Atmos PC to AVR..... so close?

[jberq]

I thought I had come up with a simple solution to get my Atmos BluRay audio onto my HDD to play from PC via HDMI to my AVR.

Using VLC Media Player I set the audio preferences to HDMI passthrough (thank you internet). I then opened an image file (.iso) of a disk to play. All seemed to work. Menu comes up onsceen, select Atmos and play. My AVR shows receiving 48k Atmos/TrueHD. And I do get Atmos audio playing. But it will play a few seconds the drop out (player shows file still playing) the come back, then drop out again, etc. All the while VLC shows the file playing steadily in the status bar.

Further internet sleuthing led me to discover that DVD Audio Extractor (which I have used for many, many years) will do a Direct Stream Demux. This results in a TrueHD file (.thd) with Atmos metadata. When I tried to play on my media center laptop using VLC, the file plays (as .thd or .mka) but I get the same results as the image file above.

So I brought in a newer laptop and recreated the above steps. Still the same result. And what's weird is it seems that the sections of the song that plays and doesn't was identical through all test conditions.

To those of you much smarter than me, am I doing something wrong? Am I missing something? Can it even be done like this? It's frustrating because I feel sooooo close to a solution.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[sjcorne]

Have you tried an MKV file? I've gotten flawless Atmos playback from those using both a PC running VLC (or Windows Movies & TV) and an Oppo 103.

 

[Mark Anderson]

I use MakeMKV to rip the atmos disc to a single MKV file and they play fine from my PC to AVR via HDMI using VLC or JRiver.
If I seperate tracks into individual files I get a thunk noise between tracks as the receiver switches from Atmos to stereo then back to Atmos.

 

[jberq]

First off, thank you both for your replies.

I spent the better part of yesterday and this morning testing and troubleshooting and here's the recap of what I found.

I have six Atmos audio BDs I'm trying to rip. Four of them will rip and play Atmos successfully using ALL three of the methods I tried:

1- Use VLC to play disc .iso file.
2- Rip tracks using DVD Audio Extractor to .thd files then play in VLC.
3- Use MakeMKV to rip entire disc then play in VLC.

The other two discs (by a famous Liverpool quartet) yield the same results I described in my original post using ANY of these three methods. That is VLC will pass an Atmos stream to my AVR but there are numerous drop-outs in sound while VLC shows the file playing steadily. If I disable HDMI passthrough in VLC all files play properly but as MCH PCM not Atmos. I am ripping only the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 streams from the discs.

It seems the problems are just with those two discs.

So what is unique about those two discs that they won't rip/play properly? You've had success with them?

P.S. I use AnyDVD HD. MakeMKV pops up a warning about it running whether I disable AnyDVD HD or not. And it posed no problem on the other four discs.

Thanks again for your expertise.

 

[somethingcleveridunno]

First off, thank you both for your replies.

I spent the better part of yesterday and this morning testing and troubleshooting and here's the recap of what I found.

I have six Atmos audio BDs I'm trying to rip. Four of them will rip and play Atmos successfully using ALL three of the methods I tried:

1- Use VLC to play disc .iso file.
2- Rip tracks using DVD Audio Extractor to .thd files then play in VLC.
3- Use MakeMKV to rip entire disc then play in VLC.

The other two discs (by a famous Liverpool quartet) yield the same results I described in my original post using ANY of these three methods. That is VLC will pass an Atmos stream to my AVR but there are numerous drop-outs in sound while VLC shows the file playing steadily. If I disable HDMI passthrough in VLC all files play properly but as MCH PCM not Atmos. I am ripping only the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 streams from the discs.

It seems the problems are just with those two discs.

So what is unique about those two discs that they won't rip/play properly? You've had success with them?

P.S. I use AnyDVD HD. MakeMKV pops up a warning about it running whether I disable AnyDVD HD or not. And it posed no problem on the other four discs.

Thanks again for your expertise.

Of course it's Apple that doesn't play nicely with other technology.

 

[HomerJAU]

Try the latest version of VLC.

Abbey Road has an extremely high bitrate which caused problems in Kodi until a (Kodi) fix was released.

 

[jberq]

Try the latest version of VLC.

Abbey Road has an extremely high bitrate which caused problems in Kodi until a (Kodi) fix was released.

I am running the latest version of VLC Media Player.

Well, I thought you may have nailed it here.

I played all six BDs in my Oppo and checked the data rates on each.
- The two discs whose rips I cannot play properly run 25-32 Mbps.
- The first three discs I can play properly run 5-16 Mbps.
- But the last disc (Polish prog favorites), which did rip/play properly runs 20-32 Mbps.

It certainly feels like a data rate/buffering issue. But then why did the last rip work? And in one of my ripping techniques, I'm only ripping the TrueHD audio, no video.

But in your experience Kodi will play the problem rips?

Thanks again for your help.

 

[pat bateman]

Sorry for the elementary suggestion, but have you tried switching HDMI cables? I just had an HDMI cable go bad on me last month, and the problem manifested itself with audio cutting out only. New cable, all was fixed. Definitely not a bitrate problem, but possibly an HDMI handshake problem.

 

[jberq]

Sorry for the elementary suggestion, but have you tried switching HDMI cables? I just had an HDMI cable go bad on me last month, and the problem manifested itself with audio cutting out only. New cable, all was fixed. Definitely not a bitrate problem, but possibly an HDMI handshake problem.

No apologies necessary, I appreciate any ideas offered. As a sign of how obsessed I've become with this problem I have tried five different HDMI cables, all with the same results.

I'm starting to wonder if it's not an (Apple) Atmos metadata issue. It's only the two Apple releases that are a problem and it's the same on both discs. As I stated earlier I am only ripping the Dolby True HD 7.1 stream. When I disable HDMI pass-through in VLC all the files play perfectly with my AVR receiving MCH PCM. So I think it's reading the bed channels (if I understand Atmos architecture correctly) and playing them.

So again I ask. Has anyone successfully ripped these two discs and if so, what ripping/playback processes did you use?

 

[jberq]

OK the journey is over. I have surrendered. Only because I realized the solution was right under my nose all along. I loaded all the .mkv files on a USB stick and plugged it onto the back of my Oppo UDP-203. DUH!!!!

I guess I was focused on making it work on the laptop I use for ALL of my other music.

C'est la vie.

And again thanks to all of you who offered advice.

 

[gene_stl]

This is one area where analog may be superior to digital. It almost always plays.

 

[jberq]

This is one area where analog may be superior to digital. It almost always plays.

post deleted, I misunderstood