Nvidia Shield PCM over HDMI quality

[Thegoodspot]

Here the HDFury Diva reading from Kodi set to fixed output 192Khz, The shield is 16bits when set to PCM out. Other devices like Pi shows 24Bits.

 

[omm0910]

I'm still not clear on a solution that gives me top fidelity AND ease of use. Like others in this thread, I have high bitrate movies spinning around on my NAS. Using Plex on my nVidia Shield is super convenient. But as has been observed in this thread, anything on Android will remove bits. Another solution is to use a Blu-Ray player. But then you have to hassle with physical media. I could try running Plex on my LG OLED, which then sends the audio and video out the ARC HDMI. Not sure that has enough bandwidth. Another solution is to use an HTPC. Actually Plex does run on Mac and Windows now, in fact it has a client for 20 platforms. And an HTPC could mount my NAS over the network. So is that the answer, to get both ease of use and all the audio bits?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Another solution is to use an HTPC. Actually Plex does run on Mac and Windows now, in fact it has a client for 20 platforms. And an HTPC could mount my NAS over the network. So is that the answer, to get both ease of use and all the audio bits?

That's the way I would go for a fixed install, though it can come with a higher initial cost. There are so many routes you could take now that hardware-accelerated streaming has been included with even low-cost CPUs' integrated GPUs. You could repurpose a laptop, build your own desktop or mini PC, or pick from a number of small barebones or pre-built options like Intel NUC, HP Z/ProDesk/EliteDesk, Lenovo M series, and countless other USFF and stick PCs. Just make sure to get something with at least 100GB internal storage to account for Windows updates.

 

[theglobalelite]

But as has been observed in this thread, anything on Android will remove bits.

I don't think it's been fully confirmed if it's an Android thing or Nvidia Shield thing? Aren't there a few "audiophile" products that run on Android?

It should also be known that Nvidia is fairly receptive to feature requests and bug reports. I've actually started a few fires on the Nvidia Shield official support forums and I've gotten direct DMs from Nvidia staff to get more info, share test files and test new builds to confirm if the reported issue was fixed. It took a few months but some of my reported bugs were fixed or features implemented. It's entirely possible no one else noticed or cared about the 16-bit downgrade "issue" to report it as a bug to Nvidia to fix it (if fixable).

https://imgur.com/gmQWrhr

 

[omm0910]

A more knowledgable friend pointed out

RE the Nvidia Shield output: The bitrate thing only applies to PCM audio, not bitstream. Bitstream will do 24bit DTS-HD Truehd just fine. it just sends the encoded stream to the AVR. But if you're sending PCM to the AVR, it will only do 16bit apparently. So all of your high bitrate movies are fine....unless the ripper took the 24bit/48khz DTS-HD track and saved it as 24bit/48kz FLAC on the MKV file

A lot of old stuff was sometimes saved like that because people had very old AVRs when Bluray first came out, and couldn't decode DTS-HD inside the AVR, so you could only send PCM to get uncompressed audio. But if the bluray didn't have a PCM track you were screwed, because the software player would not decode DTS-HD either! (fortunately MediaPlayerClassic now decodes both truehd and dts-hd in open source free software, yay!) So anyway, some old rips would convert DTS-HD and TrueHD to FLAC so they could send lossless PCM to their older AVRs. When I used the 30-day trial of Dirac Live, I had to stop bitstreaming to the AVR, and decoded the TrueHD/DTSHD in my software player (MediaPlayerClassic) into PCM so that Dirac could then process the channels before spitting it out (as PCM) to the AVR. I think it ended up sounding way better than bitstream to the AVR with Audyssy XT

 

[theglobalelite]

Yep, that's my exact use case as well. I have a ton of multi-channel FLAC from old Blu-ray backups I don't want to re-rip because FLAC and TrueHD/DTS-MA should sound identical if the PCM from FLAC is handled properly.

Also, a lot of high-res music sold online is distributed as 24-bit FLAC, which will get downsampled. And the Shield cannot bitstream DSD either (DSD-over-HDMI) so those tracks get decoded to PCM, and also downsampled. So it's not an issue that should be handwaved away.

 

[theglobalelite]

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1630053358

The Shield is currently on Android 9, wonder if an update to Android 11 or 12 will help resolve this 16-bit limitation?

 

[AudioScience Enthusiast]

Yes it would be great if Shield could send 192/24 to my AVR as AirPlay from Roon is limited to 44/16. But isn’t this a hardware limitation that they may not be able to solve without next-gen Shield?