Blu-ray & DVD-A being downsampled

Hi Pavel & others,

I recently acquitted a DAC/streamer that displays the sampling rate of the incoming coaxial stream from the Vanity103HD output, and although SACDs read PCM 176, I cannot get Blu-rays or DVDs to register higher than 48kbs even though the video display shows the Oppo is reading them at 192kbs.

Has anyone else discovered this phenomenon? Is there a setting I am perhaps overlooking or not properly setting? I have two Vanity103hds in two separate Oppos, a DoP version in a Darbee, and a multichannel version in a standard 103. Both of them appear to be downsampling the resolution via the spdif out of the Vanity board.

Thanks for your time,
Michael

Hi Michael,
Just a quick thought, are you sure you are playing a hi-res "chapter" of a BD or DVD-A disc? I believe that by default, the first chapter is always just 48kHz tracks. You can also check the booklet to see which audio formats are available on the disc. Not all BDs have 96kHz or 192kHz tracks. On the OPPO103 the chapter indicator is in the status line when you press the GOTO button. Then navigate to the "C" for chapter selector with arrows and select another chapter and see if the sampling rate changes. With BD discs the hi-res tracks should be selectable via on-screen disc menu (if they are present).
Best Regards,
Pavel

Thank you for the response, Pavel.

It wasn't exactly what you suspected, but your suggestions led me back to going through all the settings to see if adjusting anything addressed the issue and... eureka!

In case this happens to anyone else, here's what I found:

In Setup Menu
--Audio Processing
--DTS Neo:6 Mode ---> this needs to be OFF

Unbeknownst to me, both of my Oppo 103s had this set to "Music" rather than off. The screen says this is a surround processing mode for converting stereo source to multi-channel surround sound, so the Oppo was processing the digital signal and likely downsampling it in the process. Once I turned this setting off, the DAC display switched immediately to 192kbs and the sound improved dramatically (from the lack of processing and converting to artificial surround I imagine).

Thanks, Pavel!

Hi Michael,
All right! I am glad you got it working . Of course there is always a possibility that something is not configure correctly. With the chapter thing I got stuck myself wondering why my DVDs are always playing 48kHz only, but that was quite some time ago. Maybe it will help someone too.
The rule of thumb is that all unnecessary processing should be off to start with and then you only enable what you really need.
Regards,
Pavel

For sure, thank you, Pavel.

While on the subject of settings, is it best to have the Coaxial Output in the Audio Format Setup set to Bitstream or to LPCM, or does it not matter? Does one have less processing than the other?

Thanks again.

Hi Michael,
The coaxial output setting applies only to the OPPO's own digital coax output , so in relation to the Vanity103 board the setting does not matter. It is not about processing, in fact the is no processing the OPPO can do for its digital audio output other than decode AC3 and other bit streams to LPCM. That is all the setting does.
Best Regards,
Pavel