A while ago we informed you guys about some new components for our new showroom, consisting of a very nice Harman/Kardon setup. As we are finally able to take some time to use this exciting stuff, we thought to let you in on the fun with some test results and perhaps even a video once in a while.

This topic is not meant to DISCUSS the success or failure of certain aspects of the Playon!HD. This is a place where we can share our testing and confirm results in a real time 7.1 environment. Most of you, like me, are not blessed with such a nifty setup and have to do with mere 2.0 sound, prologic at best... Therefore it's a privilege that Harman/Kardon supports us and our community by lending us their cool stuff!



Our setup:


AC Ryan Playon!HD model August 2009 (1073DD)

LG LCD TV:

model 37lg3000
http://nl.lge.com/products/model/detail ... 000.jhtml#

Harman/Kardon Receiver:

model AVR 355
http://www.harmankardon.com/EN-GB/Produ ... %20355/230

Harman/Kardon 7.1 speaker set consisting of:

model HKTS 11B
http://www.harmankardon.com/specificati ... 30&sType=C

&


model HKS 4B
http://www.harmankardon.com/EN-GB/Produ ... KS%204BQ/E


Test files:

I've found a really cool and handy site that has all the files we need to fully test our player. It has movie trailers (in various formats and resolutions), DTS and Dolby test files and more! We'll tell you which files we're testing and where to find them. Using this source it's easy to request and reply.

To give the people behind it some credit, here is their banner. Don't worry, it's purely a link to the site and nothing else!


http://www.demo-world.eu

Alright here we go. First of all we've installed the latest firmware on our Playon!HD, firmware release r1757. I've selected some m2ts files to test the different audio streams and how they are processed by both Playon!HD and the Harman/Kardon AVR 355.


Dolby Digital 5.1
Universal Pictures trailer 30,3MB M2TS Dolby Digital 5.1 1080p
download file
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) OK
- HDMI LPCM (downmix to stereo) OK


DTS-HD MA 7.1
DTS HD MA trailer 95,1MB M2TS DTS-HD MA 7.1 1080i
download file
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) FAIL(Core 7.1)
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) OK(Bitstream 5.1)
- HDMI LPCM (downmix to stereo) OK


Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Dolby Bit Harvest trailer 39,1MB M2TS Dolby TrueHD 7.1 1080p
download file
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) FAIL
- HDMI LPCM (downmix to stereo) FAIL

What does it mean? It only proves the DTS HD and TRUEHD doesn't work! Please get them to work and post it would make it a lot better.

It's a bit tricky. Actually, until now the Playon!HD doesn't support DTS-HD or TrueHD.
But, the "DTS-HD Master Audio contains 2 data streams, the original DTS core stream and the additional "residual" stream, which contains the "difference" between the original signal and the lossy compression DTS core stream." Almost every player can stream the DTS core track. Dolby TrueHD doesn't seem to have that ability.

DTS-HD MA 7.1
DTS HD MA trailer 95,1MB M2TS DTS-HD MA 7.1 1080i
download file
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) FAIL(Core 7.1)
- HDMI RAW (passthrough) OK(Bitstream 5.1)
- HDMI LPCM (downmix to stereo) OK


correct me if I am wrong but using HDMI LPCM you can play only stereo but it is not downmix. it play only left and right channel instead of mix more chanels to for example 2.

Downmixing is nothing more then a term used to indicate the manipulation of audio where a number of distinct audio channels are mixed together to produce a lower number of channels.

I think the quetion is will it be supported in the future?
because for the main page of PlayOnHD it says its supported
Any official word?

It's strange when asking for official words from AC Ryan staff but it's all silence. If it's just me or anyone else, that think if AC Ryan should provide the future feature releases to the users to understand the product support roadmap and expectation. Since the official page said the DTS HD and TrueHD said to be supported but not yet released, I'm hoping AC Ryan will step up and say something about when?

@ thaithug
Still on schedule, will give more info in the next few days.

Thanks Roger.

Don't get me wrong for being pushy about the promises from AC Ryan. I like the player as much, I have bought 2 1TB HDD and got my gf kicking my @ss for spending so much for the entertainment. I like it so much that I recommended my colleagues the player. I, however, mentioned the bugs I found and some of the missing features that were supposed to be there but not. I, however, said that there are a few FW releases in the past and looks promising. Yet, I am sucking my words now that I don't know when the bugs or the features will be provided.