CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[paw]

Gary
You got the 2 channel TOSLINK cable. You need to replace it with a new Monster ultra multi channel cable.

What movie are you using? Maybe it doesn't have alot of surround activation.

[garyfritz]

Transformers. I got some rear sound with different settings on the receiver, but that must be generated by the receiver since there's no rear channel on the S/PDIF signal.

[Heywood Jablome]

Transformers thru my NAD T763 had enough rear-channel to cause my brother to say "what the F was THAT!?!?!"
Something is wrong in your setup.

I bit the bullet and picked up an -A30 last night. There were no XA2s or -A35s available locally, and I found an open box (checked, its' complete) -A30 which will run me $140ish after my company pays the difference.

[garyfritz]

Yeah, I'm realizing that the sound on HD DVDs (through my A2, which has only HDMI and TOSlink for audio) may be inferior to SD DVDs in some respects, given that I don't have an HDMI-capable receiver. The signal that comes through the TOSlink is 5.1 only, so NO rear channel content AT ALL. But yes, I had something wrong, because I wasn't getting any surround content either.

But..... come to think of it, I was using a digital coax for audio from my SD DVD player. That's S/PDIF too, in a different physical format. So why was my receiver happily able to produce 6.1 sound, even (I think) without any fakery on the receiver's part?? Hmmm...

Enjoy your A30!


EDIT: Waitaminnit, now I'm REALLY confused. I just checked, and the Transformers disk says it's Dolby Digital Plus. The A2 agrees and displays its Dolby Digital symbol. But the Onkyo HTR510 displays a DTS symbol, and only offers the choice of running DTS or DTS-ES! (Or sometimes Matrix 6.1, which is apparently what's creating my rear-channel sound.) The Onkyo manual says you only get those choices if the receiver is getting a DTS signal, so I shouldn't be seeing them at all. !?!??

[paw]

Gary
The A2 will down convert DD+ and TrueHD to DTS. That's what fed over the TOSLINK. IIRC we discussed via email.

[paw]

OH! The A3 will down convert to normal Dolby Digital.

[Dave Lister]

Hang on, how can 5.1 be only outputting to front speakers, isn't it?
Front left, centre vocals, sub-woofer, front right
Rear left,.........................................rear right

5.1 channels, the .1 being the sub-woofer.

I have a cheap Sherwood RD-6502 receiver that does 5.1 surround sound and I get the rear channels.

I use an optical cable for my Xbox (not 360) and HD digital set top box and before I gave my mum my DVD player I used coax for that, now I just use my Xbox for DVD playback.

I don't have a sub-woofer yet, I need to get one with built in amp.

I use a 2 into 1 optical cable adapter as the receiver has only 1 optical input.

One odd thing about this setup is that when I have just the HD digital set top box switched on I have to have the sound up to 41 or 42 to hear it well but when I switch my Xbox on at the same time I have to turn the sound down to 28 to 30 to get the same volume and so it isn't too loud, only the HD digital set top box sound comes through though, not a mix of both.

When I have just the Xbox on I have the sound at around 28.

[jask]

[Heywood Jablome]

Just watched the included Bourne Identity on HD-DVD (via component into a moome ISS xcoder.) I'll re-watch it and The 300 and do a proper setup when I get an HDMI cable today.

Anyone know whether 1080p24 can be decoded by the Moome card? I want to try... the low frame rate may fall within the resolving ability of my 9PG Xtra (and I may be interested in trying this combo out on Chips 4600HD )

[garyfritz]

[Heywood Jablome]

I actually ran into something similar this morning on my T763... The dual zone "B" speakers were enabled so it was down-converting all surround modes to 2 channel.

Got the HDMI cable, got it to sync up at 1080p60 but could not get 24. There does not seem to be a method for forcing the mode... The setup menu just lists "up to 1090p24" as it's highest option.

[stefuel]

Bring that sucker over when my Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH gets here. 8) Steal my bonus will she. I still need to get a HD Fury for the video end.

[AnalogRocks]

[AnalogRocks]

[paw]

[garyfritz]

Ohh, I see the problem. On p. 60 of the A2 manual, the table has a small entry for DD Plus for "Advanced content" and another larger one for "Standard content." The "Standard content" downconverts to Bitstream, and that's what I was looking at. But you're right, Aubrey -- for "Advanced content" (which probably includes the actual movie for most DD+ disks) it converts to DTS bitstream. (Funny, I thought DTS and DD were totally incompatible and competing formats. Seems a bit odd that the A2 converts from one to the other. Apparently the A2 doesn't support any kind of DD output.)

So it makes sense that my receiver sees DTS. And since DTS is 5.1 it won't have any rear content, though apparently my receiver can fake it with its "Matrix 6.1" mode, or one of those similar modes. I'll just have to see what I like.

[paw]

Gary
The A2 supports DD off of SD DVD.

Dolby Digital and DTS are competing formats from different companies/organizations. It is interesting that it's able to down convert from DD+ and TrueHD to DTS.

There's a comment further down P 60. That says "The main content of most movie HD DVD discs is 'advanced content'" Though I'm not sure what the difference is.

Another interesting is that for standard content over SPDIF it converts

DD plus
dts-HD

to

Bitstream.

Most other formats are converted to DTS bitstream. I thought bitstream was the raw form of the format and that DD plus and dts-HD were too high a bandwidth for SPDIF.