DSD ISO Support

Ok, guys time to draw a line under this … and to requote Danny once more.

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@evand: I also use three players SIMPLY because Roon doesn’t allow me to play .iso and .cue files (in addition to .ape). I know that the latter are easy to convert to flac or wav, but I have thousands of albums in these formats. If JRiver, Audirvana can do this, why can’t Roon? I HAVE to use three players: Audirvana for Qobuz support, JRiver for sound quality (it’s my favourite player), and Roon - the king of the hill, for everything else (including Tidal).

Those are your choices, however, don’t necessarily warrant the dev team throwing a lot of effort behind supporting corner cases. Monkey’s Audio is all but defunct (have you ever found a single album for sale in APE format), as are whole album FLAC files with embedded cuesheet (bought one of these at an online store in the last 10 years)? The question is more one of why should Roon support legacy formats just because other players do? Do either of them provide the same UI and UX…if Roon does, why can’t they?

I think the real reason people request ISO and embedded cue support is because of the sanctity with which they regard the files…unfettered virgin media just as it once was on the disc it was ripped from, convinced that once removed from the holy cocoon it will no longer be the same, sound the same or heaven forbid…make them feel the same. Such reasons do not warrant effort being expended whilst there are many more pressing priorities for the majority of users. Splitting ISO and whole album FLAC/ APE files into discrete tracks and transcoding APE files to FLAC whilst retaining metadata is trivial.

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I think metadata are the real issue. How can Roon determine the correct album faced with a single ISO?

So long as Roon can play DSF files gapless I can settle for that and keep ISOs separate for the future.

I fully support the inclusion of SACD ISO support. The main reason is simplification of processing.
After ripping an SACD with a PS3, roon could identify the ISO and add the metadata. In fact the metadata for many SACD editions is already in roon.
Additionally, the ISO contains both the stereo and multichannel tracks and the ISO is significantly smaller than the sum of the sizes of the individual DSF files.

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A post was split to a new topic: Talking Schiit about DSD and MQA

Another reason why adding SACD ISO support could be a significant selling point for Roon:
Currently there is NO software that is able to add metadata to SACD ISOs. jRiver, foobar and others can play SACD ISOs, but the metadata contained in the ISOs themselves is so crappy that a major effort is required after every rip to bring the metadata to a minimum quality level manually.
Roon already has most of the metadata of SACD releases and would be able to vastly simplify the whole process of ripping / tagging.
I believe this would be a major selling point to the enthusiast community. I for one would probably subscribe to Roon, if SACD ISOs would be supported. Currently the lack of ISO support has kept me from subscribing. I don’t want to use several software suites to manage my library (which contains around 1’000 SACD ISOs), so I am stuck with jRiver for the time being.

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I am (was) voting for SACD ISO support.
I accepted the explanation concerning the difficulties for tagging support of ISOS in Roon.
So I got extra storage and started to convert Isos into .dsf.
It’s work and takes time and needs extra storage. Thats what I wanted to avoid in the first place.
Beeing half way through I really enjoy the metadata now available to my SACD collection.
It is a worthwhile effort.

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[quote=“miklats, post:124, topic:1259”]
Beeing half way through I really enjoy the metadata now available to my SACD collection.It is a worthwhile effort.
[/quote]Great to hear.

For the record I’ve cancelled my annual renewal until ISO metadata compatibility and track/album DR metadata are implemented. I’ve been waiting for close to a year on these and they are hard requirements for me. I can play ISO on either A+ or JRMC and have done so for years. The metadata and eye candy are great but not enough to overcome the omission of both of these features.

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Well, I’m still hoping that the silence from the Roon team means that they’re in the process of implementing it and want to introduce it with a bang!

They’re working on multichannel, would make sense to enable SACD ISO with this as well.

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Why not simply convert your ISO’s into DSF Files and enjoy the benefits now

It’s simple and quick to do…has ZERO impact on Sound Quality…and allows you to use Roon NOW to play your SACD’s…and you can always add your ISO’s into Roon as and when they add support for them

Batch routines to convert multiple ISO’s to DSF’s are easy to set up and can be left to run unattended overnight

Any argument about DSF files being ‘bigger’ is null and void given how inexpensive it is in 2016 for storage…and with 6Tb and 8Tb drives also being easily and cheaply available

Spend the time now to convert your ISO’s to DSF…and enjoy the benefits of being able to play these files NOW…add ISO’s to Roon later, when supported

I have all my music on NAS devices, with not much space left. If I were to convert all my ISO files I would have to invest in another NAS and I would like to avoid that right now.

An audio playback system catering to people like us not supporting SACD ISO is a rather strange choice in my opinion.

I said earlier that I wouldn’t mind SACD ISO implementation standing in line behind many other niche requests (Squeezebox support, talk about legacy technology…), but this complete silence from Roon makes me think they just want to wait it out until people went elsewhere.

@danny said they would consider it if demand is there, which there is plenty of.

I bought into Roon pretty much from day one with a lifetime subscription, it didn’t even cross my mind that this software wouldn’t support SACD ISO, while the competition can do it.

@danny If there is a definite ‘No’ on SACD ISO support, I would like to request a refund. I can understand if that’s not possible, just won’t be using my Roon license much if SACD ISO files aren’t supported.

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The comment above is representative of many Users’ experiences when it comes to the use of ISO’s…and yet you continue to say that other programs "support ISO’s’??

Foobar on Windows also allows for Bitperfect replay of Standard and High Res FLAC’s [and other formats]…and yet very few would claim that the extremely basic UI within Foobar is some kind of an adequate replacement for Roon

Anybody who is in any way serious about their Music library in 2016 must recognize that their decision to Rip their SACD’s to ISO’s only was a flawed one…and that there is little future for this format given the options that are available [DSF / DFF etc]

There was a time when some / many considered it a good idea to Rip their CD’s to WAV ISO’s…an idea that most people now consider to be not such a good one

Time and Technology marches on…and Music lovers who are Serious about their collections should move on with those times as well…Roon represents the way forward for “Players” that support ALL aspects of Music Library Management…and DSF / DFF represent the best way available currently to handle DSD / SACD albums

Obviously this last comment directly above…along with similar comments from many here and elsewhere…puts a real question mark about the “support” offered by JRiver and others for ISO’s

If all they do is allow them to be played, then is that real “support” when it comes to ISO’s??

If Roon JUST added the functionality did was to present these albums in the very same limited way as JRiver, Foobar, Audirvana etc do…and then allow them to be played…do you think that would satisfy the people who are asking Roon to support ISO’s??

IMHO, it would not…as it’s clear to me that most here want “their cake and eat it”…i.e. they want to Play their ISO’s…but they ALSO want the Metadata capabilities that Roon offers and the other players sorely lack…i.e. they want EXACTLY the same functionality for their ISO Albums as their FLAC ones

If it were the ability to simply PLAY these ISO’s that most people wanted, then Roon may well be able to do that quickly…but Danny and Brian have explained here at great length about the issues involved in solving the Metadata and Track Handling issues involved for Roon to PROPERLY handle ISO albums…problems that JRiver et al are not even attempting to solve with their alleged solutions

Yes, allowing an ISO to be played back is support. The softwares’ capabilities differ obviously.

Regarding metadata, this is probably easier than discerning users’ FLAC rips of albums, as they have different sizes depending on the software and compression used.
Each ISO has a definite file size, there are only very few discs with the exact same file size.

So, all we would need is a database containing disc sizes and associated albums. If Roon stumbles upon an album that belongs to a group of albums with same file sizes, a file/folder name query should be able to pinpoint the release.

Yes, this would be a certain manual effort, but there are only so many discs available. I would happily contribute to this database by creating an excel with file sizes of the ISO files I have and links to the release info page of a metadata provider.

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And so you think that these items below are “reasonable” requests

a) that Roon diverts resources away from other more deserving features, which are being requested by Far more people

b) that using the “file size deduction” process outlined above will allow for Roon to identify the Album and its VERSION [Japan v Europe v US] to their satisfaction

c) that ALL Roon users will have to absorb this extra code…which will only make Roon’s footprint bigger and may slow it down…even though many / most will not make any use of it

And these requests you consider to be “reasonable”, all so that you don’t have to purchase another USB Drive or bigger NAS drives to accommodate the ISO converted to DSF files??..Seriously??

Your have an interesting way of looking at things.

Diverting developer time away from other features? Slowing Roon down by adding unneeded code?

This is no zero sum game, I am not taking anything away from you, you don’t have defend ‘your’ Roon. I am sure the developers are capable of making Roon better for all of us, but I will make sure that your requests will be a priority :wink:

Please stop hiding behind the real issue here…you don’t want to spend the small money possibly required for the extra storage for DSF files…and therefore wish for Roon and other users to carry the expense for you

Many SACD users [such as myself] saw that the SACD ISO format was a dead-end…and saw the advantages offered by the DSF / DFF format in terms of being able to handle Album and Track Level metadata…and decided to convert our ISO’s to DSF’s

Just as, a long time ago, many of us saw the dead-end that was WAV ISO…and the advantages offered by converting those ISO’s to FLAC / AIFF with embedded Metadata

Whether you choose to admit or not…the SACD ISO format is a dead-end and users of the format need to seriously think about converting sooner rather than later…whether they choose to use Roon or not

JRiver, Audirvana et al have zero stated plans to support Metadata for SACD ISO’s…for the same reasons as stated by Roon…so the sooner you convert, the sooner you will be able to use Files and Metadata that are representative of 2016 rather than 2006

@Ronnie:
Thank you for your very helpful comments. It is such a relief to finally know what I should have done ages ago.