DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD

[Minawee 0]

Hello,

Just bought an ATV 582 and have so far had smooth sailing with it (other than the remote that came with the unit...it is enough to make you question your sanity at times...), but after reading and reading as much as I could about this unit (as well as the 1800 model), I have been quite surprised by the lack of discussion and level of concern for the glaring fact that this box does NOT pass through the DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD streams...it only passes through the "core" lossy streams of both formats.

Other brand S802-based boxes already have confirmed reports of passing through the full HD streams, so why doesn't the MyGica box? In another thread on this forum, another user asked why the options for DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD are missing from the XBMC advanced options for audio setup in the MyGica editions of XBMC (13.1 and 13.2), but has never received a reply.

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions and misinformation surrounding this issue, and it isn't helped by people who don't even know the difference between what the Core and HD audio streams are claiming their boxes work "flawlessly"...please...no disrespect, but if you don't know, please don't spread misinformation.

SO.........

I have created this thread in the hopes of it becoming the MAIN THREAD for this issue where people (like myself) can come to for ANSWERS.

For starters and some background info, please see:

DTS-HD MA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS-HD_Master_Audio

Dolby TrueHD - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_TrueHD

Justin, I ask you to chime in on this issue and give us a clear answer/understanding of what the status is regarding this matter. I applaud your efforts and contributions to this forum and support for the MyGica products...you are among the main reason why I chose to buy a MyGica compared to other competitors even though it was typically more expensive!

Sadly, I must add that if there is no light at the end of the tunnel for this issue, then I will be looking to move on to other brand offerings that can satisfy my need of this feature. Heck, even my old WDTV Live box passes the HD streams without issue...

Thank you in advance to Justin and to all who contribute to this thread!

Regards,

-Paul

[Justin 206]

Hello,

Just bought an ATV 582 and have so far had smooth sailing with it (other than the remote that came with the unit...it is enough to make you question your sanity at times...), but after reading and reading as much as I could about this unit (as well as the 1800 model), I have been quite surprised by the lack of discussion and level of concern for the glaring fact that this box does NOT pass through the DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD streams...it only passes through the "core" lossy streams of both formats.

Other brand S802-based boxes already have confirmed reports of passing through the full HD streams, so why doesn't the MyGica box? In another thread on this forum, another user asked why the options for DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD are missing from the XBMC advanced options for audio setup in the MyGica editions of XBMC (13.1 and 13.2), but has never received a reply.

There seems to be a lot of misconceptions and misinformation surrounding this issue, and it isn't helped by people who don't even know the difference between what the Core and HD audio streams are claiming their boxes work "flawlessly"...please...no disrespect, but if you don't know, please don't spread misinformation.

SO.........

I have created this thread in the hopes of it becoming the MAIN THREAD for this issue where people (like myself) can come to for ANSWERS.

For starters and some background info, please see:

DTS-HD MA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS-HD_Master_Audio

Dolby TrueHD - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_TrueHD

Justin, I ask you to chime in on this issue and give us a clear answer/understanding of what the status is regarding this matter. I applaud your efforts and contributions to this forum and support for the MyGica products...you are among the main reason why I chose to buy a MyGica compared to other competitors even though it was typically more expensive!

Sadly, I must add that if there is no light at the end of the tunnel for this issue, then I will be looking to move on to other brand offerings that can satisfy my need of this feature. Heck, even my old WDTV Live box passes the HD streams without issue...

Thank you in advance to Justin and to all who contribute to this thread!

Regards,

-Paul

I just want to clarify

You have seen DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD supported on other brands versions of XBMC?

I see you mentioned people have claimed to have it working on other devices, but might be misinformed on exactly which HD Audio stream that they are using exactly, since there are clearly so many different ones available for DTS and Dolby.

I ask this because both of these formats I have not seen supported on the Official XBMC.ORG versions of Gotham.

Let me know about this, so I can get a more clearer answer from our engineers when I bring this up to them.

[kreeturez 0]

There's tons of confusion about this.

Like the Raspberry Pi, it appears that the ATV582 (and most Android boxes of it's ilk) just don't do DTS-MA or Dolby-THD. They're limited to vanilla DTS and Dolby Digital - that is, the non-HD versions of those two audio formats.

Like the Pi, DTS-MA audio streams thus get bistreamed as straight DTS with the core 5.1 track being extracted and the MA portion of the audio being discarded.

I have used an ION-2 based HTPC and it had no trouble with bistreaming the full DTS-HD audio track to my DTS-HD-compliant receiver.

In contrast, older ION-1 HTPC's were unable to do this either.

That said, I don't find the actual sound quality difference is very obvious at all; but a bigger issue might be with the two extra surround tracks: DTS-MA is usually 7.1 rather than 5.1 - and since the DTS core is 5.1-only, those two extra tracks are going to be lost. (My own setup is actually only 5.1 so it doesn't matter much to me - but it certainly might be an issue to others).

The most helpful thread so far on the matter is on Kodi/XBMC's own forum:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=206012

Whether the limitation is inherent to Android (driver limitations?), XBMC itself, HDMI hardware bandwidth or general chipset capabilities is still not entirely clear.

It's indicated on that forum that the AMlogic S802H might support HD-audio bitstreaming (licensing notwithstanding). My understanding is that the 582 runs the S802B chipset; so it may never be possible.

In short: if you need 7.1 audio via DTS-MA or Dolby-THD through XBMC, right now you need to go for an HTPC. If you don't, then a good Android box (like these) plus a 2.4GHz USB Wireless HTPC Keyboard (to replace the IR remote!) is a great way to go.