CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

I picked up one of the HD-A2's on the $99 Walmart sale. For various reasons I haven't been able to run it through its paces much. I've played one HD-DVD on it (Transformers) and that seemed fine.

Then yesterday I tried to play an SD DVD -- and the dialog was pretty much missing. You could hear the background music just fine, and most of the sound effects were there, but the dialog was totally inaudible or at best very quiet.

I tried 2 different animated films (Meeting the Robinsons and Finding Nemo) and a Superbit copy of the Fifth Element. Same for all of them. In the opening "archaeologist" scene of 5E, it sounded almost like the mike was down at the end of the hall. You could hear them talking, but just barely.

I'm sure I have the right audio track. When you can hear them, they're speaking English. I tried playing Hero, and I could hear English, French, and Mandarin on the appropriate tracks -- but much quieter than the sound effects.

I had the audio mode set to Bitstream. I tried PCM, I tried Dialog Enhancement, everything I could think of -- no change. I'm feeding the audio into my receiver with a TOSLINK cable. I'm running the latest firmware, rev 2.8.

What would cause this?? Has anyone else seen it?

Also, has anybody noticed this player being really sensitive to scratched disks? It had problems with some disks that even my Momitsu played -- and the Momitsu loader is fairly sensitive to scratches. On the other hand it made its way through a scene in Meet the Robinsons that locked up the Momitsu. The A2 was jerking and pausing and showing blocky distortions but it stumbled its way through it.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:54 am Post subject:

Sounds like you are getting left+right audio over the toslink but not the centre channel. I don't own one of these but just a guess. Is there a way you can set the audio out to DTS or DD?

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Thanks AR! I think you're right. The quiet dialog seems louder if the speaker is off to the side -- and nothing is coming out of the center speaker.

The manual says when playing SD DVD, DD plus and dts-HD output Bitstream, and True HD or L-PCM output DTS Bitstream. (Or 2ch PCM if you've set it to PCM output.) I don't think there's any option to switch between DTS and DD.

The receiver thinks it's getting Dolby Digital from the SD DVD. When I play an HD-DVD, the receiver says it's dts-ES.

So is my receiver set up wrong, or...? Other A2 owners don't seem to be having this problem.

(couple edits to fix some mistakes)

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:53 am Post subject:

I remember reading something about the Toshiba's converting soundtracts to DTS for output on the HD-DVD's??
If it's putting out bit stream you should be getting DD or DTS to your reciver. Is there seperate inputs for DD/DTS and PCM?

Which reciver do you have?

Oh yeah and you can try a little 100% carnuba wax on your scratched disk's. It may make them play better.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yeah, it converts HDDVD to DTS, but SD DVD seems to be different.

I have an Onkyo HTR510: http://63.148.251.135/redirect_service.cfm?type=own_manuals&file=HT-R510.pdf

Waxing disks: *MY* disks aren't scratched. It's the rentals that give me trouble, and I'm not sure they'd want me waxing them. Smile

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:40 pm Post subject:

Oh I had an HD-DVD a few weeks ago. It wouldn't play in either the Xbox or LG drives. So I polished it with plastic polish 3 times and waxed the hell out of it. It played just fine. They'll never know. Besides I did them a favour. Very Happy

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

'Allo? Anybody? I think AR's nailed it with the "no center channel" theory -- but why is it happening? I assume nobody else is seeing this with their A2's. So either my A2 is faulty (seems unlikely), or maybe somehow the way I have my receiver set up is causing it to lose the center channel? Help?

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject:

Do you have your reciever set to 'phantom' center? Although that should give you the dialog in the L+R speakers.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Not that I know of. And no, there's almost zero dialog coming out of L+R.

This really drives home how badly I need to upgrade my center. I really didn't realize how little dialog comes out of the fronts.

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:44 am Post subject:

Yeah the first time I bought my 5.1's I skimped on the centre I got a Paradigm CC-50 wee little thing. Then after seeing how much stuff comes out of the centre channel I upgraded to the CC-350. Much better sound.

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

It sounds like a setup problem not faulty equipment. Difficult to troubleshoot over the internet. Switch the settings on the A2 to see if anything changes. They keep the A2 at one setting and swithc settings on the receiver to see if anything changes.

Does your receiver have a test tone that can be sent to each reciever? Does the center channel function correctly?

Does everything work fine when you are playing HD DVD's? This sounds strange to me.

Does the receiver have a dynamic range compression? Try this, I believe it compresses the range so that when you turn it up to hear the dialogue, the explosions aren't super loud.

If you have a noisy projector like me, sometimes the dynamic range compression helps me so that I don' t get blown away by loud noises just so that I can hear the center channel.

AR could be right with a new center channel. I picked up a Onix Rocket RSC200 and it has great center channel abilities far better than my two previous center channels.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yes, the center works fine on all sources, including the A2 with HD DVDs. The A2 with SD DVDs has zero output from the center. There's nothing wrong with the speaker.

Given that nobody else is seeing this with their A2, I suspect it has something to do with the way the receiver is processing the signals from the A2.

Transformers is DD Plus, which the A2 outputs as DTS Bitstream. SD DVDs are either DD or dts, which the A2 outputs as Bitstream. The receiver interprets these as dts-ES (HD DVD) and Dolby Digital (SD DVD). Why it would drop the center from DD is a mystery...

paw · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1176 Location: Arvada, CO

Gary
What happens when you play DTS from an SD DVD using the A2? What happens when you play DTS from an SD DVD on your Momitsu? Remember, you have to select DTS from the DVD setup menu. In the Momistu, you may need to change a player menu setting to allow DTS. You probably know those last 2 points but just in case. Wink

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

OK, on the A2 the Digital Audio SPDIF is set to Bitstream. I don't see any equivalent setting on the Momitsu. A2 is connected via TOSLINK, Momitsu via digital coax.

"Hero" (SD DVD) offers DTS or DD in Mandarin.
* On the A2 I chose DTS and the receiver says it's dts-ES. No center channel, no dialog.
* On the Momitsu I chose DTS, the receiver says dts-ES -- and no center, no dialog!! Hmmmm. Definitely not the A2's fault!
* On the Momitsu I chose DD. The receiver says PCM, Stereo mode. Dialog comes through.
* On the A2 I chose DD. The receiver says DD. No center, no dialog !???
* I played Transformers (HD DVD), which is DD only, but output by the A2 as Bitstream, seen by the receiver as dts-ES -- no center!?!?! But... it worked before... !?

I think one of these crazy settings in the receiver is wrong, and that's what's causing the problem. Either I had set it to Stereo before, when I got dialog out of Transformers, or the surround-mode setting is wrong, or something similar. But playing the HD DVD, now the only way I can get dialog is to set it to Stereo. Something is screwy here....

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

perhaps your receiver can't decode bitstream. Set everything to LPCM out.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

The A2 can only output 2ch PCM. I'd lose all surround content. I can set the receiver to Stereo and get the same result, but it's not the result I want.

I don't know if the Onkyo has a problem with bitstream or not. There's no mention of "bitstream" in the Onkyo manual. Is there another name for it? P. 34 of the manual (above) shows the accepted formats as Analog/PCM, 96kHz PCM, Dolby Digital (2ch and "others"), and DTS (5.1 and 6.1). Could somebody who understands this stuff look at p.34 of that manual and see if you can make sense of it?

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

Oh yeah, doesn't output 5.1 PCM over toslink does it. Will it output over HDMI?

Maybe it is time to upgrade that Onkyo to a new 605!

I am trying to download the manual but it is going SLOWWW.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yes, it outputs 5.1 PCM over HDMI. I just wasn't planning on (or budgeting for) a new receiver any time soon. Sad

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

Try this....

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

Have you calibrated your system with each speaker channel being set to the correct volume level? I dont think this is the issue...just reading the manual...