Receiver Help

[sk1927]

I recently purchased the Pioneer VSX-1018 receiver, with Sony S350 blu-ray player, for an existing 7.1 system, that I am upgrading.  Whenever I put in a blu-ray disc, the Auto Surround setting on the Pioneer detects the audio as Pro Logic but then quickly switches to PCM.  I was using a Sony DE998 with the AFD, and was used to the Sony detecting the correct audio format.  What am I missing on the Pioneer?  The blu ray disc I was using is "Night at the Museum".   Any help would be most appreciated!

[nick3092]

I recently purchased the Pioneer VSX-1018 receiver, with Sony S350 blu-ray player, for an existing 7.1 system, that I am upgrading.  Whenever I put in a blu-ray disc, the Auto Surround setting on the Pioneer detects the audio as Pro Logic but then quickly switches to PCM.  I was using a Sony DE998 with the AFD, and was used to the Sony detecting the correct audio format.  What am I missing on the Pioneer?  The blu ray disc I was using is "Night at the Museum".   Any help would be most appreciated!

Check the settings on your BD player.  It most likely has an option for outputting the sound via HDMI of bitstream, or LPCM.  Bitstream means it will send the Dolby signal (or whatever) to the receiver, and it will decode the signal (and light up whatever little light for that format).  LPCM means the BD player is decoding the Dolby signal, and sending the sound uncompressed to the receiver, where it will then say multichannel in, or PCM, or whatever.

In theory it doesn't matter which device does the decoding.

[sk1927]

Thanks for the suggestion.   I thought the BD player was already set for HDMI but will double check.   I am using an HDMI cable between the Pioneer and the Sony player, and the input source (BD) on the receiver is set for HDMI. BTW, any opinions on Pioneer HD receivers, better or worse than other brands?

[sk1927]

Checked the blu-ray player settings, and they are correct for HD.  The receiver display reads 'PCM+DProLogicII', which I don't understand because the blu-ray disc has DTS-HD encoding.  The blu-ray player lights that are on are 24P, HD, HDMI, when the disk is being played.  Any other ideas?

[HDefinicktion]

It might just depend on your receiver.  When my Onkyo receives the PCM signal it still applys the THX Cinema setting to the sound mix.  I guess that I have been happy enough with the results that I havent looked into figuring out if it should just say PCM.  It seems like it knows that there is a 7.1 channel signal, but it is just applying its own Dolby audio mix to the stream.  Are you selecting the DTS track from the setup menu?  The receiver should be able to use the DTS Core track even if your receiver does not support bitstream decoding of the DTS-HD track.

[sk1927]

The receiver does support DTS-HD decoding.   The setup does have the DTS selected.   The other thing I noticed is that the lights on the receiver for the SB speakers never come on, no matter what sound field I select on the receiver.  I might consider the Onkyo if I can't get this working....do you have the 605 or 606 Onkyo

[brewtownska]

Just curious, have you checked out avsforum.com for help on this?  
I imagine with all the talk going on there, someone has the same setup you have and has asked the same question.  I'm amazed sometimes on how much info shows up on that forum - I've used it many times answer questions on my gear.

I went into the threat for the VSX-1018 and then searched for "350*" and found a few posts.  This was the only one that was worth reading:
************************
I'm not sure if the Sony 350 can bitstream.....yet.....I believe there will be a firmware update in the near future to do this.....so in the meantime it would be doing the internal decoding and sending out via PCM like the PS3.....but let me double-check......

Ok...just checked Sonystyle and it does say it can bitstream via HDMI......the firmware update in the future I believe is for "BDLive"......anyway check your settings in the 350 and make sure the 1018 is set for "auto surround".........I have a PS3 so I can't check this function.
************************
So yeah, not much help other than saying POSSIBLY that there is/was a firmware update and that you should set the 1018 to "auto surround" (which maybe you haven't done???).

I also went to the Sony S350 thread and searched for "1018*" but didn't find anything.  You can get the S350 forum via this link:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1000180
I didn't have time to scan through much of it, but keep an eye open for firmware updates and what they have done and will do, as well as specific questions on the dts-ma codec.  Hopefully that will help you fix your problem.

Mike

[sk1927]

The receiver is set for Auto Surround.  I even 'cycle' thru the 3 modes - auto surround, direct, and direct stream, and it makes no difference.  Would I be better off using a different blu-ray player (like to stick with Sony) or a different receiver?

[brewtownska]

Do you have any friends nearby with a PS3?  That would be a quick way to test a different Blu-ray player to see how if your receiver reads the info.  The PS3 got the dts-ma activated via firmware a few months ago, so I know it can pass the bitstream via HDMI.  But like most players, you have to go through all the settings behind the scenes to make sure it's set to do that.

Mike

[kevbeck122]

The PS3 AFAIK will only output bitstream for DD5.1 and regular DTS.  It decodes all HD codecs internally and outputs them as LPCM.  I'm not sure if that's the same for Sony's standard blu-ray players or not.

[brewtownska]

Yup, looks like you are right about the PS3 processing the dts-ma internally...sorry for the bum info :blush:

[brewtownska]

One last question.  On the PS3, if I hit the display button it will show me (as an overlay to the video) what the bitrate of the video is, the type of audio and the bitrate of it.  Does the S350 have anything similar that will show you what it's passing on from the disc?  I know you mentioned what lights light up on the player, but maybe there are more details on a playback screen.  That way if you know you picked a dts-ma or a DD TrueHD soundtrack, that screen will confirm it (or it will confirm what it is sending out to your receiver).

Something else I just noticed from looking at the specs of Night At the Museum, even though it does say its dts-ma, it's only 5.1 surround.  So your back speakers wouldn't light up on that disc.  Any chance you have a disc that you know is 7.1?

[sk1927]

I don't have a 7.1 disc.  The speaker indicators for the SB (left & right) never come on, for any disk that I play (blu-ray or reg DVD).  Which is confusing me because at first, I thought the receiver was bad.  In other words, I would expect the receiver to distribute sound to the SB speakers, even though the format is 5.1 DD, or DTS.  So should the speaker lights come on for the SB speakers when there is encoded material, or should the SB lights be on when any sound is being passed to the SB speakers?  I think my Sony DE-998 had all the speaker lites on when a 5.1 sound source was being decoded.

[brewtownska]

I have an older Pioneer receiver, not as high of a model as yours (I think it's either an 8xx series or 9xx series from when they first put DDII in their receivers), and remember asking myself some of the same questions seeing as it worked different than my previous Yamaha model.

With mine, there are different master settings as to what my setup is...6.1 or 7.1, and how I want to use my surround speakers.  I think there is a menu choice and possibly even a hard switch on the back to adjust how the amp should work for the changes between 6.1 and 7.1.

I would agree with you that if the receiver is setup for 7.1 but only gets a 5.1 input signal, it probably would process the sound and create sound for your extra speakers.  I know my 2 channel input sources get processed to give me 6.1 on my older Pioneer.  But I can also tell you that my input lights only show me what is being INPUT, not what is being output.  So your SB lights never coming on doesn't sound odd to me, as I'd only expect them to be on if you have an input signal containing that info.  The one thing I haven't seen mentioned though is do you actually get SOUND out of the SB speakers?

Another possibility - do you have more than just the HDMI connected from the Blu-ray to the receiver?  On my system, I'm still using component connections for everything (CRT RPTV), so I actually share some inputs on the receiver between devices.  Sometimes I have a digital coax or digital optical used along with a 2-channel RCA connection.  The receiver has a setting for precedence on the input signal...digital, analog, or auto (probably similar to your auto surround setting).  If I'm watching analog TV, it uses the 2-channel RCA inputs.  If I just turn on my PS3 which shares the same input but using the optical input, the sound instantly turns to the PS3 because of the auto input.  If there's any chance you have more than 1 connection, maybe it's defaulting to the one you don't want?

As for getting your SB lights to light up, it might be worth the $5 to go rent something that is using 7.1 dts-ma just for your own piece of mind.  Like someone else said, even if something was screwed up to not give you the proper 7.1 dts-ma signal to the receiver, you should at least be getting the core 5.1 dts signal.  So if it's showing PCM, then either the player isn't passing the bitstream properly or the receiver isn't seeing the flags properly to push it to process correctly.

Any idea what firmware you have on the Sony?  On the sony website, looks like the latest firmware for the S350 is 007, released on 7/25/08.  If you're on an older version, maybe upgrading will make a difference.

Mike

[sk1927]

Well, it helps to READ user manuals.  The Sony manual, in the troubleshooting section, tells you if you are not getting  the DTS-HD signals, to set the BD Audio Parameter to 'Direct'; default is 'Mix'.  I did this on the 'Night at the Museum' disk, and the receiver displays 'DTS-HD'.  And sound is present on all 7 speakers.

I did not get a chance to rent a 7.1 DTS-HD disk.

The Sony 350 Player is at the latest rev, which 7.04.  I checked for updates as well and there are none right now.

When the BD Audio parameter is set to 'Direct', the manual says you will not hear the second audio tracks - ie. the commentaries.   Strange that Sony would 'disable' DTS-HD detection out of the box.  

Also, on other Dolby digital 5.1 disks, the sound from the receiver is on all 7 speakers, but the indicator lights are not on for the SB speakers.

Also, I only have an HDMI cable hooked to the Sony blu-ray player.

Think I'm good for now, thanks for the help1