[Currawong]

Good to hear I’m not the only person doing this. Reading through the early few pages of this thread, Rob recommends against up-sampling the input to M Scaler so everyone should be careful with reading too much into my findings.

In general, I wouldn't suggest upsampling to the MScaler, or any other Chord DAC either, as the quality of most up-sampling software appears to be relatively poor. HQPlayer is an exception, but so far only a couple of filters in it I've found to be good with the TT2 and Hugo 2 (and not mess up how the music sounds in one way or another), those being sinc-L and sinc-MG.

 

[MarkParity]

In general, I wouldn't suggest upsampling to the MScaler, or any other Chord DAC either, as the quality of most up-sampling software appears to be relatively poor. HQPlayer is an exception, but so far only a couple of filters in it I've found to be good with the TT2 and Hugo 2 (and not mess up how the music sounds in one way or another), those being sinc-L and sinc-MG.

That is HQPlayers strength and weakness, so much choice. Using the embedded version I’m a bit limited as to which filters work though, I have overclocked my Pi 4 to 2ghz though.

I’m currently using poly-sync-gauss @ 192khz into M Scaler with great results too.

Edit: sinc-L works on Pi 4 so I’ll give that a go for a while.

 

[ecwl]

So I have a confession and a slightly off-topic comment to make. For the past few months, I’ve stopped using 1M taps and nVidia Shield to watch TV because I’ve noticed that with M-Scaler in video mode with my Panasonic TV streaming app or my Apple TV 4K seems to display a higher quality video image than the nVidia Shield. Moreover, because I didn’t buy the Shield Pro, the limited RAM on the Shield means that if I end up switching between different streaming apps a lot, eventually I have to reboot my nVidia Shield to clear the RAM, wait for everything to load before I can watch videos without lag or compression artifacts.

I’ve read online previously that the video quality issue is related to the fact that nVidia is not great at switching to the native resolution of the streaming video. But what I realized in the past few days is that most of the 4K Dolby Vision videos I’m watching are in 24Hz Rec 2020 and most of the 1080p streaming videos I’m watching are also in 24Hz Rec 709. But my nVidia Shield usually defaults to 59.997/60Hz so the conversion from 24Hz to 60Hz somehow is degrading the video quality. Also the automatic switching between Rec 2020 vs 709 doesn’t seem to work consistently so the colors are sometimes off. Now, finally, for most shows I’m watching, I can tell from my Apple TV+Panasonic TV whether it’s 1080p Rec 709 or 4K Dolby Vision Rec 2020 and whether it‘s 24fps. Prior to watching the shows, I would then set the nVidia Shield to the correct display mode and then reboot the nVidia, wait maybe a minute to start watching. As a result, I now have the optimal video quality AND the awesome 1 million taps from the M-Scaler. I thought I should share for those who are using nVidia Shield and are as obsessed about video quality as we all are about audio quality

 

[esmit]

So I have a confession and a slightly off-topic comment to make. For the past few months, I’ve stopped using 1M taps and nVidia Shield to watch TV because I’ve noticed that with M-Scaler in video mode with my Panasonic TV streaming app or my Apple TV 4K seems to display a higher quality video image than the nVidia Shield. Moreover, because I didn’t buy the Shield Pro, the limited RAM on the Shield means that if I end up switching between different streaming apps a lot, eventually I have to reboot my nVidia Shield to clear the RAM, wait for everything to load before I can watch videos without lag or compression artifacts.

I’ve read online previously that the video quality issue is related to the fact that nVidia is not great at switching to the native resolution of the streaming video. But what I realized in the past few days is that most of the 4K Dolby Vision videos I’m watching are in 24Hz Rec 2020 and most of the 1080p streaming videos I’m watching are also in 24Hz Rec 709. But my nVidia Shield usually defaults to 59.997/60Hz so the conversion from 24Hz to 60Hz somehow is degrading the video quality. Also the automatic switching between Rec 2020 vs 709 doesn’t seem to work consistently so the colors are sometimes off. Now, finally, for most shows I’m watching, I can tell from my Apple TV+Panasonic TV whether it’s 1080p Rec 709 or 4K Dolby Vision Rec 2020 and whether it‘s 24fps. Prior to watching the shows, I would then set the nVidia Shield to the correct display mode and then reboot the nVidia, wait maybe a minute to start watching. As a result, I now have the optimal video quality AND the awesome 1 million taps from the M-Scaler. I thought I should share for those who are using nVidia Shield and are as obsessed about video quality as we all are about audio quality

I have connected my Panasonic TV to the mscaler using toslink, so the Shield TV I use, or any other source like DVB-C all go through the Mscaler, always. Or do you prefer Shield usb out to mscaler?

 

[ecwl]

I have connected my Panasonic TV to the mscaler using toslink, so the Shield TV I use, or any other source like DVB-C all go through the Mscaler, always. Or do you prefer Shield usb out to mscaler?

I connect it the same way you do via Toslink because I worry that the shield usb would have too much RF noise into the M-scaler that’ll affect the sound quality, despite all the additional filtering M-Scaler already has in place.

 

[thePhones]

I connect it the same way you do via Toslink because I worry that the shield usb would have too much RF noise into the M-scaler that’ll affect the sound quality, despite all the additional filtering M-Scaler already has in place.

The biggest problem with Nvidia Shield Pros usb is that everything gets converted to a fixed sample rate of 44.1 or 192khz. Hdmi can deliver the native sample rate of the app like 44.1 (Youtube) or 48 (Netflix). But you have to choose it in the settings and your tv or whatever hdmi to optical dongle you are using has to support it. This did not work for me when using the optical coming out of my Sony Tv. It was set to a fixed sample rate of 48khz so youtube sounded a lot worse like that.

 

[Rob Watts]

On my Nvidia Shield I use an app called Refresh rate. This allows you to set a default frame rate for each streamer app, and you can also set each app to force it to match content frame rate, and to tell you the frame rate. It works well on most apps, but some (notable Disney + - I have to set the default to 23.976 FPS) which is mostly OK as most content is at that rate on Disney +. For 25fps content you then have to change the default for the Disney + app - a pain but doable.

Sound is via a HDMI splitter to optical, so no worries there. I do have to reset the machine a lot though (every 2 or 3 days) particularly with Disney +.

 

[thePhones]

On my Nvidia Shield I use an app called Refresh rate. This allows you to set a default frame rate for each streamer app, and you can also set each app to force it to match content frame rate, and to tell you the frame rate. It works well on most apps, but some (notable Disney + - I have to set the default to 23.976 FPS) which is mostly OK as most content is at that rate on Disney +. For 25fps content you then have to change the default for the Disney + app - a pain but doable.

Sound is via a HDMI splitter to optical, so no worries there. I do have to reset the machine a lot though (every 2 or 3 days) particularly with Disney +.

I did not know this app. Thanks, this makes a lot of difference as my Sony tv is really good at frame interpolation when given the native frame rate. Only with Youtube I will not use it that much as it also overwrites the „native audio sample rate“ setting, so it goes back up from 44.1 to 48khz.
I also use the HDMI splitter solution.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

You want to hear what the M Scaler can do? Play this entire album.

 

[MgMGM]

You want to hear what the M Scaler can do? Play this entire album.

Cant wait for winter and those long dark nights

 

[GuiltyRocker]

@Rob Watts should play that entire album M-scaled, he's gonna love it. So much flavor and atmosphere in those tracks.

 

[Digital Enigma]

You want to hear what the M Scaler can do? Play this entire album.

Sounds great but absolutely not my cup of tea musicaly. While on the subject how many of you choose music on sound quality alone? I can’t do it personally I feel like it’s the equivalent of watching a movie you don’t enjoy but do it because the picture quality is incredible.

 

[GuiltyRocker]

Sounds great but absolutely not my cup of tea musicaly. While on the subject how many of you choose music on sound quality alone? I can’t do it personally I feel like it’s the equivalent of watching a movie you don’t enjoy but do it because the picture quality is incredible.

I listen to whatever I like, there are some albums I listen to because the sound quality is just incredible. This album in particular is music that I grew up with and forgot about until I rediscovered it recently, truly amazing sound quality. But, I also listen to some horribly-recorded albums due to me loving the music.

 

[Meridian7]

how many of you choose music on sound quality alone?

My bet? Zero. Could be wrong though.

People have preferences, don't you prefer some food? Some people to hang out with?

Is having respect for a certain property or (even if it's subjective) quality 'guilty' of something?

 

[Reactcore]

A little weird but good material on Mscaler: