AVR chops off beginning of ATMOS Tracks (SEE MY WORKAROUND IN POST #41)

[HomerJAU]

I'm really curious what WMP is able to do to force the AVR to stay in Atmos even between tracks.

I didn’t know WMP could send Atmos via HDMI to decode on an AVR. Are you sure it’s not playing the core as PCM (I.e WMP is decoding the core to 5.1 or 7.1)

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I didn’t know WMP could send Atmos via HDMI to decode on an AVR. Are you sure it’s not playing the core as PCM (I.e WMP is decoding the core to 5.1 or 7.1)

My AVR says Dolby Atmos, and it definitely sounds like Atmos. If it helps I have Dolby Atmos for Windows enabled, and if I do play PCM or DTS it seems to correctly identify those as well.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

I don't have many Atmos MKA files but I loaded up a few and played with PowerDVD and my TX-RZ50. No problems I could tell.
The Atmos light persisted on the AVR throughout.
This music I'm not real familiar with....it could have cut off some of the first track and not sure I'd know. But I'm third man out here as I normally only play .iso and (for IAA downloads) .mkv.

My main issue is any albums that need to be gapless have a gap wehn playing via Plex or Kodi, while PCM tracks do not. I can hear the receiver clicking in between tracks, signifying that it is switching sources (also an RZ50).

 

[HomerJAU]

My main issue is any albums that need to be gapless have a gap wehn playing via Plex or Kodi, while PCM tracks do not. I can hear the receiver clicking in between tracks, signifying that it is switching sources (also an RZ50).

Using a cue file with a single album MKA or MKV file (without being split into multiple chapters/song files) is gapless in Kodi

EDIT: The next Kodi release supports a single album MKA with tags/chapters without a cue and is also gapless.

 

[mandrix]

My main issue is any albums that need to be gapless have a gap wehn playing via Plex or Kodi, while PCM tracks do not. I can hear the receiver clicking in between tracks, signifying that it is switching sources (also an RZ50).

Yeah for sure. These Onkyo's do have those relay clicks when switching in/out. But I'm not getting that in my case.
Also since the last firmware update I don't hear those relay clicks as often as I did.

I don't rip down to files-per-track and don't use Kodi or Plex. So I guess it's PowerDVD taking over (what I normally use for Atmos). I also use it for individual MKV tracks (e.g., IAA Atmos downloads).
I load all the files at once in PowerDVD, maybe that's the difference? IDK.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

Using a cue file with a single album MKA or MKV file (without being split into multiple chapters/song files) is gapless in Kodi

EDIT: The next Kodi release supports a single album MKA with tags/chapters without a cue and is also gapless.

Awesome, I will look out for that.

 

[HomerJAU]

Awesome, I will look out for that.

It’s already in Kodi 22 nighties (next major Kodi release) and in most Kodi 21 nighties, not LibreElec yet) and will be in next Kodi 21 official release: 21.2 (current official is at 21.1)

Rumours say 21.2 release is very close.

 

[M-K]

Some thoughts and my experience so far:

I'm using KODi on a Raspberry Pi4 (LibreElec LE13 alpha, from December). Since four weeks, it's connected to a Denon X4800 (5.1.4).
The gapless playback was always bothering. And having the tags correctly in KODi's database at the same time .
The last chapter of an album showed 00:00 as runtime and complete album runtime was incorrect, so I use this as workaround:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...-audio-music-videos.22693/page-76#post-701120

Having a MKA + CUE does not only provide Atmos playback gapless, it can also store Auro-3D in the same manner without loosing height information. All tags work fine.

With the next upcoming KODi release, MKA with chapters will be a step forward if it works like expected. I tried and discussed it with @HomerJAU (thanks Garry), but currently the tagging of these MKA files with chapters does not work right. Some important tags are missing.

Starting in the middle of an Atmos gapless album is causing gaps too when using the KORE app. As I'm using the yatse app for this, I've found a trick to do even that. So no problem to start Abbey Road at "Golden Slumbers" and playing the rest of this album gapless.

Usually I listen to an album in its entirely length. Because I'm an album listener and not shuffling around.

But one thing is still bothering: there is often no pause on the beginning of an album. I hear the relays clicking in my Denon and I lose a bit of the first song. This happens when the AVR changes over so Atmos. Because I do not own the DRP from Dolby I cannot put a few seconds before the start by using Garry's Atmos helper tool.. And I can't convert it to wavpack (as jimfisheye recommends in #10, which is a good idea).

Wavpack would give me the chance to fix those gaps in Devin Townsend's PowerNerd (https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/list-of-blu-rays-that-have-authoring-errors.36901/), that are present on BD-A and as MKV, MKA ... (in Atmos only, stereo is ok).

 

[AYanguas]

But one thing is still bothering: there is often no pause on the beginning of an album. I hear the relays clicking in my Denon and I lose a bit of the first song. This happens when the AVR changes over so Atmos. Because I do not own the DRP from Dolby I cannot put a few seconds before the start by using Garry's Atmos helper tool.. And I can't convert it to wavpack (as jimfisheye recommends in #10, which is a good idea).

I can do it (MMH + DEE) for the important albums either from Blu-Ray or files downloaded from IAA, for those which can't stand the loss of those initial seconds with interesting content. I compile a single MKV file for the album with initial 10s silent TrueHD Atmos. I make first the initial 10s silent Atmos MKV file with the same video of the first song (truncated 10s). This way the files are compatible to append with MKVToolNix.

Could be a good idea, in case it is not illegal, to supply a single file mkv/mka/m2ts with 10s or so silent TrueHD Atmos, within the Garry's MMH tool. This way, people could do the append without the need
of creating first a silent Atmos.

Another much more sloppy solution, which was the one I used at the beginning, was to use MKVToolNix to truncate 10s of an Atmos song that started with silence or very low volume.

 

[HomerJAU]

With the next upcoming KODi release, MKA with chapters will be a step forward if it works like expected. I tried and discussed it with @HomerJAU (thanks Garry), but currently the tagging of these MKA files with chapters does not work right. Some important tags are missing.

Kodi has fudged the MKA tag reading. They don’t read the full Matroska spec tags for Tracks, Kodi looks for specific tags needs chapter names (from memory) it also needs MusicBrainz tags, implying it gets data from MusicBrainz.

I was provided with a sample mka that was used by Kodi developers that works in Next Kodi. I added code to MMH Chapter Editor to create the same metadata, and those MMH tagged MKA files also work in next Kodi in my testing. (MKA without a Cue works in Kodi, it’s imported into the Kodi music library)

In MMH 8.0.13 beta File Manager reporting does not read mka tags, just cue metadata data which is limited. MMH 9 beta 1 it reads MKA/MKV tags for the music report. Is that where you see ‘missing tags’ @M-K ?

I’ll run the MMH 9 beta File Manager scanning on one of those mka’s to see what tags it misses. Or I will look at the Kodi music db. Or maybe you can post the missing values (of course there in no guarantee Kodi will read them all now anyway).

 

[mandrix]

It's basically a joke on my part...because I , being old school but pc literate don't get it..
But why do you guys rip to individual files? Then have to go through all this ripping/tagging/organizing folders ?
Are there no album at once listeners anymore? Or you just like going through all that?
Or are playlists that important to you? I confess I never got going through all that to listen to music. Call me a luddite if you will, but I just don't get it when I can play an .iso file. HDD storage is not that expensive and I store rips in .iso when I can, north of 34TB of surround.
Bring it. lol. (mandrix ducking and running)

 

[LuvMyQuad]

It's basically a joke on my part...because I , being old school but pc literate don't get it..
But why do you guys rip to individual files? Then have to go through all this ripping/tagging/organizing folders ?
Are there no album at once listeners anymore? Or you just like going through all that?
Or are playlists that important to you? I confess I never got going through all that to listen to music. Call me a luddite if you will, but I just don't get it when I can play an .iso file. HDD storage is not that expensive and I store rips in .iso when I can, north of 34TB of surround.
Bring it. lol. (mandrix ducking and running)

The ripping, tagging, organizing is not a big deal for me, It allows for a superior user experience that the tagging provides with respect to the music library presentation. I also dont have to copy filler i dont care about but would come along for the ride in an iso rip. When i played vinyl i was an album side kind of guy, Now i tend to play a half dozen tracks from one artist across different albums.

 

[M-K]

Kodi has fudged the MKA tag reading. They don’t read the full Matroska spec tags for Tracks, Kodi looks for specific tags needs chapter names (from memory) it also needs MusicBrainz tags, implying it gets data from MusicBrainz.

I was provided with a sample mka that was used by Kodi developers that works in Next Kodi. I added code to MMH Chapter Editor to create the same metadata, and those MMH tagged MKA files also work in next Kodi in my testing. (MKA without a Cue works in Kodi, it’s imported into the Kodi music library)

In MMH 8.0.13 beta File Manager reporting does not read mka tags, just cue metadata data which is limited. MMH 9 beta 1 it reads MKA/MKV tags for the music report. Is that where you see ‘missing tags’ @M-K ?

I’ll run the MMH 9 beta File Manager scanning on one of those mka’s to see what tags it misses. Or I will look at the Kodi music db. Or maybe you can post the missing values (of course there in no guarantee Kodi will read them all now anyway).

Kodi has really fudged the MKA tag reading! I use MMH 8.0.13b file manager and tagged it with the chapter editor and mb-tags.
Kodi: It plays gapless (!!!) but year (1969) is missing. And I've added a last chapter with length 0:00 and title " ", because the album length is wrong. Genre is missing too... which is a problem of Kodi. But this is off topic here.

BTW: is there anything that Kodi could do in general regarding the pre-pause while the AVR does HMDI handshaking or similar things? So we won't lose some seconds of the beginning?

And I do not understand why my Denon 4800 interrupts audio whenever any HDMI device is switched on or off (TV as example).

 

[mandrix]

And I do not understand why my Denon 4800 interrupts audio whenever any HDMI device is switched on or off (TV as example).

Seems to be a thing across several models and brands. For some it may be the way CEC is implemented (if you use it)? IDK, I see complaints on AVSForum all the time.

 

[M-K]

Seems to be a thing across several models and brands. For some it may be the way CEC is implemented (if you use it)? IDK, I see complaints on AVSForum all the time.

CEC is off in Kodi and AVR.

 

[HomerJAU]

Kodi has really fudged the MKA tag reading! I use MMH 8.0.13b file manager and tagged it with the chapter editor and mb-tags.
Kodi: It plays gapless (!!!) but year (1969) is missing. And I've added a last chapter with length 0:00 and title " ", because the album length is wrong. Genre is missing too... which is a problem of Kodi. But this is off topic here

The Year issue I can fix I think. I’ll check today.

The Album length (duration) fix is in next official Kodi update and in all current nightlies now (except LibreElec12, no new build since code was fixed on 23 December)

BTW: is there anything that Kodi could do in general regarding the pre-pause while the AVR does HMDI handshaking or similar things? So we won't lose some seconds of the beginning?

And I do not understand why my Denon 4800 interrupts audio whenever any HDMI device is switched on or off (TV as example).

You’d need to raise a Problem Report on the Kodi website and see if any developer is interested. It took a couple years of waiting to get Abbey Road Atmos playback fixed, it wasn’t until a developer has same issue on an Atmos movie that it got fixed.

 

[HomerJAU]

The Album length (duration) fix is in next official Kodi update and in all current nightlies now (except LibreElec12, no new build since code was fixed on 23 December)

I just tested the latest fix for this and it works for old mka encodes but not new ones. I’ve reported this to Kodi devs so hopefully it will get fixed properly. I’m trying to workout what causes this, already spent 5 hours and all I have is the Duration format in the mka encodes is different, not sure if I can control that…

 

[M-K]

I just tested the latest fix for this and it works for old mka encodes but not new ones. I’ve reported this to Kodi devs so hopefully it will get fixed properly. I’m trying to workout what causes this, already spent 5 hours and all I have is the Duration format in the mka encodes is different, not sure if I can control that…

As I do for CUE files very similar, I add an extra (last) chapter to the MKA file. But for the moment I stay with CUE+MKA. That works fine so far.

The Year issue I can fix I think. I’ll check today.

Just for a test, I've manipulated the KODi database manually. But after a rescan, it was removed again. Genre is also missing (and important for me). The Kodi team should fix that.

You’d need to raise a Problem Report on the Kodi website and see if any developer is interested. It took a couple years of waiting to get Abbey Road Atmos playback fixed, it wasn’t until a developer has same issue on an Atmos movie that it got fixed.

Can take another 5 years to get this...

Q: Is it possible to force an AVR to stay at ATMOS? Just to get rid of the bothering handshaking or relay switching? This could be helpful to avoid the loss of a song's beginning. Switching off the ECO mode did not work. The Denon moved back to Stereo.