Bitperfect HD audio streaming on Vista; are you sure?

Last updated on March 8th, 2009

Hi ladies and gents.
Bitperfect streaming is still a big issue for HTPC owners.

Encripted HD audio: Still no solution even Asus Xonar is advertised as trasferring bitstream as is.
Encripted HD audio as bitstream or decoded LPCM is not possible to be listened as is since PAP has not been unlocked by any hardware audio card as of right now.
Decripted HD audio: Even decripted audio (using Any DVD HD) is not possible to be listened as is.
This time Vista mixer downconverts audio to 16/48.
I have Creative SB Xİ-Fi card on Vista 32 SP1 and i’ve been investigating for some time on how to overcome that issue.
Converting DTS-HD MA, True HD or PCM to flac and remuxing to mkv and listening that created mkv could be the workaround? The answer would definitely be NO.

The method i use:
AnyDVD HD for decripting.
Eac3to for demuxing:
Demuxing video and remuxing to mkv container as video and at the same time demux audio and transcode it to flac.
MKVMergeGui for remuxing to mkv container:
Remux video.mkv and audio.flac via MKVMerge Gui.
For decoding you need Madshi’s Madflac decoder.
Re-encoded files with libav to flac over libav, arcsoft or nero decoders are 24 bit indeed.
But when you introduce them to directshow workflow with any player, Dx orients them to Vista’s mixer which will downconvert them to 16/48.
When you open the created mkv with MPC-HC, madflac decoder pininfo gives the info as it is 24 bit. But you can not listen it as it is because of the Vista mixer.

What you see is not really what you listen.

PS: Setting Vista mixer to 24/96 is not a workaround; it is just a signal processing. Mixer just upconverts your downconverted signals; which means a real sound quality loss...

So you have to bypass Vista’s mixer via WASAPI exclusive streaming.



http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index...._Windows_Mixer

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....oo_out_wasapi)


SO HOW TO LISTEN BIT-EXACT AUDIO ON MY HTPC?

Audio Only Files:

You may want to extract HD audio files from BD disks and convert them to flac or wav/pcm.
Or you may want to extract mlp files from your DVD-Audio discs and convert them to flac: (for decoding flac you must have madflac decoder loaded.)

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...23#post1254323

These are the audio-only applications which have wasapi plugins:

Foobar2000

XMPlay

and commercial MediaCenter13 (no plug-in seperately)




Video+audio files:

You have to use ReClock 1.8.4.0 in "slave reference" mode.

Lets have a look at how to get bit-exact audio from an HD audio file muxed with a video into a container.
Here are the pre-conditions:

1) Source:

It must be the original disk or ISO for LPCM, THD or DTS-HD including files.
Otherwise Arcsoft will downconvert the source 96/6/24 audio to 96/2/16, in other words you can never get bit-exact audio when you open an m2ts file on HDD.
But you can open an mkv which has a flac if you have madflac filter and you can listen bit-exact audio.

2) Audio Decoder:

The decoder must decode Hi-Resolution audio.
For THD, DTS-HD and PCM, Arcsoft Audio Decoder HD is able to decode all of those formats as is. (including latest 129; since the decoder is the same with what 125 or 121 uses.) I gonna explain why 129 downconverts then
For flac: Madshi's madflac decoder is able to decode 96/24 flac.

3) Direct-show route or application itself:

Even TMT uses the same decoder, as i told before, after v.125, started to downconvert 96/6/24 source to 48/6/16.

How do i know decoder itself doesn't downsample?

*When you convert THD or DTS-HD to flac via eac3to, it is gonna use, for instance your 129's decoder and you will get 96/6/24 flac.

""I can even use arcsoft filters of latest 129 in MPC-HC (or Graphstudio -graph can be used with lower 125 versions) and get bit-exact. In this case you don't need ISO as well; you can directly open m2ts from HDD. (What is boring here is everytime you have to set audio to 5.1 in Arcsoft Audio DecoderHD properties page.)

Have a look at if you wonder how to configure MPC-HC:
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=110

Or you will find more details here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post16011249

So what i'd advise to TMT owners is:
If your retail is lower than .126, return back to .121; i don't advise 125 since some may live CPU utilization issues. And delete checkupdate.dll and checkupdate.set under ProgramFiles\\Arcsoft\\Totalmedia Theatre.

If your retail is upper than 125, try to configure MPC-HC with Arcsoft's filters. What is boring here everytime you open a file, you have to configure Arcsoft Audio DecoderHD to 5.1 manually.
Good news is you don't need original disk or ISO anymore.

4 )Audio renderer:

ReClock 1.8.3.7 and over; latest stabil version is 1.8.4.0:
http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.ph...78&postcount=1

After decode the audio as is and get rid of the application's frustrating DirectShow route, you have to by-pass Vista's mixer which means you have to use WASAPI exlusive mode.
The only renderer which has WASAPI support is ReClock right now.

Here is the configuration of ReClock:



And here is the config of the renderer:



Also see the second part of this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post15994670

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Please make test before posting. For details check these posts:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post15771144

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post15771446

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post15789431
_ _ _ _ _

I set Vista mixer to 16/48 so as to be sure.
When i open the mkv with any DX based players, Vista Mixer interferes.
How do i know.
Easy.
Click any system sound like vista logon sound while i'm watching the movie and i can hear the system sound. Which means mixer downconverts to 16/48.
But when i listen audio.flac (just audio unfortunetely for the time being) via Foobar2000 with its WASAPI Plugin loaded, i can not hear any system sound.
And if any DX based player has been opened while i open Foobar, i can never get any sound from that player but just from foobar with a strong voice.

Davinleeds,
could you test with these files:

flac audio:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ff40g5

mkv including flac:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/s1drfu

First, you have to load foobar2000 and its WASAPI Plugin:

http://www.foobar2000.org/?page=Download

(PS:You will put foo_out_wasapi.dll into Components Folder under Foobar Folder.)

And you should make sure you have madflac decoder and GraphStudio.

Test method:

Open audioflac first with GraphStudio and try to open any system sound, do you hear it?
Open the same file with foobar and try to get any windows system sound, do you get any?
And compare the sound quality.

And first open video+audio included mkv with any DXPlayer like ArcsoftTMT or MPC-HC and after open the audio only file with foobar and compare again.

_ _ _ _ _ _

You are welcome.
But i am not interested where you make the test in.
Test files have been already given.
If you believe in making this test has to be done from outside the windows environment, why not?
Please give us the results after done.


_ ___

I have two reasons:

1) I am told Xonar still can not make bitstreaming in Vista.
2) I want to decode the audio with my favourite decoder in HTPC instead of buying a new receiver and card.

You can compare if you wish:

Please set your Vista Mixer to 96/24 and watch the mkv i uploaded in MPC-HT.
Listen and compare the other uploaded flac file via foobar (with its WASAPI plug-in installed).

I think you will see the difference.

Do you mean Xonar with its sister card?
Do you mean i have to pay 500 USD?


_ _ _ __

I don't want to use a 250 buck card with a software which abides by the rules while the HW unlocks the PAP.
So LPCM transferring seems a big issue even after a payment of a 250 USD?

BTW, the avarege of my Blu-Ray Discs which have PCM audio is 60%

The statement says "rica has BD titles which have mostly PCM audio"
It doesn't say "they are not 16/48"...

So, does it mean you can just listen bitperfect audio over Foobar?

I use 32 bit.
I've been using MS Toys starting from 3.1.
But i always preferred to wait before jumping to upper bit edition until everything gets smoother.