Can XBMC play high resolution 192khz/24bit audio files?
#1
I have been searching through the forum and haven't found exactly what I am looking for. I am an audiophile that would like to use XBMC to play back high resolution 192khz/24 bit audio files. They are currently compressed using flac and played back using Media Monkey however the files can be restored to full wav's.

I also might want to send these out over HDMI to a surround processor capable of handling 192/24 audio. Any ideas if this is supported in some fashion? My one criteria is that there is no loss of quality anywhere in the chain.

I have not chosen an O.S. yet for this project. I would prefer Linux but Mac or Windows will do.

All help is greatly appreciated.
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#2
I don't have a FLAC to hand, but I'm pretty sure XBMC can play .flacs, and it can certainly play .wavs.

However you'll find that the audio circuitry in most PCs is a poor second to top end HiFi. On my Mac Mini with my mid range (Marantz) HiFi I can't tell the difference between CDs ripped to .wav and CDs ripped to a 320KHz mp3, but I can tell the difference if I play the CD on my CD player. That suggests to me that the Mac Mini audio circuitry is the limiting factor.

Incidentally I can tell the difference between .wav and a 192KHz mp3. With a 256KHz mp3 I think I can tell the difference but I wouldn't stake money on it :-)

JR
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#3
I am like minded and actually work developing loudspeakers.

It looks like right now paplayer (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=PAPlayer) is limited to 16 bits.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?p=549098

Even when using WASAPI in windows, it is truncated from 24 or 32 bits to 16.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=58315&page=3

I'd love to see some action on this (and plan to donate soon to help show support for this awesome app) but I don't think there is much interest her until we see FFMPEG support for DTSHD-MA and Dolby TrueHD decoding in Linux.

I'm sure it would be pretty easy to expose this (24 bit) HDMI functionality but the auto-configuration of ALSA etc. may be the bigger issue. We have seem a lot of breakage of HDMI audio in a number of nvidia drivers (256.XX is now supposed to be fine) and so this may be a support issue as well.
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#4
I too would love to see 24bit support added to both paplayer and dvdplayer. Another nice addition would be the automatic decoding of HDCD.
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#5
Hi,

I'm trying to play HDCD encoded files using XBMC, which play nicely directly decoded through my AV receiver with network input (HDCD decoding is on).

When I play the same files with XBMC, the HDCD decoder keeps switching on and off.

I've seen this using Windows, Ubuntu and the live CD.

Is anybody seeing this issue too?

Thanks,

Bert
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Can XBMC play high resolution 192khz/24bit audio files?0