DTS MA and DD ThueHD Passthrough Issue

[stickfighter]

Hi Guys! I am wondering if someone can help me with this issue...

I own an Egreat NMT player since 2008 and is in good working condition until now. Last December, I won a Mede8er 300X in a Christmas party raffle. As soon as I got it, I disconnected the Egreat and installed the 300X. I was excited. The speed of the 300X vs the Egreat was lighting fast!!! I was impressed. The GUI was way better than the Egreat. And then I tried playing one of the files I am very familiar with, as I watch it all the time. That's when I realized, that the PQ and SQ of the Egreat seemed better. I viewed some more files that I was familiar with using both units and in all of them, I prefered the quality generated by the Egreat.

Again, I am not saying that the 300X is poor in terms of PQ and SQ. What I am saying is - "PERSONALLY", I like the PQ and SQ of the Egreat. Ever since that day, I have not hooked it up again. I should give it a second chance and see if I missed out on any setting or what not...

Today...I gave my 300X a final chance, to see if this can be better than the Egreat that I have. So, I did some tests and encountered a problem...

I set the 300X Audio settings to HDMI Passthrough. I have two files I wanted to test:
1. DTS MA demo files
2. DD TrueHD demo files

NOTE: My receiver is a Denon 1509 with Dolby Digital Prologic II and DTS Neo:6 96/24 capable only.

Here are my observations:
The 300X plays both files, but only in stereo mode. However, with the Egreat, the DTS MA demo files plays with 5.1 DTS audio surround sound as seen on the receiver, while the DD TrueHD demo files has picture present but no sound at all.

I know that the reason there is no sound on the DD TruHD files when the Egreat is used is due to my receiver which does not support DD TrueHD. My question is, why does the DTS MA demo files play 5.1 on the Egreat and not on the 300X, even if my receiver does not support DTS MA?

To help you guys out in helping me with a solution, I tooks snap shots and info that may help on both the Egreat and 300X playing the same files:

Sorry for the ugly pics

On the Egreat...



Title: Band of Brothers DTS-HD MA 5.1.m2ts
System: MPEG2TS
Video: H.264 (23.976fps 24p)
Audio: DTS-MA
Bitrate: [Video/Audio] - /576.0kbps
Dimension: 1920X1080
Video Output: HDMI 1080p 60Hz
Video Zoom: Fit To Screen

NOTE: Clear picture with 5.1 surround sound
On the receiver: DTS is shown on the display



Title: 00007.m2ts (Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at the Radio City Music Hall)
System: MPEG2TS
Video: H.264 (29.970fps NTSC)
Audio: TrueHD
Bitrate: [Video/Audio] - / -
Dimension: 1920X1080
Video Output: HDMI 1080p 60Hz
Video Zoom: Fit To Screen

NOTE: Clear picture but absolutely NO sound
On the receiver: DIRECT is shown on the display

On the Mede8er...(F/W Version: MED300X_V1.3 - Compiled Dec. 7, 2010)



Band of Brothers DTS-HD MA 5.1.m2ts
Title: 001/001
Chapter: 001/001
Size: 567MBytes
Video: H264 1920X1080 23.99fps
Audio: DTS HD 6ch 48K...

NOTE: Clear picture with stereo sound
On the receiver: STEREO is shown on the display



00007.m2ts (Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at the Radio City Music Hall)
Title: 001/001
Chapter: 001/001
Size: 2914MBytes
Video: H264 1920X1080 29.98fps
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 6c...

NOTE: Clear picture with stereo sound
On the receiver: STEREO is shown on the display

Product & firmware version: MED300X_V1.3 - Compiled Dec. 7, 2010
Audio: Optical output > Denon 1509 A/V Receiver
Audio setting: HDMI Passthrough / Night mode OFF
Video: HDMI output > Samsung LA40B350 Full HD LCD
Video setting: 1080p 60Hz ON,16:9
Hard Drive: WD My Book Essential Edition 1TB External Hard Drive

Help!

[Mede8er1]

Hi stickfighter

Re your amp firstly these are the supported audio formats.

Dolby Digital-Decoder
Dolby Digital EX
Dolby Pro Logic II
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS-Decoder
DTS Neo:6 Cinema & DTS-Neo:6 Music
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS 96/24

So the amp does support normal Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Your issue is that the MED300X is not downmixing the True HD 5.1 to Core Dolby 5.1 or DTSMA 5.1 to Core DTS 5.1. We need to investigate this and get more information from Realtek. I personally think that this may be due to the fact that the licence has not yet been approved by Dolby / DTS to passthrough  to Core5.1 -- I will confirm asap. 

Mede8er1

[stickfighter]

Hi stickfighter

Re your amp firstly these are the supported audio formats.

Dolby Digital-Decoder
Dolby Digital EX
Dolby Pro Logic II
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS-Decoder
DTS Neo:6 Cinema & DTS-Neo:6 Music
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS 96/24

So the amp does support normal Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Your issue is that the MED300X is not downmixing the True HD 5.1 to Core Dolby 5.1 or DTSMA 5.1 to Core DTS 5.1. We need to investigate this and get more information from Realtek. I personally think that this may be due to the fact that the licence has not yet been approved by Dolby / DTS to passthrough  to Core5.1 -- I will confirm asap. 

Mede8er1

Thanks very much for your reply sir. I will wait for your next post on the matter.

[jer1956]

I always find this situation perverse. If you don't have a codec and just pass the stream through, you need a licence. If you convert it to stereo using a codec, you don't!

[stickfighter]

Hi stickfighter

Re your amp firstly these are the supported audio formats.

Dolby Digital-Decoder
Dolby Digital EX
Dolby Pro Logic II
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS-Decoder
DTS Neo:6 Cinema & DTS-Neo:6 Music
96-kHz Processing (analogue/PCM)
DTS 96/24

So the amp does support normal Dolby 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Your issue is that the MED300X is not downmixing the True HD 5.1 to Core Dolby 5.1 or DTSMA 5.1 to Core DTS 5.1. We need to investigate this and get more information from Realtek. I personally think that this may be due to the fact that the licence has not yet been approved by Dolby / DTS to passthrough  to Core5.1 -- I will confirm asap. 

Mede8er1

Hi Sir...are there any updates on this matter?

[Mede8er1]

I am still awaiting clarity on this.

Mede8er1 

[koeks]

I would also like to know if we can use V3.x firmware on the MED200X, as the Acc downmix was fixed in V3.05 firmware. from what i can see only the MED400 and up can take the V3.x and up firmware.

regards
vusi

[stickfighter]

I am still awaiting clarity on this.

Mede8er1 

Thanks buddy!

[koeks]

Any news?

[Maasbommel]

Any news?

The only firmware that is compatible with the 200X.300X range, can be found in the 200X 300X download section:
http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/board,39.0.html

Current latest version is 1.4

regards,
Maasbommel

[Spyros_V_S]

I have exactly the same problem with my 400X koeks - everything is outputted as stereo!! Maybe you can find something in the relevant firmware thread there.