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I'm currently sourcing an appropriate PS3 and I'd be grateful if you could PM your guide as well. Thanks

I guess you're on a windows pc. If you're using win7 you can burn BD discs directly just by dragging and dropping files to the drive in windows explorer. Otherwise you ca try Imgburn, a free application for burning all kinds of optical discs. Regards

Hello, I'm using an Oppo BDP-93 since last week. It is connected to a Marantz SR7001 AV receiver (just audio) and to a Samsung LCD TV (just video). Both connections are HDMI, since I'm a multichannel guy. The player is used as a transport and DA conversion is done by the AV receiver, which has great DACs (Cyrrus Logic CS4398). Only HD audio codecs get decoded to LPCM by the player. It's a great disc player with great sound for CD, SACD and DVD/Blu-Ray audio. I'm still comparing it with my Marantz DV7001 (a former universal DVD player) in the audio front. In terms of audio streaming, it works very well with Asset running on a Win7-64 Ultimate PC. Most of my audio files are FLAC: CD rips mostly but also some higher-rez files from B&W Society of Sound (usually 24/48 stereo), Qobuz (24/88.2 stereo), 2L (some 5.1 24/96 and 24/192 stereo), Linn (up to 24/192 stereo) and some others. I also have a smaller number of MP3 and WMA files. I have Asset configured to stream FLACs natively with the 24 bit option turned on. WMA files are transcoded to WAVE. Everything plays fine. I can't check if the 24 bits are kept or converted to 16 bit but my AV Receiver always shows the correct sample rate. At least 16 bit files are played "bit-perfectly" since rips of HDCD discs turn on the HDCD indicator in the AVR. Cover art and some tags are shown for FLACs (not for transcoded material). The sound from streamed files is superb and indistiguishable from the original CD played by the Oppo. I'm also testing TVersity. This DLNA server works well for my videos (m2ts files, streamed natively) and photos (Canon RAW files transcoded to JPEG) but I still have to make it stream FLACs natively. Apparently I didn't manage to edit the correct device profile, since audio seems to get transcoded no matter the format. I also tried Foobar2000's Upnp server last night but only CD rip FLACs managed to play natively. Other resolutions got transcoded and crashed the player. I'll report back as soon as I make more tests.

It isn't clear where in the transmission chain the 1.5 ns jitter measurement was made. Was it at the TMDS frame level? at the audio data level? If it was measured at the audio data level, just to put things in perspective, if we consider a 192 kHz sample rate the stated jitter value is less than 0,03% of the bit period. It would be even less important at lower sample rates. I guess it would have no effect for all practical purposes. On the other hand, any digital transmission system is prone to jitter and properly designed system would be able to deal with the expected ammount of jitter. From what was said before from the HDMI 1.3a specifications, I understand that audio data is sent in packets along with information about audio sample rate. Therefore, audio data should be buffered by the receiver, the proper clock rate is determined from the recovered video clock by a multiplication and division operation and then the audio samples are sent to the DAC at the proper sample rate. If the reclocking circuitry is properly designed the output jitter should be minimal. This would be entirely similar to streaming from a file in a hard disk. In this case the data is buffered and output at the proper sample rate as well.

Thank you for the comments. I'd like to know what kind of sound differences have been found by those who tested both HDMI and SPDIF interconnections to an AVR. Right now I have a Marantz DV7001 as source, connected to the AVR by SPDIF coax (for CD) and 5.1 analog cables (for multi-channel SACD). The DV7001 is connected to the LCD TV by HDMI just for DVD video. I haven't compared the SQ of HDMI/SPDIF/analog yet. Regarding the music server, I intend to start with the basic configuration I described in my initial post. I'll compare it to the DV7001 and then decide how to proceed to improve the SQ. I'll also be able to connect the server to the AVR with optical SPDIF just for audio (the motherboard doesn't have SPDIF coax). Thanks again.

Hello everyone, I'm planning to build an HTPC for audiophile multichannel audio and Blu-ray/DVD playback, with the following features: - CD and HR audio: bit-perfect playback of 16/44.1, 24/48, 24/88.2, 24/96, 24/176.4, 24/192, in stereo and multichannel - Blu-Ray Audio: bit-perfect playback of DD TrueHD and DTS HD MA converted to LPCM, up to 24/192, up to 7.1 channels - DVD audio: bit-perfect bitstreaming of DD and DTS - Video: high quality Blu-Ray HD and DVD video playback (directly from discs, no ripping here) - Audio and Video output over HDMI to Marantz SR7001 AV receiver (Cirrus Logic CS4398 DACs for 7.1 channels, up to 24/192 per channel), which sends video over HDMI to a Samsung 46-inch full HD LCD - Completely silent operation - Networking: WiFi network access to audio files stored in a 2 TB USB HDD connected to a WiFi router (this router presents the USB HDD as a NAS to all computers in the network) - Web browsing - CD ripping capability - Bluetooth keyboard + mouse To meet these requirements I'm considering the following configuration: - ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe motherboard: completely fanless design, includes ATI graphic processor capable of HD video and audio playback with PAP support for up to 24/192 audio. Also includes WiFi, Bluetooth and HDMI 1.3 output. Still unavailable. - 4 GB RAM (OCZ LV 1333 MHZ DDR3, with heatspreaders) - Sony Optiarc slim trayloading Blu-Ray/DVD drive (model no. BC-5500H-01) - OCZ Onyx 32 GB SSD, just for OS and applications, as well as ripping CDs (these get transferred over the network to the NAS after ripping) - Case: open to suggestions but considering a Silverstone LC19 (includes a fanless 120W DC/DC power supply) - Keyboard + mouse: open to suggestions but a keyboard with integrated pad would be ideal - OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit - Music player/music library/ripping/tagging: MusicBee - Blu-Ray/DVD player: PowerDVD (converts HD audio to LPCM) I'd be greatful to ear your opinions and suggestions about this configuration. I'm especially interested in earing what you think about using HDMI for audio and the DACs in the Marantz receiver.