Playing back Blue-ray-disks on an Apple Macintosh

I have been researching high definition mediums, Blue-ray becoming the center of my focus. It offers high resolution video with 1920 × 1080 pixels and high resolution audio with up to 8 streams (for 7.1) of possibly uncompressed audio.

Whereas you'll want to output high definition video to your display, which likely is HDMI-interfaced and HDCP-compliant already, audio is another matter - especially for us sonophiles. It has been a fact from 2005 (Link) that there are difficulties involved in getting the pristine digital stream to a dedicated DAC.

How do you play Blue-ray-disks on an Apple Macintosh?

Short answer: Not easily.

Longer answer: It works if you...

• Have a Blue-ray-capable drive connected.
  
• Run Microsoft Windows (using Bootcamp, Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion) on your computer. I think this is nasty ;-)
  
• Run Slysoft AnyDVD HD to disable the copy protection, which I expressly do not recommend as it might possibly be considered a criminal activity!
  
• Use a PC player software (e.g. VLC to access the M2TS containers).
  

Why would you want to do this?

• You have a nice big (digitally accessible) screen anyway.
  
• You want to route the audio streams to a DAC of your choice, connected to your Mac.
  

The cost will be around 250 US$ (110 US$ for the drive, 80 US$ for the emulation, 60 US$ for the access enabling software) - and then you have to get Windows to run --at a sufficient speed for Blue-ray-playback-- and route the audio back into Mac OS.

Is there an easier way?

The way I'll (try to) go is...

• Get a standalone Blue-ray-capable player with S/PDIF audio output, coaxial or optical according to your input solutions.
  Beware: You'll get 6 channels, no 7.1 currently, at resolutions of up to 96 kHz (with DTS).
  
• Connect the HDMI-output to your (HDCP-compliant) screen.
  
• Feed the S/PDIF into your Mac's or your audio interfaces' digital input.
  
• If you did the former, use Soundflower to route the audio to (a decoder if you are dealing with a Dolby Digital or DTS-encoded stream and feed the linear PCM to) the DAC of your choice.
  

Please don't look confused! After all you wanted to know :-)

Sidenote

PC-based Blue-ray-playback of movies secured with AACS requires a Protected Video Path (PVP) as well as a Protected Audio Path (PAP) for all but linear-PCM-streams. This means that compressed high resolution audio >16 bit and >48 kHz (e.g. Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA) must be downsampled to 16-48. [Link, 11/05/2008]

[All trademarks are the property of the respective trademark owners]

Open ideas vs. proprietary techniques

Eberhard Sengpiel said: "Even after you've 'finished your studies' you have to keep improving your recording technique and everything related. It's nothing but a lifelong process." (Link in German)

In 2008 I developed a surround microphone system that I call "XYtri". I presented it at the VDT International Convention 2008 (Abstract) and am building a small XYtri-website with detailed information and sound samples.

Why "give away" something like this?

A website of a collegue of mine states that he has developed a proprietary main microphone setup which records the natural ambience of the recording space. That's all he says, so if you want to know what it is and what it sounds like you'd have to hire him. Another has developed a proprietary system to enhance ambience in headphone mixes. He let's you listen to many samples though and markets it as a service he renders to potential clients.

My incentive is the belief that only by exposing a new technique can you get your (competitors or) collegues to try it out, hopefully give you feedback to improve the design and possibly set in motion an exchange of ideas that can only improve the quality of everyone's work. This is why scientists publish. Peer review is good! I have frequently benefited from other Tonmeister's sharing their knowledge and experiences, so here I go too :-)

What kind of audiophile are you?

I've been thinking about the so-called "audiophile" crowd lately and come to the conclusion that they are a composite of many different predilections, some of which are listed here in alphabetical order:

• Fetishist
  Do you buy only 24k gold CD's and use the most esoteric of digital interconnects?
  Assuming you employ a jitter-immune DAC the digital source / medium & connecting cables are of no importance. Please test double-blind if in doubt.
  
  
• Freak
  Do you believe that vinyl records sound better than digitally encoded music converted back into the analog domain?
  Assuming a high-quality, very accurately clocked ADC is used and the high-quality, accurately clocked DAC employed is jitter-immune, an exact digital "copy" of an analog source, fed to the same amplifier stage, is indistiguishable from the analog source. Please test double-blind if in doubt.
  
  
• Geek
  Do you feel that the technical specs of gear are all that counts?
  The well tuned ear is the ultimate judge. Technical specs are obviously also very important, but, besides recommendations from people (with ears) you trust they should primarily help deciding what gear to audition.
  
  
• Touch&Feel
  Do you believe in "you get what you pay for" beyond what most people --or even audio professionals-- would consider a reasonable price, enjoy the look & feel of extra heavy gear with a thick metal frontplate, wooden sidepieces and custom made knobs?
  It is true that good sounding gear takes a lot of R&D, which must be payed for, and that high quality components don't come cheap, but, as a music enthusiast, please use the resolution of what your own ears can discern as the landmark and give the money you save to a charity.
  
  
• Sonophile
  Do you love to listen? Do you enjoy the vibe of a live performance, the sound of a "real" space, the incredible span of real-life dynamics, the tinyest details that may still be discerned?
  A true sonophile is in love with things that can be enjoyed when listening to, no matter which genre. Great musicians, performing extraordinarily well in a nice sounding space, recorded optimally and presented (mixed and mastered) in the best possibly way, retaining the excitement of "being in the moment".
  

So, what kind are you?

I confess to find myself reflected to varying degree in several of the above categories. I am no audio fetishist and do trust in a completely digital workflow, but there surely is great analog gear about and there are people who can use it to achieve optimal results. To some degree it's a question of what environment you are comfortable with. I do like to browse gear by looking at it's specs, and I often feel tempted by numbers, but due to budget constraints I don't run amok ;-) The same goes for the looks of some equipment. Nice...
But in the end I am a sonophile. I just _love_ to listen. And I hope there are many others around, because even though I don't know how to explain this I believe it will help make this world a better place. Listen closely, listen well, enjoy!

One point stereo A-B?

While researching audiophile labels on the web I came across Waon RECORDS. Their offerings look interesting although most of the website is in Japanese only, which sadly I can't read.

Besides session snapshots the website informs that their recordings have been produced using "One point stereo A-B". This is an incorrect use of the term.

AB-stereophony takes it's name from a line connecting the most likely distinct points "A" and "B". It is runtime based, which means it employs differing time-of-arrival cues / phase differences embedded in the signals arriving at both microphones. Quite obviously this requires that the locations of the capsules are spatially distinct.

When you separate the microphones by about 50 cm a signal coming from one side of the configuration arrives at the opposite microphone delayed by about 1.5 msec, which, according to the rule of the 1st wavefront, results in it being localized towards the side of the speaker which first emitted it.

One-point stereophonic recordings can only be the result of coincident setups, where both capsules occupy (approximately) the same spot in space. This goes for XY (with two cardioid capsules), Blumlein-stereophony (with two bidirectional / fig-8 capsules) and M/S (with one bidirectional and usually one cardioid capsule).

This is not to say that you can't craft great recordings using a spaced pair of omnidirectional microphones. Well designed and built omnis can be extremely precise in the temporal domain, have a linear frequency response, don't colour sound arriving off axis and don't exhibit a proximity effect. Used in quiet, good sounding venues they can be used to capture the depth of the space very convincingly. Localization is impaired when compared to coincident setups, but that is a compromise the recordist might want to make.