7.1) for any DTS track, and playing some of my legacy DTS regular (non UHD) Blu-rays to the Theatre seems ok.

As for new UHD discs, and how many use DTS-X as opposed to Dolby Atmos, I’m not sure. Time will tell I guess.

[Sandyb]

good question – but I think the recent LG move has more to do with supporting IMAX Enhanced, which Disney+ will start offering, and IMAX Enhanced builds (from a tech perspective) on DTS.   The LG move is only to enable passthrough as well.

Anyway, I share your hope for the Theatre adding DTS support, but I’d really only give it a very v very small probability at this stage.

[Sandyb]

The only person i know of who has the 2.53 update is on the beta programme.

I’m not on the beat myself, so I’m not expecting that same update to come out of beta for a good while yet, so not point refreshing your browser (if you know what i mean)

He posted the release notes page on Discord, so its a real thing.

[Sandyb]

The 2.53 Theatre update (I dont have it, but someone else has), and here are the notes

Support for Tidal Connect

Apple Airplay Update

Spotify Connect update

Stereo pairing improvements

Improved Home Assistant support

Bug fixes / stability improvements

The release notes page for the Level say the same things

Guess its a Mozart platform update.

[Sandyb]

This was from Christian on the Discord server a few days ago…..to the question of whether a BLI will not longer be required (once Matter rolls out)….

Without having had a look in the crystal ball, I would say: probably not. Matter can potentially be the “saviour of simple automations”, but deep product specific features (let’s take the overlay functionality on Mozart as an example) will probably not be exposed via Matter. To me, a good, local, open and preferably well documented API will win over Matter-compatibility any day. Don’t read this as “Matter is baaaad!”. I think it will make it much easier for “everyone” to do more stuff with their devices in general suing Matter, but if you like the nitty-griddy stuff like me, I don’t think it’s superior.

13 January 2023
 

[Sandyb]

marvellous, thanks.

will experiment tomorrow afternoon.

[Sandyb]

Millemissen wrote:

The version mentioned on the B&O website is from last year and probably the initial one. Software 2.3.4.15123 – Release date 21st November 2022 I guess the time is due for ‘some bug/stability fixes’! I wonder if what you/Sandyb got, is the same as what is called ‘beta’ by now. MM

Just checked again – someone on Discord got updated to 2.5.3.

the update I installed today for myself was only 2.34, the November dated update.

So I guess I’m still “behind”, or the 2.5.3 is the beta….dont know.

[Sandyb]

Hmm, I do wonder if that is indeed the case.

Bit odd though – I checked its software status earlier this week just after instal, and it was up to date.

Someone else on Discord (who has had theirs for months) posted the notification of the update this morning, and when I checked my unit, there was indeed an update available.

And there was a whole page full of bullet points on the release notes.

Anyway, if anything else becomes clearer I’ll post an update.

 

[Sandyb]

That was indeed the point I made at the start of the thread.

It gets plenty of enthusiasm from those with BLI’s and home automation stuff, and I can understand that.

But it clearly gets a more shrug-like response from those who dont, and for whom their use is confined to music etc.

A pretty fair summation I thought.

Though I was pilloried for being a troll.

The days we live in eh….

[Sandyb]

I cant see the release notes now for some reason.

From memory, mentioned bug fixes / stability, somethign about BL14s, improved responsiveness to BR1 commands, something about Receiver 1 support, support fro 3rd party speakers….

May have been the odd other thing, cant remember now

[Sandyb]

Question (forgive me if this is a dumb q).

The TSG (page 23) says “Similarly, in cases where the Beosound Theatre is accompanied by two larger front loudspeakers, it may be preferable to use the three front-firing outputs to all produce the Centre Front channel (instead of using the centre output only).”

In my setup, with BL50s besides the Theatre, the speaker role/allocation settings page shows my Left and Right Front Firing as “Not available” and greyed out.

Anyone know how to engage them to try out the scenario described in the TSG?

Again, forgive me if I’m being dumb.

[Sandyb]

There is a Theatre software update today.

Just installed my update, was pretty quick

in case anyone hadn’t seen the release

[Sandyb]

Following up, I also added a new Panasonic 820 UHD blu-ray player, connected to the Theatre. This evening I tried to play some of my current (and 1080P) discs with DTS as their main track (obviously these are not object based DTS)

I wanted to see what results I would get, given the Theatre does not list DTS as a compatible format.

For reference, the Panasonic 820 allows you, in its settings, to send Dolby as Bitstream, and DTS as PCM (i.e no need to switch back and forth)

My findings were a bit odd.

With the player set to Bitstream DTS to the Theatre, when I played a movie, the Theatre had both picture and sound. The B&O app showed the Input Signal as PCM 7.1, even though the layer was set to Bitstream (??)

Changing the player to send DTS as PCM – again, and more understandably, the app showed Input Signal as PCM 7.1.

So it seems as if whatever my player is set to send to the Theatre, the Theatre app is showing PCM 7.1.

More importantly though – caveat being I only did this test with 4 or 5 discs – is that while the Theatre is playing a (seemingly PCM’d) DTS track, the sound was not great.  Most noticeably, the vocals were pretty restrained and not easy to hear. But this weak performance was not just confined to vocals.

Using one of my BR discs with a main Dolby track – the sound was much better, and vocals were prominent and not issue.

Anyway, I will keep tinkering, but it’s not clear thus far that playing my existing DTS discs will work with the Theatre.

Would be interested if others have tried and had any observations.

 

 

[Sandyb]

Evening all – I had my Theatre installed yesterday, wall mounted and a separate lately wall mounted 77 LG G2. Looks pretty neat and tidy.    The rest of the setup comprises my BL50s (as front L/R) and newly added BL17s are surround/rears.

Generally everything seems to be working fine, and starting from scratch it only really took me a few hours in the evening to get my head around the settings / app etc.

The only issues I am having are :

• if I mute the volume (using the BR1), the tv/theatre will often unmute itself within a few seconds.
• elsewhere, I can lose sound completely (picture remains) when bringing up and then removing the LG menus (or even using a webOS app, and then coming out of it). The sound is restored by pressing the source button again on the BR1.  My dealer has the same issue in his store.
• the BR1 will, under the List button, show the active HDMI source – it shows this second in the List list, underneath Theatre.  However, the BR1 is showing the wrong name as the active HDMI source at times (the associated PUC functions are correct to the active HDMI source).

Elsewhere, most seems all good.

Not sure if anyone else has similar (albeit these are small) issues.

 

[Sandyb]

What source is showing as 5.1 Atmos? (showing in the app under Signal Info – Input signal).

I’m assuming that this is where you are seeing the source showing as “5.1 Atmos”

[Sandyb]

Yes, then it does sound like you will have a chance of simple triggering via the Theatre/BR1 of lights.  None of this sounds imminent, so I suspect more will become clearer to all of us on the next few months. Like you my automation requirements are minimal (in fact I have nothing right now), but I do have in mind some powered blinds, so it would be nice to trigger those without one or more additional hubs.

[Sandyb]

Having done some more reading into Matter, it seems that alot is still unknown

What we do seem to know broadly, is that one will need

(a) Matter enabled devices (be they speakers, lights, blinds etc)

(b) A Matter controller – this sets up instructions/ automations, and can be purely software (app)

(c) A Thread border router – this is hardware, already exists in many routers, but also some devices like recent Apple TV 4K models, Amazon and Google blobs.

Can one avoid having a physical hub, given the above. It seems it is possible, emphasis on possible. The Thread border routing capability can be built into small smart home devices, of the manufacture does so (ie not just restricted to more bulky boxes like the ATV etc)

Of the 5 B&O devices that will gain Matter capability – according to the flatpanels article – I dont see any having Thread border capability, except perhaps the Theatre, with its network switch built in?  But if even the Theatre doesn’t have that capability, then people will need some hardware that does (Apple TV’s may solve that issue).

What we dont know (although Emilios quote from Christian gives some thoughts on) is whether, if you have set up automation scenarios within, lets say, Apple HomeKit as a Matter controller, the Halo / BR1 can access or trigger those.   He is perhaps hinting that simple commands can be passed through though.

 

 

[Sandyb]

I wouldn’t count on any of the Mozart devices as being able to act like a hub.

Your Apple TV (being pretty recent I think?) though will act as a hub for Matter enabled B&O devices.

 

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