DMP-A6 Tidal Atmos via HDMI

He didn´t hack anything. He just commented on another Youtube channel and then published this video on his own channel, although he said he doesn have a channel.
Anyway, could someone just test, wether that Atmos Logo in that song is showing up on his own device?

 

Zidoo 3000 plays Tidal, DMP-A6 no.

Hope the fix it in future

 

No Tidal at all? According to EverSolo DMP-A6 Digital Media Player Streamer | Zidoo Deutschland it does support Tidal.

 

He probably meant Tidal Atmos?

 

Tidal runs perfectly fine directly on the device and also tidal connect. Just no atmos via hdmi out.

 

I can't get that on mine whatever way I tried. How convenient that he turned off comments, and no sound to match the song to the time stamp.

Where are the track info? Sampling? Bitrates? Did he just recorded the screen from another app on his phone and pasted on the video at the A6 screen ? Pretty easy to do now.

 

Hdmi is just a standard for a plug basically and you can do so many different things with it.
Video , standard audio output including 5.1 and atmos.
DSD, I2S, eArc.
It just does not involve the same chips before or the same pin wired in the connector .
That's why a cheap amzn box can stream atmos and not the A6

 

As written earlier in this post, it would be very cool if it will be possible to use the hdmi interface to transport the "atmos music data" to your receiver in its raw format to have it decoded there to be able to listen to it in all it's glory. Is this something what technically can be done??

 

Still no real reason for why?

 

I have also been told via email support that Tidal Atmos over HDMI is possible, and yet here the staff say no and everyone wants to defend and say a sub $x however much dollar device shouldn't be expected to do everything. So firstly, there is a market for this as very few other devices do it, so it's an opportunity for zidoo to take some market share from some of the extremely expensive competitors that do this. Secondly, how is it so hard to get the forum mods here aligned with customer support? I don't care if this is a relatively 'cheap' device for what it does, I want to ensure I am getting what I pay for.

 

It could be possible, but maybe it had to be designed from the beginning. As said above, HDMI is just a plug standard. It can accomodate I2s, or eArc for example, and this alone brings Atmos out of the game just for the matter of wiring.
And the fact that also very few devices do it may be a sign that:
a) is might be not that trivial
b) there might be not enough demand for it on a music player
c) it might be too expensive for a music player

Dolby Atmos is a (relatively) new format spreading around, mostly (if not only) for movies (how many music on Atmos is there? correct: none) so the mere fact people are asking for Atmos capabilities on a MUSIC (and not VIDEO) player is, IMO, a bit pretentious.
If you want to stream Dolby Atmos go get a device made for it; or at least do not complain that an already comprehensive MUSIC player does not support it. That is: why don't you complain about your Dolby Atmos apparel does not offer streaming to it? Or even multichannel over optical? (ok, this last one may be too much for the optical, but you got my point... could be via ethernet or wifi...)

Cheers, Al.

 

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I believe you are ill informed on a number of points

- HDMI is a standard class, and a socket type. When the HDMI socket is used however implemented as I2S for example it uses a different pin configuration and must be labelled as such. If the HDMI socket type implemented can handle PCM and DSD (which it does), and assuming the standard is at least 1.4 or newer (which is well over a decade old) then it can handle Atmos as that's just an encoding standard with rights management. Chances are if it is not supported it's because zidoo haven't come to a licensing agreement.

- There are tens of thousands of tracks now mastered specifically in Atmos. It ceased being an audio standard exclusively for film 3 or 4 years ago. Some of the best recordings I've ever heard have been mastered in Atmos. Before calling people pretentious for asking about compatibility with a standard you clearly know nothing about, I suggest you allocate even 5 minutes to research, lest people find you pretentious.

- Most importantly, I am not complaining the device doesn't handle it, I'm commenting on confusing messaging coming from zidoo. The A6 looks incredible AS IS, however if I purchase it for a feature I'm told it has, and then find out it doesn't, I have every right to comment on that. There are laws around false advertising for a reason.

As a final comment, there are thousands upon thousands of devices that offer Atmos now, including many devices $100 or less, however there are very few that have the specific combination of features the A6 has, notably tidal connect support and HDMI output coupled with high quality stereo DACs / output stage. If you venture into the spatial audio community for a few minutes you'll see there is enormous demand for a product like this. There's nothing pretentious about it. We are all looking for a unique combination of features in a device, and there is no right or wrong about it... This is true for you too, else you wouldn't be interested in the A6 to begin with, or anything else since your first Walkman, or iPod, or record player, or whatever it is you first fell in love with but grew out of as technology advanced.

 

You may be right on the music re-mixed in Atmos (although to a certain level... like converting an mp3 back to wav...). In 5.1 there are indeed many, but also in this realm the native mixes are very few, and the re-mixes are in many cases poor, YMMV. But I know, here we may have divergent views, so it doesn't matter actually how much music is out there in such format.

I'm not saying HDMI socket cannot support Atmos; just that the different formats / purposes the socket is being currently used for are in no way standardized; so there could be some wiring missing in the A6's socket, if it was not meant for the purpose since the beginning; e.g. as no video capability is present, relevant signals may not be wired; same applies for those relevant to the transport of the Atmos data.
Moreover, the A6 was never advertised as Atmos-capable.

I do hope there is a fix for this; it may just depend on how the data is routed internally, as it seems to me that all digital inputs go to the DAC, and then leave the device in analog form only; but if there is also some hardware change to be made... we're well out of luck.

Sorry if I sounded harsh, didn't mean to, sincerely.
Cheers, Al.

 

You can check Tidal website for the of devices that support Dolby Atmos playback from Tidal.

I tried to share the link but it was flagged out as spam and disallowed to be shared.

 

any new on that will there be a software update or is this impossible?

@Nutul I think you should take some deeps breaths it's not so crazy to think that an 3 month old audio player device with an hdmi out for 900 eur only designed for streaming music is capable of the latest shit.

im not a techi but I'm really surprised and will probably send it back after I've heard that.

another device and another device and another one in the end for every little xxx if that's the future good night.
Bad enough that 2000 eur avr cannot really do that not talking about streaming videos or music from a nas but then you buy a a6 and you need another device. puhh

 

I vote no for Dolby Atmos.

 

+1

 

Well now that I've actually been streaming for 3 months now on Amazon, I can say quite a bit of stuff I listen to shows Atmos as being available. Like say, the new Rolling Stones album Hackney Diamonds. So yeah, since I use my A6 in my rack in my main system which supports Atmos, I'd like for it to be an option. If its a hardware limitation, then fine. I'll wait until an A10 comes along. If its a firmware limitation, then if I were Zidoo, I'd get cracking to make it work, and then brag like hell about how they did it and how even more awesome the A6 is.

The fact is, Atmos is a major up and comer, and will be standard fare soon. Much more than SACD (DSD) ever was / is. Just my opinion.

 

Like you said in another thread: "let's get all the promised features working and working well, first,". In that thread I completely agreed with you.

Also, if I remember correctly, it was mentioned from the start in all documentation and PR that the DMP-A6 HDMI out is max. 5.1 channels. Now all of a sudden I see people in this thread getting very upset about a lack of Dolby Atmos.

 

I was just replying as sort of an update to my original post above when I was a total novice at streaming. Now I'm at least in 3rd grade! Hahaha.

I still want all the promised stuff working and working well, FIRST. 100%. That includes given assumptions that things should work ergonomically well, not just work. There are a lot of threads here about all the ways the A6 doesn't work well, and those need to be listened to an fixed, first.

This is an old thread in terms of the A6. On page 1 people basically said that Atmos is not a big player so who cares. But now that I've been using Amazon for more than 3 months, I totally disagree about it not being a player. I think its not only a player, but its just going to continue to get bigger and bigger. Its not for audiophiles only (like SACD DSD).

Like I said, if its a hardware limitation, so be it. People who must have Atmos just need to move on. BUT, if its a firmware thing, then I think it needs to move to the head of the line into SECOND. Having Atmos capability is much more important to performance, options, and A6 sales than having 300 screen choice options.

But, to the contrary, I just read an article in Stereophile magazine about Atmos and it not being all it's cracked up to be when it comes to actual sound quality (lower rez than hi rez). Not good. Yet another music industry back slide in the works. Fantastic (sarcasm).