Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian UHD722 Trade-up promotion announced

You have to be very careful with such claims. I had a chat recently with someone in the video calibration industry and he stated that for manufactures to call a device HDMI2.1, it just needs to support one of the 2.1 features. Thus, if you add dynamic metadata on HDR10+ as per HDMI2.1 spec with a firmware update, you entitled to call it 2.1. Supporting 8K at 120Hz is another matter.

While I agree that it should be as upgradable as possible, possibly one of the most interesting features of HDMI2.1 is of no real value to M owners, that that's eARC

I disagree. HDMI 2.1 and eARC open up the possibility of decoding the new codecs externally and sending the uncompressed LPCM stream over HDMI into a UHD722 for audio extraction into MMHR. Meridian have always stated that the 861 architecture was capable of supporting more LPCM channels when required. My 861v2 many years ago even had little stickers to label the channels!

An HDMI 2.1 UHDxxx capable of receiving 16 uncompressed LPCM channels over HDMI and outputting them over 2x MMHR connections to an upgraded 861 or future G series product. Well now, that would be worth the £1,500 upgrade cost. I might even pay the full £2,000 for it. It even fits into the current Meridian ethos of decoding elsewhere and keeping Video out of the processors.

As for any upgrades to the HDMI 2.0 of the UHD722 to make it HDMI 2.1 compatible I suspect that any features that could be added would be subject to a trade-off between features and bandwidth. In any case even if any firmware upgrades were possible the real question is if they are within the gift of Meridian to provide or would they depend on a 3rd party given that the solution was largely bought in.

Many thanks,

Anthony.

In theory, there is a possibility I grant you, but I will give you 50 whole pounds of the realm if *any* current Meridian product is *ever* upgraded to accept and output more than 8 channels. The G65 can't even accept 8 now!

Besides, wouldn't this decoder sit upstream of the UHDxxx and be part of the HDMI-CEC and eARC conversation with TV and sources, just outputting up to 32 channels of PCM down the HDMI 2.0 cable, thus the UHDxxx still takes no benefit of supporting eARC.

Sorry, I'm being negative again

I don't disagree. I think just like Sooloos that Meridian’s surround processor business is dead. I would be surprised if they sell even a handful of processors this year and for that matter if they did last year. Should they choose to reenter the market I fear that it will be many a year and I doubt that they have the capability to catch up with the competition. I suspect that the inability of the G65 to accept 8 channel was more of a marketing decision than an architectural one but agree that it is unlikely we will see greater than 8 channel support in even the 861.

Which is the whole problem with the UHD722 in that it is a dead-end given the state of Meridian’s legacy surround sound portfolio. When I bought my HD621 Meridian’s surround sound offering still had potential and was very much alive which made it much better value for money then than the UHD722 is today. I might pay the £1,500 if Meridian’s surround sound portfolio was still relevant and had a future. It would be even more terrible if by the time Meridian’s HDMI 2.0 solution actually comes to market others are shipping HDMI 2.1.

As an aside I may be wrong about eARC but aside from the other gubbins it is my understanding that it is the 37Mbps bandwidth of eARC that facilitates the ability to send the up to 32 channels of uncompressed LPCM data and you can't just send it down HDMI 2.0. The ability to return these channels over a single cable opens up the possibility of decoding in a location other than the source and would preclude the need for a physical loop topology.

Many thanks,

Anthony.

I suspect the G65 is basically a heavily upgraded G68 and still maintains the same basic architecture, but that's just my guess/cynicism.

*sigh* it can be a real challenge for the layman to work out quite what the specifications of these different standards are.

I *think* that HDMI2.0 supports up to 32 channels of LPCM at various bitrates. However, that's not the same as saying eARC supports that. after all, HDMI 1.4 supports 8 channels of LPCM but only 2 channels (or a DD/DTS stream) via ARC. I had thought that eARC supported on the return channel what HDMI 1.4 supports now, i.e. 8 channels of LPCM, truehd, DTS-MA and atmos etc, but that's only a semi-educated guess...

I think the real advantage of ARC and eARC is that it allows an amp/receiver to be an audio only device. no need to handle video at all. That's the approach Naim is taking with their new Uniti amps. a single HDMI ARC port so you can connect it to a TV and CEC support so it can be remotely controlled. I'm hoping to have one by tomorrow night...

Curious, which competition you mean?

Update, I was back to my friend's home with my 861 yesterday. My friend's jaw off ground as soon as the sound come out, I also heard the bass which I never heard in my system, so sadly it is just because of the room.

Trinnov , Storm , Datasat , Theta , Anthem , Denon Marantz and just about any Atmos licencee.

Too much time spent reinventing the wheel (MQA)

M

This is the best advice I've heard. I did a bit of research and I think some people had trouble passing HDR content through this input. Still researching. For me two 4k devices would be a reasonable stop gap measure. But I would want both to pass HDR.

Sky doesn't currently support 4K HDR at the moment. I believe it will be a hardware upgrade as well. As a stop gap, it would be a sensible solution.

I am upgrading to Virgin Media v6 which IS HDR, but of course they don't have HDR material.

This whole 4K world really is bonkers.

I'll pass on the UHD722 for now. IMHO, the price point is simply too high. Just my 2 cents.

And my telly has 3 HDMI ports anyway which is enough, and apart from the Oppo, most of my sources don't have lossless soundtracks so it's of questionable benefit.

Cheers
Greg

Thank you to all the thoughtful insights in the thread.

My take on the UHD722 is it's not really aimed at many here. It strikes me that Meridian's business case has moved to integration and 2 channel. And the funny thing is - in general I prefer to watch/listen to TV in 2 channel. I really don't care about surround anymore. Though, if I were designing a new room, I would want surround just "because" (as in it would be almost silly not to). But because of that, and because I think Meridian's advantages become more and more apparent with music, this is a sensible move on their part. In my case, my room was designed and setup for movies and the UHD722 doesn't add anything new for me. It would have been nice to have onboard decoding, but it seems Meridian just isn't interested in that sort of thing anymore.

It's disappointing because I remember the Meridian that was really doing so many exciting things, and I really enjoyed that. But, the world changes, and to their credit they have remained in business and support the legacy products we have. So we have to just accept that things change. However, although things do change, I wouldn't want to say Meridian doesn't care - I think they do care. Hence products like the one that lets you connect another surround processor to their speakers.