Hi all,
I am not familiar with Infuse and haven’t used it yet and need some help seeing if it will work for my needs. I have over 3 TB of movies stored on a Synology NAS that are in iTunes. All of my movies are .mp4 that my Apple TV 3rd gen streams through my Yamaha receiver. The movies all have covers, descriptions, etc. I use MetaX to provide all of this. I am overhauling my home theater system in my new house which includes an Apple TV 4K. I was thinking about using Infuse with both my Apple TV 3rd gen on one TV and the ATV 4K on my other TV.
Here is a list of questions:
1.) If I have an mp4 or MKV file encoded with multiple audio formats can I select which audio
format to use such as Dolby Digital, TrueHD, DTS and if I can how will I know it is actually
selected? When I play an mp4 now , my Yamaha receiver displays Dolby Digital. When I play a
Blu-Ray and select DTS, the receiver displays DTS as the audio source. Will the selected audio
source display similarly with as mentioned above on my receiver?
2.) Will infuse display my movie library which already has the metadata including the covers I
choose without choosing its own?
All audio is converted to PCM and sent out that way as the AppleTV does not support bitstreaming. The audio is a 1:1 match of the original. By default infuse plays the first audio track. If you have other ones you can select them during playback from the drop down menu.
Thanks. When converted to PCM, does that audio hold the same unique audio properties and sound clarity which is specific to that specific audio track? Eg. TrueHD is clearer than Dolby Digital, and different than DTS. How will I know for sure what audio track is playing? Will my Yamaha receiver indicate it like it indicates Dolby Digital currently with the movies I am streaming from iTunes?
Run your file through mediainfo. Whatever track one is that’ll be the track that’s played. The audio is a direct conversion so it’ll be bit for bit the same. Your receiver will either say PCM, LPCM or multi-channel as it’s raw uncompressed audio. This will only work if your receiver is connected directly to your AppleTV with HDMI. If you’re using optical audio then you’ll have issues.
9 Months later I now have my home theater setup so here are a couple of other questions. I have the Apple TV 4k 2021. I connected it directly to my TV with HDMI and My Sony 4K TV is connected to my Yamaha receiver via eArc. I first tried connecting the ATV to the Yamaha receiver but I could not get the ATV to activate Dolby Vision going through the receiver only when connected to the TV.
That said, I have a 5.1.2 setup with 2 overhead ceiling speakers. When streaming a movie from my personal collection encoded with TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, will Infuse convert this to PCM and give me the 5.1.2 qualities?
Check your receiver for firmware updates. Some of them require this for Dolby vision support. Also make sure the receiver has enhanced mode enabled on all HDMI ports. Infuse will only send out standard 5.1 or 7.1 audio on TrueHD or DRS-HD tracks. The lower quality dd+ with atmos found in webrips will give you height channels. If you want the full Dolby atmos experience you’ll need a non-apple device such as an nvidia shield pro.
I have the Yamaha Aventage rx-a2a receiver and I have the latest firmware. I guess Dolby Vision is not supported. I believe enhanced mode is enabled on all HDMI ports. I can encode a video file to mkv or mp4 and I have 8 channel with the option of encoding TrueHD and DTS-HD 8 channel. Are you saying that Infuse will send out either one of these as lossless PCM audio to the receiver giving me the same quality and characteristics to the receiver where it can take advange of audio coming out of all 8 channels in a 5.1.2 setup? I’m not sure what you mean by the full Dolby Atmos experience wit the Shield Pro. I have 2 ceiling speakers as well as the standard 5.1 setup.
That’s a bummer. I thought the main benefit of Infuse is that Firecore has the licenses to TrueHD Atmos and DTS-HD and using Infuse with the Apple TV will be the best of both worlds.
What do you suggest? I want to be able to easily access all of my media and play it through my home theater system and I have already put everything in iTunes over the years. I have over 4TB of movies and TV Shows, as well as a whole music collection, workout videos and Home videos on a Synology NAS Drive attached to my network. For years I have been using the Apple TV to stream the various media through my Yamaha receiver. I had a 5.1 speaker setup and my movies were encoded with AC3 5.1 audio in 1080P video. I moved into a new house several months ago and upgraded to an 85" Sony 4K TV along with a new Yamaha receiver and installed two ceiling speakers to create a 5.1.2 setup. I am now wanting to watch movies in 4K video with higher quality audio from AC3, being able to take advantage of my 5.1.2 setup.
I like the easy interface of the Apple TV and just bought the 2021 Apple TV 4K because my understanding was that Infuse would help me with the audio but now it sounds like I have to start over.
You’ll still get lossless 5.1 from Dolby TrueHD Its just the atmos height metadata that gets stripped out.
If you want to be able to play bluray rips as is with audio and most video intact I’d recommend either an nvidia shield tv pro running plex or one of the new Dune media players. The dune media players have a new chipset which claims dolbyvision compatibility. I’d check on their forums to see if they support dual layer or single layer.
OK and then I would assume using Infuse with one of these media players for the height metadata? By the way, how do I access all of the movies, TV Shows, etc that I have in iTunes already with one of these media players? I like the interface of the Apple TV where at the touch of a remote, pull up anything with cover art and a description of the movie?
Nope the limitations on infuse are directly the result of limitations within apples hardware/software. The Dune media players are a highly customized android box with their own user interface. They can playback media from any network connected NAS or from a directly connected USB drive.
It’s been a while since your original post and you may already have a solution, but here is what I do. I have the CX-A5100 pre/pro and notice much better sound quality when using Infuse 7 Pro over Plex. As for taking advantage of your 5.1.2 set up use Yamaha’s DSP sound fields, and make sure you enable CINEMA DSP 3D.