SACD/DSDIFF playback in XBMC

DDDamian Wrote:Hi there. About a two weeks ago I e-mailed the creator (Maxim Anisiutkin) of the foo_sacd.dll code asking if I could port it to XBMC as part of the AE sub-system. I have not received an answer yet. I have a very strong interest in this as well.

DSD, especially DST multi-channel playback is very CPU-intensive, and even on a decent rig it can stutter with other processes running, so I have my doubts as to whether visualizations can still run. But to have the code ported/adapted would be great as horsepower keeps increasing.

He has released his code, so it's open-source, but it's still also copyrighted material. For that reason I wanted his permission to proceed.

I'll try again to contact him - I have around 60 SACD's ripped to ISO, and prefer not to convert them all to FLAC.

With AE we can get 24-bit audio, so conversion to FLAC becomes feasible, but if I can get permission to port the code all the better.

Wow, sounds intriguing. Do you think converting them to FLAC decreases the sound quality? In the end it is a PCM conversion after all.

Turrican2 Wrote:Wow, sounds intriguing. Do you think converting them to FLAC decreases the sound quality? In the end it is a PCM conversion after all.

I think there are two options: direct DSD stream (gonna now be limited to fewer playback devices) or PCM conversion.

There's certainly loss in any conversion, and many DSD discs have already been through one PCM->DSD conversion as most DAWs are PCM. DSD DSPs are unwieldy and uncommon.

Likewise there's debate on the quality of the Foobar plugin's conversion quality compared to the Korg or Saracon conversions. Weiss Saracon is $1500 and people do object to the hard roll-off above 20khz.

By all accounts the later versions of the Foobar plugin have improved the conversion to near-transparancy with the big guys. I can attest that it sounds fantastic at 24/172.4 and at 24/88.2. As good as DSD via Denon Link 3 (proprietary in any case)? Not quite, but very very close.

Given that many cannot playback a pure DSD stream, and given that many who can will have receiver options enabled that require a PCM conversion I for one think that with AE's 24bit capabilities the PCM conversion is a good thing - it'll bring SACD playback to more people.

@Pike - best....avatar....ever

@Pike, DanielaE - thanks for the input! Foobar is as minimalist a player as can be, and or one might be called a mid-level machine multi-channel DST is going to be the challange as most users will have visualization running, and XBMC has a much different stream processing structure than the normal sequential playback model. More threads running, multiple streams possible, etc.

There's simply higher overhead. This will be the challenge for sure.

@DDDamian - Having just read through the 80 pages of Daniela's thread on HD audio support and having seen your link to this thread on the possibility of SACD ISO file support, it makes an old audiophile very happy to be using xbmc!

I started out with the openelec version of xbmc, but got frustrated by the lack of PCM multichannel support (HDMI) on the Fusion platform under linux. I am right in saying that currently there is no capability on the linux platform for uncompressed multichannel audio in xbmc on the Fusion platform? I've had no issues with DD or DTS 5.1 playing over HDMI, but no luck whatsoever with my DVD-Audio collection which I have ripped to FLAC multichannel. I saw the AE branch postings here some weeks ago and it's great to see that real audiophile quality support (inc. 24bit) will be available in the medium term. Even more exciting to me is the possibility of playing SACD images at some point. I have quite a collection of SACDs, but picqued at your postings on support in xbmc, can I ask if there is a method of transferring those to ISO format other than that of using hacked old PS3s to rip the disks? I have quite an expensive Marantz universal player, plus an older Pioneer player which I use for playback currently.

I have been experimenting with a version of xbmc on win 7 just to get my FLAC multichannel rips working. Good success, but obviously only with 16 bit support. I will install the patched Eden RC to check out the passthrough options also. But what I really want is the tight, linux based version which supports PVR and HD audio! Short of grabbing the sources and building it myself (the wife'll kill me if I clutter up the study with even more kit!), what are the possibilities of seeing a linux binary with AE and PVR support within the next month or so?

Keep up the good work - audophile sound matters

Welcome to the forums. It's nice to see another audiophile around - we're a rare and often abused group around here

It sounds like you have a good handle on what's going on, and have done some research. You bring up a few points: I'll try to address them.

1) DSD/Diff - there are a few ways to playback DSD/DST/DSDiff from a PC, but they are all to my knowledge on Windows. Foobar with an add-on for SACD playback and an addon for WASAPI output make this possible and near-perfect. We have opened a ticket with the developers of FFMpeg, which does a lot of the decoding work for XBMC and is the best place to have the decoder added. Whether that comes to fruition is really up to them. There are some potential licensing concerns with portions of the Foobar plugin code that may make extensive work necessary.

As for ripping there is no "easy" solution to date. There are currently two methods: the older-firmware PS3 hack and modified (usually Oppo) players.

2) FLAC - you are correct, FLAC is currently limited to 16bit in mainline XBMC. There are two initiatives underway to correct that, the further advanced being AE. You can build it and get 24bit playback as it stands now, but it is not ready yet for merging with the master XBMC code and distribution. As you have found, that is a near-term solution. For mainline integration I doubt the timeframe is one month, but it's not far-off either.

3) Hardware - no matter the OS, playback will depend on hardware. Currently the best solution is Win7 and HDMI, but you'll want capable HDMI audio no matter the platform. High bitrates are not possible via SPDIF, not in the range of DVD-A/SACD/BR audio. The Fusion platform is not really up to snuff, but there are relatively cheap options from newer ATI/nVidia cards. Obviously your AVR must support HDMI and multi-channel LPCM as well.

Hope that covers all you've asked. The future for hi-def audio on XBMC is bright indeed, but some patience will be necessary.

@DDDamian - thanks for the quick response. I'm running an MSI E350IA-E45 mobo and it seems pretty damn perfect on Win 7 OS running the stock ATI HDMI drivers. PCM multichannel at up to 192kHz from FLAC files no problem. Just doesn't work on openelec, though - I'm assuming driver issues in the linux environment?

I have an Onkyo SR875 which handles pretty much any bitstreaming format I care to throw at it. Seems somewhat humbling that a relatively cheap mobo can actually decode all the exotic HD audio formats to LPCM so well. I paid big money for my Onkyo about three years ago and I want to see the lights come on when I send it bitstreamed HD audio, so I'm danged if I want my cheap mobo decoding it I'm in the process of looking for an old PS3 with the right firmware so I can backup my SACDs to an archive format. Was hoping there might be an easier way! Foobar did a great job of ripping my DVD-As to FLAC and my CD collection was archived using EAC, so I haven't much further to go until all my stuff is on hard disk.

@fat-tony - Those few PS3's that will work trade pretty high on EBay

Re: ATI & Linux, yeah, by all accounts Linux is very much neglected by ATI.

(2012-03-02 19:46)DDDamian Wrote:  Welcome to the forums. It's nice to see another audiophile around - we're a rare and often abused group around here

You made my day!

Hey, I never noticed this thread got some lovin'
Max, the programmer of the foobar2000 sacd plugin has already implemented various decoding optimizations which have made playback between 4-6 times faster than when the plugin was first written. If you people could work more wonders on the optimization part I guess he would be really happy seeing XBMC as having a synergy effect.

A problem that he couldn't tackle so far - and for me this is probably the holy grail - is DSD streaming via HDMI. Many newer universal players can do this, however, there seems to be no real standard. I'd LOVE to see the DSD indicator light up on my Yammy 3067, though... never seen that until now Oppo was going in that direction with DVD-A and Bluray ISOs, but they caved in and removed ISO playback support (I imagine due to legal pressure).

May I also point you guys to the sister thread of this one: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid...=dvd-audio
DVD-A ISO playback should be just around the corner as MLP decoding is already present in XBMC. Again, Maxim's ISO code might be helpful there.

hi there, so happy to find this thread!
yes another audiophile in here !

so if this will happen (sacd read possibility with xbmc) I guess the best way would be to decode dsd to pcm, even if I think we'll loose the specific and warm sound of sacd .
but it will be the easiest way for now

I have a few sacd's iso, and was searching a way to read it with xbmc, the way i found is to set foobar as an external player for sacd, with the foobar sacd plug-in.
I tried to stream dsd through my nvidia GT520 hdmi output, foobar is doing right but no sound
I bought an asus xonar hdav1.3 to try , but again no sound through hdmi, so the only way here is to decode to pcm and play with asio pilot, and with the analog quality of that soundcard the result is quite amazing, and my denon AVR love it ;-)

the only way to stream dsd I found is with a mytek 192 stéreo DAC but it's quite expensive!

hope they'll find a way to do it with hdmi someday!