I’m evaluating Roon on a Windows 10 computer and looking at options for connecting to my Home Theater system. I saw a mention on a thread while searching about someone wanting to get Roon to play through their Sony UBP-X800 - is this possible? The Sony has an app for a media server, but doesn’t find my Roon Core and the Roon core isn’t seeing the UBP-X800, though the computer does see it on the network. Is there something I’m missing? Has anyone gotten this to work?
Roon does see my nVidia Shield, but only with the ChromCast option. A Shield app would be nice.
Thanks. I have an Integra DTR-7.8 receiver. Since it’s a bit older, it does not have Airplay. Since it also only has 3 HDMI inputs, I’m trying to use components I already have if possible. I could hook up the computer using HDMI, but that would require a bit of work to get my Harmony remotes working.
I will say that Roon is already at a disadvantage against Emby since Roon does not play WMA files. Emby plays all my files and plays surround and hi-res audio through the nVidia Shield box. I decided to take another look at Roon to see if the enhanced music data was worth it. So far, the limitations on output devices and the need to re-rip ~60% of my files have made this evaluation more difficult.
If you’re not listening to multichannel music, you could also do SPDIF (either optical or copper) with a Raspberry and SPDIF daughter board (they’re called HATs). Total cost should be around $/€ 100, if that, and the DiY difficulty level is around “assemble duplo”.
If it’s lossless WMA, there’s no need to re-rip, you can just transcode to an open format like FLAC (and use that as an opportunity to make sure your metadata’s perfectly groomed).
If you have a shield, (I do as well) you can cast to it and have it serve as a Roon endpoint if you like. You can also have it serve as a display as an option though I personally prefer to skip that when listening.
I do listen to multichannel music, and I’d also rather not mess with building something if equipment I already have will work.
I know I ripped at a higher than default bit rate in Windows Media Player (and the Zune software), but they’re probably not lossless, so re-ripping would be needed. I plan to do that anyway, but re-ripping ~1500 discs isn’t something I want to HAVE TO do right now to listen to stuff. Every other program that I can think of supports WMA. Roon is the odd man out here.
As I understand it, using Chromcast to the nVidia Shield limits the quality of the audio. Since I have been gradually ripping my DVD-A discs with 96/24 stereo and 5.1 mixes, I want to be able to listen at that quality. Emby, Jellyfin and Plex on the Shield already let me do that.
So, anyone understand why the Sony UBP-X800 would not work?
The curt answer is “because it’s a device that doesn’t have Roon’s software in it.”
Roon requires a piece of software called RoonBridge to interpret the way it transports music (that protocol is called RAAT). RAAT has a number of advantages over UPnP, but the short version is that it actually works and as long as your network isn’t too dreadful, it doesn’t suck.
The way around it is a dedicated streaming device that supports Roon (and other protocols). I don’t think what you have will work for high quality multichannel, but quite frankly don’t know enough about high bitrate multichannel to give an educated answer. Maybe if @mitr has a second he could let us know what the cheapest way to do that would be…
Regarding your ripping, it’s really gory, but if you’d like to avoid further loss you could always convert what you have to a lossless format Roon understands, and gradually do what you should’ve been doing ever since Zune died. I’d do it in ANOTHER format than the one you’d re-rip everything to, because that’ll make zapping the files easier, or at least very, very clearly identify the converted files, so as not to mess everything up… The just re-rip whatever you’re about to listen to, and it should make the process a bit less painful.
Thanks for the reply. That explains the Sony issue. The thing is that what I have DOES work for hi-res multi-channel output (Emby server on WD MyCloud and client on nVidia Shield), it’s just that what I have won’t work for Roon. Oh well. Doing some searching earlier, it looks like people are even having difficulty with Rasberry Pi Roon bridge solutions for multichannel or hi-res output. I guess an audiophile on a budget like me is at a disadvantage in the Roon world.
BTW, I have been ripping to lossless FLAC, but when I stopped ripping to WMA I had a 120GB Zune filled! I went from a 30GB to 80GB to 120GB model over a few years. WMA made sense in a Windows/Zune world, just like AAC made sense in a Mac/iPod world. However, Roon decided to support AAC, but not WMA. After the Zune was filled I ripped little or nothing until I got the NAS box and moved to FLAC. Now I have about 260GB or so. Like I said, the goal is eventually to get everything switched to FLAC, but as you said it’s gory at this point.
Wouldn’t bug you for something we can get from a user manual
@Stephen_Andruski was asking about cheap, Roon compatible multichannel options that’d work in his setup, so over HDMI I guess.
From what I read in the Ropieee subforum, HDMI out was just recently added to Raspberries, @spockfishsaid it’s on his todo list, but that’s about as much as I know.
Hmm I cant get any app to Inc Plex/Emby to output anything above Android SRC of 48/24 regardless of source. It might pass through 5.1 in codecs but two channel is serverlly borked as per Android standard SRC.
Well, you mention cheap multichannel over hdmi and that ropieee does not do hdmi yet, let alone multichannel over hdmi. piCorePlayer on pi 4 can do that.
5.1 seems to work fine with Emby. There has been some question about hi-res 2-channel. This might have been addressed, but I’m trying to get more info.
I might actually pick up a Rasberry Pi this weekend and see if I can get something working. Still a bit on the fence because of the WMA issue, and I’m not a big fan of the album reviews. I’d rather just have unbiased information about the album, especially if it’s one in my collection. Also, I just have too many boxes!
I’ve seen people ask about an nVidia Shield endpoint - that would solve my problem too as long as the endpoint can use the full device capabilities. Thanks for the advice everyone.
