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JBL Synthesis AVR and Processor with Dirac

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amirm

amirm

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They missed the boat with the AVP/R's only .1 in bass management?
In the video I heard Dirac multi-sub optimization. At least I thought I heard. :) I think they have 16 channels that can be configured for anything.
 

Sal1950

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But
In the video I heard Dirac multi-sub optimization. At least I thought I heard. :) I think they have 16 channels that can be configured for anything.
Your correct, I edited my post, but like you say there's still only 16 channels so somethings got to give to make room for multisub connections. Either lose some surround channels or overhead channels (Auro compat?).. Then its no longer a 9.x.6 processor. LOL
 

digicidal

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Even though it will never happen (and for good reason) I'd be really happy if someone would release a completely flexible 10 channel prepro. By that I mean that every channel was software mappable via DSP for whatever you wanted. Want to run it as an active crossover for a pair of 3/4/5 way speakers? Done. 9.1 Dolby/DTS? Done. An LCR setup with 5 subs? Done. Bi-amped LCR's with 2 atmos channels and 2 subs? Done.

...And the holy grail - switch between 5 pairs of speakers (corrected to a single listening position)? Done.

I don't care if it's $25K - I'll figure out how to justify it to my wife afterwards. Back on earth, however - that SDR-55 looks like it will be the replacement for one of my 8801A's - even if it's not measurably better (though I'm sure it will be) it ticks all the right boxes IMO.
 

jhaider

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From min.8 appx, weird that he missed mentioning the Logic 16 music upmixer:


You just made my ears perk straight up! Do you have any more information about Logic 16?

Your correct, I edited my post, but like you say there's still only 16 channels so somethings got to give to make room for multisub connections. Either lose some surround channels or overhead channels (Auro compat?).. Then its no longer a 9.x.6 processor. LOL

7.4.0.4 or 7.4.0.5, using Bryston/Storm nomenclature for 7 bed channels, 4 subs, no tops, and 4 or 5 heights (front, rear, and either VOG or center like Dr. Toole's system,) seems a great way to assign 15-16 channels.
 

Dimifoot

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Even though it will never happen (and for good reason) I'd be really happy if someone would release a completely flexible 10 channel prepro. By that I mean that every channel was software mappable via DSP for whatever you wanted. Want to run it as an active crossover for a pair of 3/4/5 way speakers? Done. 9.1 Dolby/DTS? Done. An LCR setup with 5 subs? Done. Bi-amped LCR's with 2 atmos channels and 2 subs? Done.

...And the holy grail - switch between 5 pairs of speakers (corrected to a single listening position)? Done.

I don't care if it's $25K - I'll figure out how to justify it to my wife afterwards. Back on earth, however - that SDR-55 looks like it will be the replacement for one of my 8801A's - even if it's not measurably better (though I'm sure it will be) it ticks all the right boxes IMO.
Trinnov 16 channels, fully configurable
 

Flak

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But

Your correct, I edited my post, but like you say there's still only 16 channels so somethings got to give to make room for multisub connections. Either lose some surround channels or overhead channels (Auro compat?).. Then its no longer a 9.x.6 processor. LOL

Actually there are 18 channels, 2 for B zone so maybe those can be used as well.
b.t.w. I like Dante a lot, neat!

@ jhader no additional info, sorry
 

bravomail

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SDP-55 Surround Sound Processor, SDR-35 16-Channel AVR:


Sadly it is out there as far as delivery: Q1, 2020.

SDR-35 is $7,500 and SDP-55 is $6,000. So not cheap.

For that kind of money I'd get a PC, which will do decode of any multichannel audio and downscale it to stereo, which will then feed separate external DAC, and from DAC to poweramp. And I will get much better SINAD than any of these integrated boxes! :p
 

Flak

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For that kind of money I'd get a PC, which will do decode of any multichannel audio and downscale it to stereo, which will then feed separate external DAC, and from DAC to poweramp. And I will get much better SINAD than any of these integrated boxes! :p

I don't know of any software only Atmos decoder (with the exception of the Dolby Labs one, not cheap) that can be used with a PC,
also I don't expect that one will be licensed in the future... but who knows about the future?
 

audimus

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For that kind of money I'd get a PC, which will do decode of any multichannel audio and downscale it to stereo, which will then feed separate external DAC, and from DAC to poweramp. And I will get much better SINAD than any of these integrated boxes! :p

You think people would buy these multichannel systems to just listen to stereo?

I don't know of any software only Atmos decoder (with the exception of the Dolby Labs one, not cheap) that can be used with a PC,
also I don't expect that one will be licensed in the future... but who knows about the future?

Decoder software on computers do not always require a license to be used legally. Only if you want to sell them commercially. The format itself is not something that cannot be reverse-engineered like it has been done for all other decoders until now. Fair use laws permit development of such software for personal use and for compatibility reasons. HDFury has even pushed that into a commercial product without paying for a HDMI license.

The problem is that the market for more than a 8 channel (or even 6+ channel) decoder in the already small segment of computer based media consumers that will also have a multichannel DAC or a soundcard with that many channels and will have as many speakers installed AND are not likely to have even a mass market AVR which will have Atmos in it to bitstream it to is so small as to make the development of such a decoder not worth the effort in the free or opensource community.

Since these formats are backward compatible to decode to 5.x or 7.x, that is what current decoders do losing Atmos info and that is just fine for the current and near future computer based consumers. I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
 
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Fair use laws permit development of such software for personal use and for compatibility reasons. HDFury has even pushed that into a commercial product without paying for a HDMI license.
There is no fair use provision for patents, only copyrights. Seeing how Dolby has patented these technologies, fair use cannot be used as a defense.

As for HD Fury, plenty of companies wanted to go after them and shut them down. So they are not an example of safe haven.
 

audimus

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There is no fair use provision for patents, only copyrights. Seeing how Dolby has patented these technologies, fair use cannot be used as a defense.

As for HD Fury, plenty of companies wanted to go after them and shut them down. So they are not an example of safe haven.

As any lawyer would tell you, someone interested in suing someone (for whatever reason) does not establish validity of that claim but only prevailing against it in a court of law would. Attempts to shut them down could just be empty threats to discourage further entrants. The early attempts by Apple against Hackintosh projects were one such example.

But you are correct that it would not be considered safe for a commercial entrant to get into this without a case law that has been tested in favor.

HDFury is not the right model for opensource decoders or other kinds of software. I mentioned that as an extreme case pushing into commercial territory. I was not recommending commercial use.

Fair use is indeed related to copyrights but will be part of it since these technologies almost always will also use copyright protection. However, even patents will not protect against reverse engineering for education or research purposes or dissemination of that information for such purposes. So, someone openly publishing the specs by reverse engineering for such use will not be infringing on any patents. In fact, patent protection would require you to disclose the details before you can get a patent and data formats can be copyrighted but not patentable. Patents were designed to protect commercial interests when such inventions had to be in public and could be copied.

Trade secret protections are different but then you will have to show that the publishers obtained it illegally not by reverse engineering.

As to someone writing software using such published specs, there is patent infringement only when such software is used not just by making that software available which requires the end user to incorporate. So J River or Foobar would not be able to distribute such software without their products being subjected to patent infringement lawsuits but users can go and download plugins that incorporates such decoders. Patents are not a good protection against this kind of use because you will have to go against each individual separately, show that the usage infringed on a patent which also requires one to establish commercial harm from that specific use. So, if the end user is not using it commercially, it would be almost impossible to establish patent infringement and certainly not worth it for the company.

There are many such projects that get around the patents that way. OpenPilot project for driver-assist is probably the one that faces most number of patents in the underlying technology but as something that requires the end user to incorporate isn’t under threat of any patent infringements.

But, for reasons I posted earlier, this is all academic since the demand for such decoders is tiny.
 
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As any lawyer would tell you, someone interested in suing someone (for whatever reason) does not establish validity of that claim but only prevailing against it in a court of law would. Attempts to shut them down could just be empty threats to discourage further entrants. The early attempts by Apple against Hackintosh projects were one such example.
What I mentioned in the case of HD Fury was inside information I have/had as one of the key stakeholder company in that circle. It was not based on some random threat of litigation. Contracts are involved in purchase of certain components and violating the provisions in them can get you in hot water with lawyers from big companies coming after you.
 

audimus

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What I mentioned in the case of HD Fury was inside information I have/had as one of the key stakeholder company in that circle. It was not based on some random threat of litigation. Contracts are involved in purchase of certain components and violating the provisions in them can get you in hot water with lawyers from big companies coming after you.

Yes, using third party components covered by licensing and usage restrictions potentially violating those restrictions can indeed create problems. So, perhaps using HDFury in this context of decoding software was a bad example.
 

Sal1950

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For that kind of money I'd get a PC, which will do decode of any multichannel audio and downscale it to stereo, which will then feed separate external DAC, and from DAC to poweramp. And I will get much better SINAD than any of these integrated boxes! :p
Yea, if you know how to acquire all the separate pieces, configure them to work together, and don't mind troubleshooting for hours each time some update breaks part of all of your system. No thanks, I'll just buy a nice piece of AV hardware and enjoy the music.

And for all the doom and gloom thrown out over some admittidly less than desireable measurements, most of them wouldn't be audible under blind conditions. That's not to say let the manufacturers off the hook for producing inferior products, they can and should do much better, but lets not jump the rails here either. ;)
 

ZeDestructor

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For that kind of money I'd get a PC, which will do decode of any multichannel audio and downscale it to stereo, which will then feed separate external DAC, and from DAC to poweramp. And I will get much better SINAD than any of these integrated boxes! :p

You think people would buy these multichannel systems to just listen to stereo?

^ This, so much this. I'd also like to play my videogames in 7.1+ with a better output device than a soundcard from 10 years ago, one of which has had it's analog section blown apart by some kind of dodgy signal coming in from ground. I've already bought a third to keep around as a spare, all while ignoring the driver fails of using hardware from a defunct company. Not what I'd call a good situation, as I'm sure anyone can agree.

For the curious: I'll send my spare card (and some other audio gear) to amir if he's willing to test em once my THX 789 shows up sometime around the 21st of November, since I'm quite curious how well it lines up to the spec.

I don't know of any software only Atmos decoder (with the exception of the Dolby Labs one, not cheap) that can be used with a PC,
also I don't expect that one will be licensed in the future... but who knows about the future?

ffmpeg can decode the 7.1ch TrueHD component of an Atmos track already, with some very preliminary work being done to decode Atmos metadata and audio as well. GIve em a few more years - it's not like they have access to Dolby's full spec, they're doing this using the grand tradition of of squinting really hard at the patents and raw binary signals - basically reverse engineering it, really.

There is no fair use provision for patents, only copyrights. Seeing how Dolby has patented these technologies, fair use cannot be used as a defense.

As for HD Fury, plenty of companies wanted to go after them and shut them down. So they are not an example of safe haven.

There is an argument one can make to force Dolby to license the patents under FRAND terms thanks to interoperability rules. Of course, actually fighting that through court if Dolby chooses to litigate would take an enourmous amount of time and money.

Incidentally, the patents that apply to TrueHD are not valid in a lot of places outside the US (being an algorithm it would be classed as math I think?). The EU is such a territory I believe, which is why ffmpeg, libbluray, vlc and a bunch of other decoders, encoders and muxers/demuxers operate freely without any legal concerns. As far as I can tell anyways - I'm no lawyer and could be wrong on any and all counts.

But, for reasons I posted earlier, this is all academic since the demand for such decoders is tiny.

The demand is large enough that there are groups working on it. It's not exactly a pressing demand like, say Opus or AV1 prior to their publications, but it is still there.
 

HammerSandwich

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There is no fair use provision for patents, only copyrights. Seeing how Dolby has patented these technologies, fair use cannot be used as a defense.
I thought that patents temporarily protect inventors from copycat competition. This prevents me from marketing, say, a Synergy horn but not from making one for my own use. IOW, I believe @audimus is correct here.

Patents were designed to protect commercial interests when such inventions had to be in public and could be copied.
I'm probably nitpicking, but I believe patents - like copyrights - were designed to benefit the public, which is why they require disclosure of the invention. To encourage invention & public filing, the inventor wins exclusive commercial rights for some years; but everyone benefits when the patent expires, because the technique has been documented. That said, patents have been getting more & more screwed up for some time...

There is another factor with reverse engineering in the USA, and that's the DMCA. Breaking any kind of encryption is a federal felony, regardless of why you do it. A legit owner absolutely has fair-use rights to back up his Batman DVD bit-for-bit, but cracking the protection to do so is a crime. It's like legislation against burning the flag would raise a free speech fight, so they dodged the issue by requiring all flags to be fireproof.
 

ZeDestructor

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There is another factor with reverse engineering in the USA, and that's the DMCA. Breaking any kind of encryption is a federal felony, regardless of why you do it. A legit owner absolutely has fair-use rights to back up his Batman DVD bit-for-bit, but cracking the protection to do so is a crime. It's like legislation against burning the flag would raise a free speech fight, so they dodged the issue by requiring all flags to be fireproof.

Unless you get an exemption from the Library of Congress, which the ACLU duly asks for every 3 years (iirc) for DVDs for educational purposes. Usually they get it, but every now and then they don't and it becomes problematic for teachers and so on.
 
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