Wow… This thing is so cool! It really is… But they really really really really really really really really really really really dropped the ball by not including the ability to read the DVD-A format. It’s so great how they allow you to read .iso files. I can even navigate my DVD menus just like I’m watching the DVD. But it won’t read information from an Audio_TS folder. This is just absolutely an epic failure. I’ve got so many DVD-A’s sitting on the shelf just waiting to get ripped and played on this media player, but it won’t do it. It’s too bad too, because it has all of the tools to be able to do it. It could easily send 24/96kHz audio out of the HDMI port to a audio receiver. I know it will do DTS-TrueHD and all that… But those are standard formats for movies, not listening to music. DVD-A is the standard for listening to HD 5.1 surround sound audio. Why in the world would they not include the ability to play back the most widely accepted HD 5.1 surround format that exists??? Us music guys always get screwed. I just don’t get it.
Hey man, I’m really not trying to be a jerk, but I’m reasonably educated about most things that speak ones and zeros and I’d never heard of DVD-A. Then I went and searched the forum for DVD-A; all I found was your comment. Might I ask if ‘epic’ might be being applied a little generously?
I sit corrected… there were two other references.
Leave it to Wikipedia to put it bluntly…
“The first discs entered the marketplace in 2000. DVD-Audio was in a format war with Super Audio CD (SACD), another format for delivering high-fidelity audio content. Neither has gained a strong position in any consumer market.”
They might be important to you, but given that they weren’t all that popular among consumers, it’s no wonder most consumer media streamers leave support for it out… Do ANY of them support it?
So, while it might be disappointing to an audiophile, it’s hardly an EPIC FAILURE or a dropped ball… ;)
Would you kindly inform me how this unit plays any surround sound MUSIC at 24bit/96hHz…Not audio that is in a movie, but music.
All of the information your talking about is the format war and the medium. The Live Hub reads Video_TS folers, why not Audio_TS? They were so close.
You’ve never heard of DVD-A??? Also called DVD Audio. Have you ever heard 24bit/96kHz Audio in surround sound of your favorite bands? When you watch a DVD movie, all of the audio information is located in the Video_TS folder and is almost always a compressed (lossy) format. Sort of like a really high quality MP3 (usually 320kbps). But usually not anywhere near the bitrate of CD quality (1411 kbps), which is a “lossles” format. The two main audio formats found in a DVD’s Video_TS foler are Dolby Digital and DTS. Each of those have a number of codecs including some truly High Resolution codecs, such as DTS True HD. The problem is that those formats are generally used for movies and not for music. The other problem is that you need a receiver that can decode that codec. Anyway, it’s really a shame that they left the HD Audio for music out of the equation for something that is supposed to be a media center.
I don’t know that much about DVD-A, but can’t you covert them to FLAC which is loseless and is capable of 24bit/96 kHz multichannel. And the HUB will play FLAC, however I’m not sure about 24-bit FLAC.
It is sooooooooooo funny that you just mentioned flac. All of my music files are in flac. All of them except for my surround stuff. I was just doing some research and realized that a single flac file will support 8 discrete channels of audio with up to 32 bit resoltion and a 655kHz sample rate in each of those 8 channels. Which is ridiculously awesome! I’d be happy just to have 24bit/88.2kHz 5.1 suround support. But hey… I’ll take the 8 channel super hi rez support. It’s there to be expanded upon for future technologies.
So… I’m in the process of moving and rebuilding my media center. I’ll be getting an HD TV and an audio receiver that can accept the audio/video content at full quality and then pass is through to the TV as well. If it just works and plays those surround flac files without any sample rate conversion or anything, I’m gonna be sooooooooo happy!
I’ll do some tests with my Pro Tools rig and zoom in to the sample level and really see what’s going on. Theoretically, they should be identical. I’ll keep you posted and let you know.
Leave it to the open source community to solve a high resolution audiophile problem.
The only real kicker here though is that you must transmit this digital information via the HDMI output. The optical output won’t cut it. It doesn’t have the bandwidth to support it.
Now I need to figure out how to get all of my DVD-A stuff converted into a single flac file. Any ideas?
Well, I don’t really know any tools off hand that work since I don’t have any DVD-A’s, but here’s one that might work.
Also, you can try this, eac3to, which might work.
If neither of those work, you can look through THIS list, you might find something that works.
I have several DVD-A discs ripped to the hub…but of course, the best I can get is the DTS track. The Zappa disc does play back DTS 24/96…as does the Queen one, if I remember correctly.
Do you have any DTS CDs? I’ve ripped a bunch to the HUB, & it has issues trying to play a few…Allman Bros. LATFE wont play at all, neither will Ohio Players Honey, and it drops out on Claptons I shot the sheriff. I can play them all streamed from the HUB on my Sony Blu Ray player, so I know the rips are clean…??
…and yes Matilda, the audio section of the HUB manual clearly states it supports DTS audio. 
Well… I finally got my whole surround sound set up and functioning. I’m ecstatic! It sounds fricking awesome! One **bleep** cable to hook up the whole thing… Awesome! Just plug the HDMI cable in to my reciever and boom! You do have to make sure to set the audio output to HDMI pass thru.
It does in fact play FLAC 5.1 files flawlessly. I’ve got Metallica’s 5.1 album converted to a 5.1 flac file and it just works!
I haven’t had any issues playing anything DTS or Dolby Digital. I’ve got a bunch of Quadraphonic rips from the 70’s that are encoded in the DTS format and they work and sound great. Also, if you’ve got a reciver that will decode the higher sample rate versions of DTS or Dolby Digital, this is a plus, because a lot of the surround stuff that is available uses those formats.
I do wish they would just allow us to read the information in an AUDIO_TS folder the same way we can read it from a VIDEO_TS folder. That would save me a lot of trouble from having to convert all of my DVD-A stuff to FLAC.
I’m in surround sound heaven right now
Glad to hear the flac worked for you.:smileyvery-happy:
Question: Does it truely support 24/96 FLAC? I seem to get different answer on the boards. I seem to get the impression that the older units up to Live Plus supported playback, but actually down sampled it to 16 bit.
I would love a simple yes / no : native support / down sampled answer.
There is no Digital to Analog conversion going on when using the HDMI output. It wouldn’t be a true “pass-thru” signal if there was any sort of downsampling or dithering going on. My Harmon Kardon Reciver is telling me that it’s receiving 24/96khz audio. It’s a nice feature of the display.
