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CornanTheIowan

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  1. Just a bit of an update. My status after posting on boards like this was that Microsoft DLNA didn't work, JRiver didn't work and the JRiver diagnostics program (WhiteBear?) didn't help me get connected either. Apparently because HDMI is a video standard you have to in some cases "fool" the video card into believing that video is present. Since that time, probably due to some obsure fix buried deep in Windows, DLNA has "come to life" on my main computer system with no help from me, but it's clear that the computerphile and expensive audio people are focused almost exclusively on stereo (stereo started when, the 1950s ???). There was an expensive multi-channel streaming device that I didn't pursue and another reasonably price unit on the horizon, but wouldn't work for some other reason that I don't recall clearly. I would still love to hear of software that would work on my systems and especially work with multi-channel sound. I'll settle for 5.1, though Dolby Atmos would be cool.
  2. I've tried JRiver and Serviio and the built-in Windows 7 capabilities, and none of them can be played by any of my Sony or Roku devices. The trial period for JRiver was too short for troubleshooting and ran out before I got any results at all. Ironically, sometimes one of the devices can see our two laptop computers for some files, some times. My understanding is that when sending multichannel sound over HDMI some device has to make at least a pretense of being a video device. The only positive point was that the JRiver diagnosis program ran without crashing, but there appears to be no other such DLNA diagnostic in existence and no errors are thrown in Windows, just 4+ devices in my two systems can't play anything at all from my main Windows 7 computer. I've more or less given up on the idea for the moment, as "nothing works" or is way too complex or expensive, and while I'm a software development professional I'm not a networking / DLNA technical expert and the lack of meaningful error messages or diagnostics is a real turn-off.
  3. Thanks to all - this is the kind of discussion I had hoped for. "Newbie" only for the computer-to-A/V system aspects; I'm a full-time software developer and long-time musician and / or audiophile. My two A/V systems are already very multi-channel, including ARC for the televisions, only I have no ability (yet) to play audio files on an A/V system, from my main (Windows 7) computer and no co-located computers. I'm not 100% sure how / what the Oppo unit (units?) do, but I know it/they include multi-channel. I have mostly SA-CD, but a handful of DVD-Audio that most of my (mostly Sony) equipment doesn't play. Given the lack of availability of multi-channel analog switches (I have to wait for old Zektors to appear on eBay) and single multi-channel inputs on receivers, it's surprising to me to see some emphasis on multi-channel analog. Windows DLNA / Serviio seem to be out; moving to JRiver next. The "miniDSP" DAC seems nice if I put a Mac with my A/V system, but would the Mac read files from my Windows (as a file server) and then output them to the co-located A/V system? With regard to silent movies, they mostly have sound tracks (see The First Woman On The Moon and the most recent restoration of Metropolis and listen for the Dies Irae in both Metropolis and the theatrical version of Star Trek: Into Darkness]), but I'm talking about multi-channel music; I am most definitely not a videophile.
  4. I've seen several mentions of "HDMI output [from computer]" What HDMI output? Some sound card? An HDMI output on a video card being co-opted for audio? And do some of these [mysterious to me] HDMI outputs support multichannel? I also posted a "need an introduction" message but only one person responded about one aspect of the post, which I appreciated, but I still "dont' get" the whole computer to sound system "thing". Right now, my computer is on the opposite side of the room from my secondary A/V system and in a different room from my main A/V system. I might be willing to put computers in the area of the audio systems if they offered some practical advantages, but playing music from a computer seems to be more of a computerphile's choice than an audiophile's choice, if you get my drift.
  5. I don't have any player software yet and don't have any computers co-located with A/V systems. I read your article in the July Stereophile (thus answering my question about how to reach you) but found it baffling (if heartening) as it assumed knowledge (getting from my computer to my A/V systems) I don't have. Somebody at "serviio" mentioned using an HDMI cable, but didn't mention from what to what (my Sony receiver does have DSD over HDMI support which I use now, but the only HDMI output on my computer is from my video cards). In other words, while I'm a highly experienced audiophile and web/database developer, I'm purely a noob at connecting the world I love (music) with the world of work (computers).
  6. I'm in need of an end-to-end introduction to what I understand are the very few options for playing multi-channel files on disk (somewhere) on my audio-visual systems, which are at present networked but which are NOT co-located with computers. I'm beginning to know of a few pieces (such as getting the files from primephonic.com), but I can't see how to make the process work end-to-end. I have tried for years to get about six separate Sony devices just to see my computers' DLNA on Windows - none of them even see my main computer running Windows 7. There seem to be no DLNA troubleshooting tools for either the server or player ends of the network. I installed Serviio and again, no devices (or other computers) see the Serviio DLNA (Serviio can plac FLAC and DSD files, but not sure about multichannel). I just discovered primephonic.com, and their website seems to be talking only about playing surround sound on computers directly, not playing files stored on my Windows computer (I guess I run some kind of non-network cable(s) 50 feet between two rooms to play on my A/V system?) I see the exaSound e28 DAC, but $3,800 for just one piece of the puzzle? Seriously? From the bullet above, you may infer that I am a music lover, not an equipment lover. Yes, I've spent five figures over decades on media (about 1500 CDs and 100-200 SACDs and miscellaneous) and equipment, and my main system includes items from 1970s Janzsen electrostatic speakers to a 2014 55" Sony Bravia television. But it's not about the gear, it's about the music (video, schmideo, I'm not a videophile, either) I'm a software/database developer with almost 40 years experience (H-P mini-computer, then Microsoft stack), and for me computers are work tools, not toys. I don't love 'em any more than my father (an auto mechanic) loved his wrenches. So, "thank you" first of all to anybody who has read, not just skimmed, this post. I'm stubborn enough to still want to troubleshoot DLNA, just to prove I can get it working, or at least understand why it doesn't, but my ultimate goal is to play surround sound on my A/V systems. P.S. For the last 10-15 years I've been grumpy about the conflation of "hi-res" with multichannel sound. Strange bedfellows - I'm perfectly happy with a 44.1 kHz sampling rate, but view stereo recording as a historical artifact of the 1950s (wait a minute, I was born in the 1950s).
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