New Dune HD Max and HD Smart anticipation thread Q3 2010 - Page 320

Originally Posted by syk69 

Awesome thanks!

Also in the review of the 303D, you mention a patch to decode DTS-HD MA to multi channel PCM. I believe this patch decodes the DTS core and so you don't get HD audio multichannel PCM. Major bummer for those without receivers that decode HD audio. At least according to this post from another forum...

http://www.avforums.com/forums/18482238-post559.html

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

Correct, it grabs the DTS core track (this is actually common for these players, I believe there would be a separate licensing fee in order to decode the actual DTS(MA) track). For a TrueHD Blu-ray it is decoding/passing thru the embedded AC3 track and not decoding the actual TrueHD track (once again, no license which can be seen in the inability to downmix a TrueHD mkv). My guess, the focus is simply only folks who use HDMI and have a receiver that can handle the decoding itself.

Originally Posted by syk69 

Do you know by any chance if the new prime 3d with the Intel chipset will be able to decode the actual DTS-HD MA to multichannel PCM? I have a HDMI receiver that doesn't decode HD audio. But receives multichannel PCM over HDMI just fine.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

What is the Prime 3D? Do you mean the Max 3D (I assume so since you mention Intel).. Honestly no idea, and no reason to speculate at this point. I would hope it would given it will be close to a $700 player.

Originally Posted by lazarus18 

I did that and after awhile same hdd is lost. So, it is related to the particular hdd.
It is still very odd because the two drives are the same model. Maybe this one is defective somehow.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

Question for you Dune owners, anyone know if you can output dual simultaneous audio signals? Someone has asked me, he wants to be able to send audio out via HDMI to his AVR and at the same time send out audio via analog to a pair of headphones.

Originally Posted by absolootbs 

i believe so. pretty sure i tested that once and found that all audio outputs are active simultaneously. i know for a fact that at the very least the digital coax/optical and analogs are active at the same time. thats how i have the dune that distributes through my whole house system set up - analog and digital both go to the matrix, rooms with receivers the get the digital audio, rooms without get analog.

EDIT: found an old post of mine which seems to confirm exactly what you want: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1270503/new-dune-hd-max-and-hd-smart-anticipation-thread-q3-2010/2490#post_19864480

Originally Posted by MarkHotchkiss 

Zappiti adds music

I am surprised there is not a dedicated Zappiti thread . . .

A new version of Zappiti is out, and it is beginning to include support for a music library. The video half of Zappiti seems unchanged.

It looks like it could be quite good, once it is complete. It is more functional than the movie portion, in that you can select by artist, album and genre. For movies, you only have genre.

It scraped my library, about 3600 files, in about an hour. I have no idea from where it got the artwork, but it looks quite good. One issue is that it misidentified about a quarter of my library, although all of my metadata was correct. That in itself would not be a problem, except that there is not yet any mechanism to correct it, like there is with movies and TV shows.

Outside of being able to define a share as containing "music" in addition to the previous "movies" and "TV shows", there appears to be no changes in the Zappiti configuration menus to support music. Also, when I exported to the Dune, none of the music information was exported. So it's clear it is not yet complete.

I don't expect Zappiti can do anything about the Dune's gapless-playback deficiency, so I still might not use the Dune for music, even once they do get it finished.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

I thought I read that Zapp music is reserved for HTPCs and their Zapp player (maybe that is why none of the music information was exported)?

Originally Posted by apw2607 

After reading Damien's review of the 303D I decided to order one. For a long time I've being using a Atv2 with xbmc but it simply doesn't have the horse power to deal with interlaced mpeg2 and 1080p MKVs. My Sony BDP isn't too bad but there are too many workarounds and trade offs so a dedicated streamer seemed like the logical next step.

Hope the DTS MA Dropout issue gets fixed in the next firmware update, otherwise ill try something like the MED600.

Btw, in terms of networks I can go DLNA, Samba or NFS. Do you guys prefer or recommend NFS in terms of performance or doesn't matter ?

Originally Posted by GusGus748s 

If you are not trying to watch 3D movies then SMB should work just fine. NFS seems to be needed for 3D movies.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

No, NFS is not needed for Blu-ray 3D with the Dunes (for the Mede8er it is)

Originally Posted by RaggedEdge 

Guys, what is the main negative to ripping Blu-Rays to lossless MKVs? Is it the forced subtitles? I'm currently ripping to folder structure, but I'm wondering if just ripping to mkv isn't easier.

Originally Posted by RaggedEdge 

Guys, what is the main negative to ripping Blu-Rays to lossless MKVs? Is it the forced subtitles? I'm currently ripping to folder structure, but I'm wondering if just ripping to mkv isn't easier.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

Probably forced subs (but then again not all players support proper forced subs in BR folders either, i.e. any BD Lite player). I think back in the day mkv support was hit or miss, but seems like in general it has gotten much better, so I think you are fine either way (and going with an mkv resolved seamless branch issues). Other issue with mkv, if you have a TrueHD Blu-ray and keep in in a BR Structure (or m2ts/ts) you can keep both the TrueHD and embedded AC3 track. With an mkv you cannot do this, so you get just the TrueHD track ( a problem if your player does not decode TrueHD and you are not doing pass thru)

Originally Posted by GusGus748s 


I thought there was a patch created for the Dune players so the Force subs would work?

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

Yes, but sometimes getting forced subs into the mkv can be problematic (it isn't always clear what the forced subs are for some movies/discs when ripping to mkv, that is what I meant).

Originally Posted by MarkHotchkiss 

Well that sucks!

Oh, Ok. It's not that bad, as I don't use the Dune for music. I hope this means that the Zappiti player can do gapless audio.

But it is a nice interface, so I may try it on my wife's PC, which she uses to listen to music while she works.

Originally Posted by dbone1026 

Yes, but sometimes getting forced subs into the mkv can be problematic (it isn't always clear what the forced subs are for some movies/discs when ripping to mkv, that is what I meant).

Originally Posted by EVT 

Although I haven't done much in the way of ripping to MKV, I think some of the same concerns exist with blu-ray movie only rips. What I do is playback the original disc in TMT5 first, if the subtittles are off by default - generally speaking if there are forced subs they will be located in the first English subtitle track. On the other hand, if one of the English subtitle tracks if checked its not a forced subtitle track per say but you have to designate that track as such so that it plays back. when needed (I accomplish this through DVDFab by putting a checkmark next to it so it is turned on my default in my BD movie-only ISOs).

I would imagine a similar strategy would yield similar results for MKVs.

By the way dbone, I know you're the resident ripping expert so what is your preferred ripping method for 3D blu-rays bearing in mind the limitations of the new players with regards to forced subtitles and seamless branching?

I just bought two extra D1s to put in storage (in case one or both of my Prime 3.0 or HD Max ever fail) but if a decent solution for BD ISO exists I would consider working that into my rack.

For that matter, I would consider anything that is capable of playing back the 3D BD properly in any format that doesn't require some sort of compression so I guess I'm wondering if any player is there yet or if I'm best to stick with my exisitng Dune players for now and using MKV SBS or blu-ray SBS (though that format can't seem to produce 3D compatible subtitles)?