Onkyo TX-NR818 "official" owner's thread discussion - Page 154

Can you provide some documentation around this? My [admittedly limited] understanding is that it's not part of the DMR spec.

What kind of documentation you want? You can find this on Wikipedia and similar words on the spec of almost every lossless format:

Without gapless those formats wouldn't be lossless!

The authoritative kind. Specifically something which mandates that a player needs to implement the feature as part of its natural function.

Wikipedia isn't documentation.

TBC, it's not my goal to troll you. I understand that this is a source of frustration for you personally.

What I don't understand is the basis for this, and previous, assertions on this topic. If it is indeed an issue, I can raise it with the appropriate parties but at this point it appears to be more a functional gap (i.e. unimplemented feature) than feature that doesn't work properly (bug). For Onkyo to take something seriously it has to be obviously wrong (i.e. 24p) or foundationally sound - arguing that a CD player does it will not be good enough.

Hi guys, this will be my first post on the forums, just wondering if its at all possible to get the 818 reciever to upscale 5.1 audio from blu-rays/DVDs to the 7.1 setup I have now? It will play 7.1 blu-rays just fine but on a 5.1 movie nothing comes out of the back two speakers, is there an option to enable sound to the back two speakers on the reciever or the remote?

yes you have to use the 7.1+ DSP audio processing like neo:x or aud DSX if you have front wides

I found this in the manual (page 65);

Setup>Audio Adjust>Dolby

■Dolby EX
􀁠Auto:
If the source signal contains a Dolby EX flag, the
Dolby EX or THX Surround EX listening mode is
used.
􀁠Manual:
You can select any available listening mode.
This setting determines how Dolby EX encoded signals are
handled. This setting is unavailable if no surround back
speakers are connected. This setting is effective with
Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD only.
Note
• If the “Surround Back” setting is set to “None” (➔ page 60),
this setting cannot be selected.
• If the “Powered Zone 2/3” setting is set to “Yes” and Zone 2/3 is
turned on, this setting cannot be selected.

I don't have back surrounds so others might have better info, but I would set the Dolby EX to 'manual' if you wanted it on most of the time.

Pages 42-46 of the manual has good info too on input source through listening mode settings output what (5.1, 7.1, 9.1)

PLIIx will do 5.1 to 7.1 as well I believe

correct I forgot about PLllx, but that also is a 7.1 out put. I like Neo:x for the simple fact that if your running FH or FW'S you can change it from the back speakers to your front heights or wides..

@Marko/Patrick/dstew ,Hey cheers guys, I guess you were all looking at a manual online? I never got a phisical one in the box. What I did discover though was that by pressing the THX button on the front of the reciever that it enabled the back two speakers & comes up with PLIIx on the reciever screen. I just hope I don't have to press this every time I play a movie in 5.1 to bump it up to 7.1

Thanks again!

don't take this the wrong way. but that's why we ask you read the manual first then come ask for help. here's the link for the manual http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=TX-NR818&class=Receiver&p=d

anyway you can set it up to whatever dsp you want it to start at in settings. so if you want your 5.1 source output to start with a 7.1 dsp you can set it up to do that. like I said I wasn't try to be a Richard but it's very important to read the manual to get the most out of your avr!

Ok, really need some help here. Just got my 818 hooked up today. Did a test run on a blu-ray, no problem. Then tried a 3D to my Epson 3020 and it will not pass the 3D signal. Am I missing something here? If I connect my player directly to the Epson it is fine, so I have isolated it to something with the Onkyo. Any ideas????

I'm not familiar with projection setups. but I'm still not sure why it's not working. are you sure your using 1.4 v hdmi cables? just my only thought that comes to mind. I'd wait till morning when others with your setup can help you.

How are you guys managing different image settings for different media? For example movies and video games?

Since I have an old AVR without HDMI i run all video sources directly to my Pioneer Kuro plasma.
My HTPC and the XBOX 360 have vastly different image settings (found on this forum in a Kuro thread). Movies look soft and natural and in games the colors really pop!
This is possible since I can set different settings on each input.

I am planning on investing in a 818 when the 24fps bug is 100% confirmed to have been resolved.
How can I achieve these different image settings if I only use the main HDMI and one input on the TV?

Is it possible?
If not, either movies will look unnatural or the games will look dull. :-/

There are different picture mode (Game, ISF, Custom etc) you can choose. I think it is input specific, but since I did not use those, i can't be 100% sure.

Thanks! I wonder if these settings produce similar results as when setting them directly on the TV?
Edited by EuroMartin - 1/29/13 at 4:48am

I understand your points and somehow a kind of agree there is a lack of 'formalism' in the lossless word as those formats are mostly open source and there is no 'official' list of requirements for the players. And this allows various manufacturers to claim they are lossless while they are not and escape from responsibility. But there is some common sense, and if we look to the definition of the lossless term and to the history back to the reasons lossless was created then we will see that it was created to preserve all aspects of the sound, from the CDs in particular that was and still is the most common media for the audio recordings, bit for bit, this includes the gaps. So, while it is not strictly specified somewhere, it is naturally assumed that the lossless players should have the same minimal set of capabilities as the CD player - i.e should not insert any artifical gaps that are not in the original content while allowing easy navigation between tracks. Same as it is assumed by everyone there should be no gaps in the middle of the track, which is also hardly specified somewhere explicitly, but is assumed to be the case just by common sense...

While this is unimplemented feature, this feature is assumed by the nature of lossless, so, lack of this is something customer do not expect as fact, so, this is limitation and should be noted by the honest manufacturer in the specs as the limitation. For me personally after being an audiophile for 20++ years it is a total surprise such thing considered a 'feature' today while it always was assumption and was not a problem in any 20 year old gear...

"Lossless encoding" doesn't equal "gapless playback of single sound files". Nevertheless I agree that gapless playback is desirable. Some albums are meant to be played back that way.
As a workaround one could convert an entire album in a single file to preserve gapless playback.

Please forgive the ignorant question (I did search for answer), but is the lack of gapless playback only on network/streaming audio, or does it lack that ability from wired sources as well? Thanks.

If the player (PC, PS3) has gapless then sure, what you hear will be gapless.

Thanks. I haven't experimented with connecting my PC yet, wired or wireless, but I plan to do that asap.

Wired is much better. I use Foobar to play audio files to my AVR with the computer hooked to the AVR with an HDMI cable from my video card.

The only way to get native 1080/24p is via bluray.
SAT/Cable/OTA is not 24 frames and the shuddering is normal.
The unit isn't doing anything wrong. (you are actually )

This is what I do now, but I'm moving and I'm not sure how the new setup will be arranged. Hoping to do the same.

Without a specification, some formalized requirement set, or specific feature claim (I didn't see anything in the 818's spec sheet on this point) I don't think it will be possible to successfully argue that the lack of support of gapless playback is a bug. If your goal is to rectify this, you'll need to approach it as a feature request.

I don't think there is a generally agreed upon lexicon in this area. Your assumptions around what lossless means aren't consistent with my understanding of what the term means. Perhaps this comes from a shift in thinking from albums to songs?

To me lossless describes the codec used to store content at rest and has little to do with the playback mechanism. Also since it was quite common to rip a gapless* album to a lossy format (mp3) before it was practical to use a lossless codec, I think it's natural even for those with longer exposure in this area to not associate the two terms. My guess is that Onkyo is only claiming support for lossless file formats and not a lossless+gapless rendering scheme you want. That said, I agree that it would be ideal if they supported gapless playback.

* IIRC**, "gapless" was something that had to be specifically configured during the ripping process as well, so while a CE CD player would have known this, additional intervention was required when freeing audio from its plastic coffin back when we still did that sort of thing.

** You'll have to forgive me if my memory fails, forcing recall back to the mid-90s when I started doing this sort of thing is a stretch .

If the player is 818 (or any other Onkyo AVR as of today), then what you hear will be improper handling of gaps or simply adding of gaps that are not on the original recording.

Has anyone noticed on certain material by expanding 5.1 content to 7.1 ( dolby digital EX, Prologic 11x, dts neo x ) that the rear ( back ) channels now carries front channel information. It seems to happen with just DD tracks. My classe preamp did the same thing. Has anyone noticed this?

20-30 years ago there was even no such term as gapless. And there was no problem with that, everything just worked. There was gaps, and proper handling for them, including proper handling of zero-gaps, in every device in universe. Then mp3 came, it was lossy, it was with lost of quality and padding that added gaps. In fact I was never in that crowd of mp3 users as many other audiophiles - it just sounded unacceptable on any more or less serious equipment. Then wave of lossless supposed to fix everything back. There are proper gap info in the lossless files from the beginning, it is in the design to preserve gaps the same way as to preserve every original bit of sound of the original CD so it can be restored. So, as soon as it is ignored, or gap is changed - it is not lossless anymore, there is a loss, as soon there is a loss - it is against the lossless agenda!

The minds are really changed since the times of the good old CDs. I simply do not understand how people can become so careless of the quality of products they are buying so the thing that was simply assumed in 80-s and were no technical problem at those times (with the really primitive hardware from today's perspective) become a very common issue today, and this issue is not even considered a bug by someone. Until we, consumers, allow to manipulate in such a way our minds and accept that **** we will get less and less really good products until they completely disappear...

You (all) might think about it however you want, but my very strong opinion that the lack of gapless in any audio player today is a real bug. There is no any technical reason or any other excuse of not having it except unprofessionalism and pure laziness. Especially pity that such issues appear in expensive so called HiEnd devices and manufacturer even does't warn users of such basic issues that seriously affect sound (while he obviously knows about them, contrary to their customers).

Yes, it seems that common sense is not enough today to require them do things as they should, so, as we cannot fight them and there is no (and cannot be any) 'strict spec' on common sense, at least lets call things what they are, and do not let invent any new words for mystic 'missing features' that are really simply a lazy way to explain a total failure to implement a simple basic player that nobody had a problem to implement 20-30 years ago on a orders of magnitude more primitive equipment. This in not only the Onkyo and the gapless, situation is really terrible today everywhere in the consumer electronics. Although this Onkyo AVR is really one of the worst collection of such a crazy stupid totally idiotic issues in my experience for the last few years. It is nice to know at least one of them (the 24fps issue) is going to be fixed soon. Unfortunately gapless is also not the most important/pity issue that are left for me... At least I was able to workaround the gapless issue with an external player, but not everything is possible to workaround.

With digital downloads gapless playback became a feature because it was no longer an inherent property of the medium. To my knowledge the MP3 specification didn't incorporate gapless playback.
On the other hand, CDs and CD players are still in production

I understand the urge to lament the demise of CE, but I don't think it holds up to scrutiny. Times have changed, the way we consume content has changed, and the products we demand to meet those changing requirements have changed as well - generally offering more features at lower prices.

If you want a CD player, buy a CD player and celebrate it's simple function. Files are discrete things, we can use a taxonomy to group the (folders), but ultimately they are not the same thing as a disc. It is functionally incorrect to assume that a file based player must function identically to a disc based player or the deltas are bugs; they are different things and can function differently w/o error.

Some requirements are not necessarily the requirements of the general population, this can be frustrating. You can beat the gapless drum all you want, but unless there is critical mass behind addressing it nothing will happen. Again, my point here isn't to troll - if you want change you need to deconstruct the problem rationally, then work out how to fix it. Going on about the decline of civilization won't get anything done.

You are entitled to an opinion, but unless there is critical mass behind that outlook it (like all outliers) will tend to be ignored. A bug is when a feature doesn't work according to requirements, the lack of a desired feature is not a bug unless it is part of the specification. You can disagree with that definition, but it's hard to do so with legitimacy.

AVRs as media players is a new & developing capability. It is reasonable to expect that the feature set will expand over time, if there is a feature gap b/w the current implementation and other devices on the market it is also reasonable to document those gaps and submit them as feature requests for the next version (that's how SW dev works).

What are the other blocking issues for you?

That's the right approach. Since you already figured this out, I'm confused to why you are still so passionate about it?

CE OEMs often provide a basic level of service outside of their SME (Smart Apps for e.g.), most of the time while they "work" it's not the best interface or the functionality too primitive so it's more efficient to replace it (i.e. Roku) than struggle. This isn't a failing on the original OEMs part, it's just an artifact of getting what you pay for (i.e. that feature is a miniscule part of the BOM).

something interesting happens w/the AVR: when watching Comcast/Xfinity cable stations and I set the AVR to 1080p everything plays fine BUT SyFy! When watching SyFy I get the stutter/strobe/shuddering video as if it was set to 1080p/24. The channel is 1080i and if I set the AVR to 1080i the issue goes away. It only happens w/this station
Strange.
ps - I'm running the firmware sent to select few.