Confused About Hi Rez Music Over HDMI ?

[hillbill]

I absolutely love SACD and DVD-A. While I probably only have a handful of titles combined, I would still like to continue to buy them and play them in the future. My current setup uses the multi-channel outs on my DVD-A/SACD player to the analogue inputs on my Denon Receiver. This leads me to my question.

I realize that SACD can pass over HDMI (now) correct? What about DVD-A? I thought I saw some recent "universal players" that do not even have 5.1/7.1analogue outputs. Is that correct?

Confused....

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I absolutely love SACD and DVD-A. While I probably only have a handful of titles combined, I would still like to continue to buy them and play them in the future. My current setup uses the multi-channel outs on my DVD-A/SACD player to the analogue inputs on my Denon Receiver. This leads me to my question.

I realize that SACD can pass over HDMI (now) correct? What about DVD-A? I thought I saw some recent "universal players" that do not even have 5.1/7.1analogue outputs. Is that correct?

Confused....

Not every SA-CD Player can pass DSD over HDMI - In fact it wasn't required till HDMI version 1.2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD#Playback_hardware
YMMV

DVD-A is a different story - It's supported by earlier version of HDMI - 1.1 so more common

So, minimum requirement is both source and receiver must support newer HDMI version, but this does not guarantees success

 

[hillbill]

Not every SA-CD Player can pass DSD over HDMI - In fact it wasn't required till HDMI version 1.2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD#Playback_hardware
YMMV

DVD-A is a different story - It's supported by earlier version of HDMI - 1.1 so more common

So, minimum requirement is both source and receiver must support newer HDMI version, but this does not guarantees success

Is this due to "handshake" issues?

So in theory when both receiver and universal player support 1.2 or later, playing both formats should be in their "high resolution form".

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Is this due to "handshake" issues?

So in theory when both receiver and universal player support 1.2 or later, playing both formats should be in their "high resolution form".

Not really, HDCP handshakes are whole different issue.
I was referring to support for both of these features was not originally available in first incarnation of hdmi protocol.
This led to tons of confusion for both consumers and manufactures...
Bottom line: If you find DVD/BD/SACD players which states specifically support DVD-A and SACD over HDMI - thats pretty much the only way to know for sure

 

[TLS Guy]

I absolutely love SACD and DVD-A. While I probably only have a handful of titles combined, I would still like to continue to buy them and play them in the future. My current setup uses the multi-channel outs on my DVD-A/SACD player to the analogue inputs on my Denon Receiver. This leads me to my question.

I realize that SACD can pass over HDMI (now) correct? What about DVD-A? I thought I saw some recent "universal players" that do not even have 5.1/7.1analogue outputs. Is that correct?

Confused....

There are two issues with SACD. SACD is not PCM based. DSD needs a different decoder. Few receivers have a DSD decoder. So if there is no DSD decoder in your receiver, you have to have the player convert it to PCM to send over HDMI.

Some players can only send via HDMI after PCM conversion.

So if you want to avoid using analog inputs without PCM conversion you need: -

A player that will send DSD over HDMI.

A receiver that has a DSD decoder.

On the latter point, you have to be very careful as a lot of receivers will accept DSD, but do a PCM conversion. This information is often hard to find, and deliberately misleading.

Then you come to another issue. SACD speaker layout is different for the US and Europe. In the US the rear channel is the surrounds just behind the listener. For Europe the surrounds are in the position of the rear backs.

Now receivers taking DSD over HDMI, always send the surround channels to the surrounds, whether correct or not.

The next issue is the sub channel. In general European SACDs generally have no sub channel. For music that is really correct. You can't record a sub channel for music. You can only derive one via some type of crossover. There have been a number of papers recently looking at this, and the sub channel on most music SACDs and BD discs is basically a mess on most. So labels such as BIS that heavily support SCAD are probably wise not to include a sub channel.

The problem with the above approach is that unless you truly have full range speakers (down to 20 Hz a robust spl) then you have to do a DSD PCM conversion at the player or receiver.

SACD is basically a mess and a hassle for most systems. The sooner we move to BD audio only the better.

I'm lucky in that my front and rear speakers are truly full range. The above is one of the reasons I chose to build truly full range speakers and avoid subs.

 

[jinjuku]

There are two issues with SACD. SACD is not PCM based. DSD needs a different decoder. Few receivers have a DSD decoder. So if there is no DSD decoder in your receiver, you have to have the player convert it to PCM to send over HDMI.

Some players can only send via HDMI after PCM conversion.

So if you want to avoid using analog inputs without PCM conversion you need: -

A player that will send DSD over HDMI.

A receiver that has a DSD decoder.

On the latter point, you have to be very careful as a lot of receivers will accept DSD, but do a PCM conversion. This information is often hard to find, and deliberately misleading.

Then you come to another issue. SACD speaker layout is different for the US and Europe. In the US the rear channel is the surrounds just behind the listener. For Europe the surrounds are in the position of the rear backs.

Now receivers taking DSD over HDMI, always send the surround channels to the surrounds, whether correct or not.

The next issue is the sub channel. In general European SACDs generally have no sub channel. For music that is really correct. You can't record a sub channel for music. You can only derive one via some type of crossover. There have been a number of papers recently looking at this, and the sub channel on most music SACDs and BD discs is basically a mess on most. So labels such as BIS that heavily support SCAD are probably wise not to include a sub channel.

The problem with the above approach is that unless you truly have full range speakers (down to 20 Hz a robust spl) then you have to do a DSD PCM conversion at the player or receiver.

SACD is basically a mess and a hassle for most systems. The sooner we move to BD audio only the better.

I'm lucky in that my front and rear speakers are truly full range. The above is one of the reasons I chose to build truly full range speakers and avoid subs.

All this is another reason (aside from very unreasonable DRM) that I NEVER got into SACD. It's been a mess and the implementation effectively relegated SACD to the sidelines if not outright killed it as a viable format.

At least with DVD-A I can rip the audio.