Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Does anyone know of a high res audio format to PCM converter over HDMI?

Jerry, the Dune BD prime 3.0 network media player decodes DTS MA, Dolby THD, and 24/96 FLAC, to PCM; and can output via HDMI.
That's why i sold my pocornhour and Oppo BDP-83 as it performs the functions of both, with no loss of picture or sound quality.

i sold my pocornhour and Oppo BDP-83 as the Dune performs the functions of both.
There was no perceivable loss of picture or sound quality on HDMI when i swapped from the Oppo Bluray player/popcornhour, to the Dune BD prime 3.0 network media player.
I compared audio and video from all 3, feeding into my HD621/861v4 and using a JVCHD350 projector on a 10ft screen.

That's nice to hear a confirmation about the Dune - Did you buy the base dune or the version with the Blu-Ray Drive ? (I suspect the latter).

I have the Base 3.0 and I can verify that I cannot hear or see a difference between it and the Oppo. I even ran video test patterns and the settings are identical- at least on my setup- they go into a Radiance XE. What is interesting is my 861 v4 reports the output of the Oppo as MHR 6 channel 96khz when the Oppo is set to decode the audio to LPCM. However, when the Dune is set to decode the audio to PCM the Meridian reports PCM 6 channel 96khz. I do not hear a difference in quality- however I am wondering why the difference in reporting. Could it be just a metadata difference between LPCM and PCM. I have done a cursory Google search on PCM vs LPCM and I am not sure if there really is a difference.

Getting back to the point- I think there is a niche market for a product that will decode these formats and output PCM (or LPCM). For example, what if my satellite company begins transmitting with the high res formats- right now my satellite DVR cannot decode these formats and I doubt it would ever be able to do so. Im just curious and I think the number of streamers, sat boxes, sources will just increase over time.

That difference in display is really curious.

Are you sure Oppo said MHR? (or did it say MUSIC 6)

Do you have both hooked up? Try swapping them (e.g. MD1 swap for MD2).

I think it will be a long, long time until anything more complex than DD is streaming through cable, satellite and terrestrial. If the high bitrate codecs become commonplace then perhaps other devices will emerge to "step into the chasm" and provide the bridge between HD codecs and HD621.

Or Meridian can just upgrade their own firmware on their processors, right? I assume they hold licenses for the now standard HD codecs ...

Sometimes things like this drive me crazy and then I "remember" that I have many more DVDs (DD and DTS) than BD ... and cable tv is only DD ... and my Sonos is 2 channel PCM :-) (and Sonos sound is why I upgraded to Meridian - for my music collection primarily).

Is the Dune player multi-region for both DVD and Blu-Ray?

I never set a region on the dune- I dont have the optical drive- just reading from NAS. I dont think it asks for a region either. I will check later.

George, my connection goes like this: Oppo->HDMI->Radiance->HDMI->HD621->3 coax (smartlink I believe is the M word)-861. The Dune is the exact same. I have checked the settings in the 861 and HD621 and they are identical for the input I use for the Oppo and the Dune (currently labelled HDDVD as its replaced my HDDVD which just stopped working). I will double check all of this but my memory is pretty clear and what it says- when you press the display button on the 861 I see "MHR Movie6 96k" with the Oppo and with the Dune I see "PCM Movie6 96k"- and it required an update to the firmware of the HD621 and the Radiance to get that to work properly for the Dune, prior it would only give me "Movie2".

mjt5282, Not really. Meridian can always update the DD/DTS decoding in the 861/ other processors because that is software based. But the 861, etc do not accept HDMI. The job of the HD621 is to take HDMI and grab the audio and send it along either as speakerlink (cat 5e looking wires that can handle 8 channels at I think 96/24 is the max) or smartlink (apologies if I have the names wrong) which is 6 channels over 3 coax cables. The V6 of the 861 can take the speakerlink 8 channel input, the prior versions are limited to the 3 coax cables (2 channels of 96/24 per channel). The 861 accepts PCM audio for these setups. So it has to be decoded somewhere prior to the HD621 because it does not perform any decoding. What it will do is to upsample and apodize 44 or 48khz sources- so say the file I play on my Dune is a regular DD 5.1 file, it gets decoded as 5.1 channels of PCM at 48khz and the HD621 I believe upsamples it and also applies the apodizing filter. Its a nice tweak- especially for 2 channel CDs. So the place that Meridian would have to apply the decoding would be in the HD621 or other product and I dont think the HD621 currently could support this.

As to Cable or Sat TV- Im sure youre right- Im just curious- just want to see whats out there- and I also think as these companies get more competitive, I wouldnt be surprised to see them begin to offer some channels with these features- remember when having stereo on a TV show was a big deal? Then it was surround sound (DPL) and then it was DD 5.1.

The biggest downside to the Dune so far is simply the interface which is really basic but I believe that can be resolved via this MyMovies software which I am not yet up to playing with.

George, is there a good place to post images to so I can show you whats going on?

You can host the images where ever you like, flickr, google etc. Then just embed a link.

I better understand now and can understand the HD621 is not receiving the same thing from dune and probably has some of the copy protection removed and therefore HD621 does not have to enforce encryption.

Say problem as if I play a DD/DVD(PS3) vs DD/stream (Transporter) the HD621 handles it differently.

Yes, you run a multiregion patch once, then you can select specific BD/DVD region with the remote.

Interesting- and I think you have it spot on. Thats why it doesnt say MHR. I bet the Oppo adds the HDCP even on CDs- I tried it with a store bought CD from the early 90s (Yes' Yesstory 2 disc set). I dot think Ill need to host images now.

Meridian could update the firmware of the HD621 to pass the hd codecs via the smartlink/mmhr cables (appropriately flagged, like dd and dts). If there's room for 6/8 lock channels then there should be room for a hd compressed codec. Then update the processors to decode HDcodecs.

I don't know if the HD codecs require more processor power than DD/DTS. There's more data going in and out, but less interpretation perhaps?

Not that I think the above will ever happen, but it could.

dave