Peter Gabriel I/O (2CD/Blu-Ray with Dolby Atmos mix out 12/1!)

[LuvMyQuad]

So far, I'm loving the album, but am considerably less impressed with the Atmos mix, which just doesn't seem to work on my system. I know that I am Atmos compatible as discs of Steven Wilson's The Harmony Codex and King Crimson's new(Ish) Atmos mix of In the Court of the Crimson King (plus others) play beautifully.

In contrast, i/o is encoded as DD + DSur on my Denon A/V Receiver and only appears to play as stereo. The DarkMix through multichannel stereo sounds much better, but I feel I'm missing out on the advertised 3D experience. I thought the problem might be with the disc itself, so I exchanged it only to get the same flat sound with the replacement.

Any suggestions on how I might resolve this, short of investing in a new system? TIA

How are you trying to play it? Is the AVR Atmos capable or are you limited to 5.1. is the disc player set to bitstream?

 

[edmayall]

Have you tried pure button?

Yes, no discernible change to output.

 

[madscot]

Yes, no discernible change to output.

Very strange if other atmos discs work, when I got my new avr I was getting true hd instead of atmos until I hit the pure/direct button as the internal settings were on something other than atmos.
Re i/o, are you hitting the green button for atmos before hitting play?

 

[AYanguas]

So far, I'm loving the album, but am considerably less impressed with the Atmos mix, which just doesn't seem to work on my system. I know that I am Atmos compatible as discs of Steven Wilson's The Harmony Codex and King Crimson's new(Ish) Atmos mix of In the Court of the Crimson King (plus others) play beautifully.

In contrast, i/o is encoded as DD + DSur on my Denon A/V Receiver and only appears to play as stereo. The DarkMix through multichannel stereo sounds much better, but I feel I'm missing out on the advertised 3D experience. I thought the problem might be with the disc itself, so I exchanged it only to get the same flat sound with the replacement.

Any suggestions on how I might resolve this, short of investing in a new system? TIA

Assuming your disc is in good condition, You should:

1 - Select the Atmos mix Sound Option from the Blu-Ray menu, or with any of the Quick button selection that your Blu-ray Player supports.

2 - With the Denon remote, press the "music" or any "options" button that you may have to get a list, ideally on TV screen (OSD) of the available sound options. You should find an Option that says "Dolby Atmos". Or "Dolby Atmos /Dsur" or something similar. Then the Denon AVR display should show exactly "Dolby Atmos".

If you donf find the "option" Dolby Atmos to select, something is wrong: the AVR is not recognizing the Dolby Atmos format, or the Player is not playing the Dolby Atmos sound track.

Actually, this Dolby Atmos mix is pretty good!

 

[weekendtoy]

@edmayall - Silly question but you sure you have the right disc in

 

[ted_b]

So far, I'm loving the album, but am considerably less impressed with the Atmos mix, which just doesn't seem to work on my system.

I'm confused by this comment? How can you have ANY impression if the Atmos layer is not working on your system?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

So far, I'm loving the album, but am considerably less impressed with the Atmos mix, which just doesn't seem to work on my system.

What model number of Denon AVR do you currently have?

 

[edmayall]

How are you trying to play it? Is the AVR Atmos capable or are you limited to 5.1. is the disc player set to bitstream?

I have a Panasonic DMP-BD84EB Blu-Ray Player connected via HDMI to a Denon AVRX2500H AVR, which is limited to 7.1, but, as I mentioned, is fine playing other Atmos discs. The output from the player is bitstream.

Investigating further, when you press 'INFO' on the AVR remote, it lists the input as Dolby ATMOS when playing other Atmos discs, but only six channels are listed with the i/o disc, so there is clearly something wrong. This is the same with both copies that I have - I have not sent the first copy I received back yet.

 

[madscot]

If you don’t have an atmos player how can it show atmos?, it should show Dolby true hd

 

[mandrix]

I have a Panasonic DMP-BD84EB Blu-Ray Player connected via HDMI to a Denon AVRX2500H AVR, which is limited to 7.1, but, as I mentioned, is fine playing other Atmos discs. The output from the player is bitstream.

Investigating further, when you press 'INFO' on the AVR remote, it lists the input as Dolby ATMOS when playing other Atmos discs, but only six channels are listed with the i/o disc, so there is clearly something wrong. This is the same with both copies that I have - I have not sent the first copy I received back yet.

Have you tried ripping the disc, or just looking at the streams with e.g. makeMKV to see if there's anything, IDK, weird?

If you don’t have an atmos player how can it show atmos?, it should show Dolby true hd

You don't need an Atmos player to bitstream, madscot.
Well what I meant to say is the player is bitstreaming to his Atmos capable AVR.

 

[edmayall]

Have you tried ripping the disc, or just looking at the streams with e.g. makeMKV to see if there's anything, IDK, weird?

You don't need an Atmos player to bitstream, madscot.
Well what I meant to say is the player is bitstreaming to his Atmos capable AVR.

I would try ripping, but don't have a Blu-ray drive for the PC.

I've attached screenshots of the Info box with I/O with Porcupine Tree's C/C Live for comparison. Despite the former display saying that there are 8 active speakers, I can only hear sound from FL and FR.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I've ripped this disk. There is a core 5.1. track embedded in the 7.1 true HD layer. My guess is the 5.1 is being played based on some default in the player. Is there a way to select 7.1 compatibility in the player?

 

[LuvMyQuad]

If you don’t have an atmos player how can it show atmos?, it should show Dolby true hd

I agree. How can the AVR indicate Atmos if it isn't Atmos capable?

 

[stereoptic]

Could it be that the player is limited to 2 channel for Dolby Audio? Here are the specs from the web page:

 

[edmayall]

I've ripped this disk. There is a core 5.1. track embedded in the 7.1 true HD layer. My guess is the 5.1 is being played based on some default in the player. Is there a way to select 7.1 compatibility in the player?

There's a choice of three audio outputs. Two are 48K stereo for the Bright and Dark mixes. The other is Dolby TrueHD 3/2/2.1ch, but it clearly doesn't come through as that.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Could it be that the player is limited to 2 channel for Dolby Audio? Here are the specs from the web page:
View attachment 100128

I believe that means it can only decode Dolby to 2ch because it only has stereo analog outputs. But it can bitstream multichannel.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

There's a choice of three audio outputs. Two are 48K stereo for the Bright and Dark mixes. The other is Dolby TrueHD 3/2/2.1ch, but it clearly doesn't come through as that.

I just re-read your original post on this and realize now you are only getting stereo and not just bad sounding surround. Hmmm... I don't play disks actually, just the rips. Is the menu selection unusual? Can you try switching streams with colored buttons on the remote?

 

[DrKlahn]

I just re-read your original post on this and realize now you are only getting stereo and not just bad sounding surround. Hmmm... I don't play disks actually, just the rips. Is the menu selection unusual? Can you try switching streams with colored buttons on the remote?

It's actually pretty straightforward. I remember just selecting Dolby Atmos and listening. Might have had to select the In-side mix first (only had a chance to give it a single listen so far). The Atmos indicator was displayed on the preamp and the correct channels played.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

@edmayall .... do you need to select inside mix first, and did you?

 

[AYanguas]

I agree. How can the AVR indicate Atmos if it isn't Atmos capable?

With my Denon 8500 (removing config speakers), and it looks the same with the @edmayall Denon "Porcupine Tree's C/C Live", Atmos decoder do "launches" when the speaker configuration is greater than 5.1

So it looks that 7.1 should be a "valid" Atmos configuration, even if there is no Top/Heights speakers. The objects would be rendered across the 7.1 available speakers.

This is "compatible" with the feelings that @edmayall has when listening to other Dolby Atmos discs. The other Dolby Atmos sounds "good" in 7.1. But for this one "i/o" there must be something weird that makes his AVR to read only the 5.1 substreamk, or even, only the stereo substream.

It looks to me like something strange with this "i/o" Gabriel disc that the hdmi sync from his Panasonic to the AVR, makes the Panasonic "think" that the AVR IS NOT Atmos capable, and send the lower substreams through the hdmi bitstream. Considering that with other Atmos Blu-rays it works OK.