More channels = more problems

[Old Quad Guy]

Too bad they don’t make Oppo’s anymore. I suppose after one factor’s in computer costs and extras, you’re about there with the cost of an Oppo when they were making them.

Perhaps a computer might work if you build one or get one that works with one’s Amp. If one could dial in a computer to work with one’s Amp, then keep the computer offline and don’t update software, just as with Oppo.

But the advantage of the Oppo or another disc player that can play MC files is being able to control, say, USB media with a remote.

Not sure if there’s a remote control solution (Bluetooth?) for computer if you’re not connected to the internet. Ideally I don’t want the computer that’s connected to the Amp on the internet at all. And have my software and apps dialed in. Perhaps something like Foobar 2000 for playback, with a Bluetooth keyboard as the remote.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

But the advantage of the Oppo or another disc player that can play MC files is being able to control, say, USB media with a remote.
Not sure if there’s a remote control solution (Bluetooth?) for computer if you’re not connected to the internet.

Sure. Many options.

 

[Audiowannabee]

The future is here, and it's shit!

Dropped thousands of dollars on new equipment, spent hours installing 4 ceiling speakers and running wire everywhere. Became even more acquainted with this "money pit" and discovered the section of wall that was rebuilt after the fire (what fire....dunno....but there's charred wood in the ceiling and attic, so there was at some point) was built like fort knox - fire blocks all over the place, filled with insulation, and all the horrible things to get in the way of running cable. Mind you, I'm not against fire blocks and insulation, but when 95 percent of the outer walls don't have it, that makes it rather useless, and just getting in the way. (insulating the place will be a future project, so at least I have a "head start" now)

So, hours later, time to pop in a disc and enjoy the fruits of my labor. And I discover......a PSfucking4 absolutely will not pass along ATMOS info!

Set it to dolby bitstreaming, but all the receiver sees is dolby true hd.

Great......so much for that plan.....

Googled - found people with the same problem, no resolution ever, and plenty of people that like to drive by and say PS4 doesn't support ATMOS, without explaining why it can't just fucking pass the info along to the receiver.

Whatever - I have a trusty old Oppo.

Which has chosen today to completely freeze up. First thought was, perhaps it doesn't like the Abbey Road bluray. (I refuse to update the firmware - they will take my iso playback from my cold dead hands)

But even after I take the disc out, unplug, plug back in, I get to a menu, and the only thing I can make the remote do is open and close the drawer, and even that eventually stops until I force it off or unplug it.

Way to go, Oppo.......I have tons of 70s equipment still going strong. My first Sony SACD player still works. But Oppos? Nope.......broken within 10 years. And now they don't even make them, making what stock is left go up in price. And those will all be dead in 10 years.


Well.....there's thousands of dollars and hours of work down the drain.

Fuck Atmos.


(yeah.....I'll probably just suck it up and buy another bluray player of some sort, so perhaps not all a waste. But damn, this sucks)

Im with U...gonna forget about Atmos...sticking w 5.1 n Quad

Be happy with what ive got

Fuck Atmos

 

[quicksrt]

Atmos is a fine and wonderful idea, beautifully executed, a lot more speakers, more cash outlay, and I hope every movie theater uses it for movies.

I am now happy with what I've got.

 

[Audiowannabee]

Atmos is a fine and wonderful idea, beautifully executed, a lot more speakers, more cash outlay, and I hope every movie theater uses it for movies.

I am now happy with what I've got.

Yep been a rough year n im cash poor so...no new avr...happy w 5.1 n staying there

 

[salsdali]

I play iso files on my computer using powerdvd and the bitstream is sent to my pioneer receiver via hdmi and it plays atmos.

I play dvd-a iso's using foobar the same way and control foobar with an app on my ipad

I own an oppo 93 with iso firmware and never use the oppo

 

[Old Quad Guy]

I play iso files on my computer using powerdvd and the bitstream is sent to my pioneer receiver via hdmi and it plays atmos.

I play dvd-a iso's using foobar the same way and control foobar with an app on my ipad

I own an oppo 93 with iso firmware and never use the oppo

What app are you using for the iPad to control Foobar? Thanks.

 

[salsdali]

What app are you using for the iPad to control Foobar? Thanks.

https://www.monkeymote.com/home

 

[Guy Robinson]

Or hire one of your tech-pre-wired grandkids.

In my house it's Grandad who helps the kids set up the tech.

 

[Sal1950]

I am now happy with what I've got, for now

Yep been a rough year n im cash poor so...no new avr...happy w 5.1 n staying there, for now.

Ok friends, I've fixed things for you.
In a couple years when a large percentage of new music releases are Atmos encoded, you'll join the party. You won't want to be left out forever.

 

[ar surround]

Ok friends, I've fixed things for you.
In a couple years when a large percentage of new music releases are Atmos encoded, you'll join the party. You won't want to be left out forever.

Sal, I'd like to nominate you as head of the official Atmos Challenged QQ Members Help Desk.

Seriously, I'm sure that there are quite a number of members here who are willing to help. HomerJAU started an FAQ thread among others:Dolby Atmos® FAQ

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...c[title_only]=1&c[users]=HomerJAU&o=relevance

 

[atrocity]

Nope, I tried 4.0 and 5.1 flac, and I confirmed in the documentation that network and usb playback only supports stereo. I questioned marantz support about it, and they came back with a lengthy explanation of receivers originally not being intended for TV use, but bad TV speakers resulting in it, and receivers not being built from the ground up for budgetary reasons......

I'm 100% convinced that the mainstream manufacturers figured out how to half-ass network playback long ago, said "Now we can claim it as a feature!" then never, ever even once considered updating or upgrading it.

The good news is that there are plenty of super-ultra-cheap tiny single board computers that will happily play multichannel FLAC perfectly.

As for Oppo, a friend just had his repaired by them within the last couple months for $99. They got it right the first time.

 

[Audiowannabee]

I'm 100% convinced that the mainstream manufacturers figured out how to half-ass network playback long ago, said "Now we can claim it as a feature!" then never, ever even once considered updating or upgrading it.

The good news is that there are plenty of super-ultra-cheap tiny single board computers that will happily play multichannel FLAC perfectly.

As for Oppo, a friend just had his repaired by them within the last couple months for $99. They got it right the first time.

Very happy to hear oppo still around fixing machines
Yeah

 

[Sal1950]

Seriously, I'm sure that there are quite a number of members here who are willing to help.

Like many others, I help when I can, but next to Homer I'm an ignoramus, he's my multich hero. His work on MMH is genius!

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Another update here.

As I stated, after a bit of trial and error, I got atmos working in tidal from my fire cube. But what is so frustrating to me, is that when I was having problems, I got misinformation and completely wrong answers from 2 support sources!

I had a very long chat with amazon support. That guy was completely clueless - kept copying and pasting anything he could find with the word atmos in it, to try and convince me that there was nothing wrong, I was just trying to do unsupported things - just wanted me to go away basically. He kept arguing that netflix doesn't support atmos, so no apps do, even though I was talking about tidal, and it specifically supports atmos. Unfortunately, this chat was before I found that tidal's page specifically states fire cubes support it. At some point, the amazon support guy insisted the only thing he could find that would support atmos on a fire cube is streaming Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan using amazon prime. I streamed that - no atmos, only dolby digital. He then said, oh, it only supports 5.1.2 or 7.1.2 - you said you have 5.1.4, right? I tried to explain that's not how atmos work - it will adapt to whatever speaker setup you use. He actually got a bit rude with me - telling me it's my fault that I won't configure my speakers properly. I humored him, set it to 5.1.2, and, surprise surprise, still no atmos. He escalated the case at that point - still no reply.

Meanwhile, when I found tidal's page specifically states a fire cube is supported for atmos, I figured, lets ask them. I submitted a ticket with all the details.

While waiting for a reply, I played around more - found information about uninstalling/reinstalling the app, disconnecting reconnecting the hdmi, and that tidal is problematic at recognizing and holding the settings anyways. Eventually what I found is, although my receiver was set to dolby, and automatically went into dolby digital or dolby digital + mode for the fire cube depending on what it was setting - it wasn't automatically going into atmos mode. But when I manually changed the surround mode to the dolby mode that supports atmos, bam, tidal sent atmos signal, receiver received it, and it works great.

Then I got a response from Tidal's support telling me the problem is that my receiver doesn't support atmos.

Really?

What a shame - atmos is doomed. I mean, the process is basically this:

Research different speaker configurations and buy a bunch of expensive equipment after research - I get that multiple layouts means versitility - but you look at the documentation showing the various speaker configurations, and damn, that's gotta be overwhelming. Maybe they'll sell a bunch of atmos speaker bars. But, I don't care what you send to it.....a speaker bar is a speaker bar, atmos or no atmos - you ain't getting anything I'd ever consider surround from a speaker bar.

Spend a bunch of money on a receiver and speakers - run wire everywhere - make holes - mount speakers.

Once everything is setup - figure out how to properly configure equipment.
blu ray players need to be in the correct mode to bitstream the dolby atmos signal.
streaming boxes need to be in the right audio mode.
The receiver might not automatically detect it's an atmos signal and put itself in atmos mode, you have to set that manually.
Using a PS4 as a blu ray player? Sure....you set the audio settings in the main menu to dolby bitstream mode - but there's a whole separate settings menu by pressing the options button while playing a blu ray - you have to set the audio to bitstream from there. What do you mean you didn't think to look for more audio settings after setting the audio settings in the main setting menu?
Then, if you can't figure all that out - you go to support - mind you, support for equipment and service you paid a bunch of money for - and you get misinformation and wrong answers from clueless workers that haven't been trained at all on these technologies, and have no reliable resources to turn to to get you a correct answer.


Meanwhile - my Yello bluray was out for delivery - listened for the doorbell all day - no doorbell. Stupid mail man left a slip in the mailbox that since a signature is required and "no one was here to sign for it", I have to pick it up tomorrow. Arrggh....I fucking hate our mailman, he pulls this shit all the time. There is always someone home. We have a doorbell. Yet, he'd rather be lazy and drop a slip of paper in the mailbox and lie that no one is home, then actually walk up 3 steps to push a button.

Good help is so hard to find. Unfortunately the future is rather bleak for Atmos.

 

[jimfisheye]

Unfortunately the future is rather bleak for Atmos.

Yeah, the longer they flat out refuse to release the codec and keep trying to force hardware sales in the interim, the less likelihood this format has to stick around or ever be taken seriously.

That someone who is clearly interested in surround sound and was even willing to go out and buy some of this early proprietary hardware to work around the restriction is still getting stopped by 'copy protection gone wild' practices is a really bad look.

 

[GOS]

Yeah, wow. Honestly, the writing is on the wall. Atmos, is doomed. As Jonathan said, no one that is in support is trained to understand it themselves. Ugh....

 

[jimfisheye]

This is shooting yourself in the foot level greed behind this. They seem so sure of the appeal of the additional surround channels that they think people will re-purchase their expensive DACs and AVR/audio interfaces all over again for it.

I think we need a few more years of baby steps with 5.1 for most folks and certainly a lot more releases in general before getting carried away. Blinded by greed is still the root issue here though. It sucks to see this scenario happen to creative efforts like this.

 

[humprof]

This is shooting yourself in the foot level greed behind this. They seem so sure of the appeal of the additional surround channels that they think people will re-purchase their expensive DACs and AVR/audio interfaces all over again for it.

I think we need a few more years of baby steps with 5.1 for most folks and certainly a lot more releases in general before getting carried away. Blinded by greed is still the root issue here though. It sucks to see this scenario happen to creative efforts like this.

I think what they actually seemed sure of--or at least this is what they devoted their efforts to selling, briefly--was the vague appeal of more "immersive" sound, delivered over soundbars and Amazon Echos. They don't really seem to care about people like us (who actually care about multi-channel audio the way it's meant to be heard). And they don't seem to get that the people who rely on soundbars and Echos won't really notice a difference.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

From the beginning, the consumer version of this format has targeted the sound bar crowd. And in general, the genera of releases and the sound quality will be targeted to that group as well. Its not even going to matter if it works properly or not, as long as Joe consumer sees an Atmos light turn on when he streams his lo-fi music and movies and can brag to his friends about how wonderful it is, all will be well with the Hi-Fi world. There may be a few artists and companies who take it seriously, but they will by far be the minority.