Guessing this has been asked and answered, but I couldn't find it.....

OK, having a little trouble with connections, setup or cable. Don't know. I have a Sony str-de898, a definitive 5.1 speaker system, dvd player and MOXI (Charter's DVR). I used coax cable from my dvd to the Sony and I do get 5.1 sound (will get another optical cable when I get to the store). But, I ran both an optical cable from MOXI to the Sony and coax cables from MOXI to another input on the Sony. Neither way do I get 5.1 sound. Played with several of the surround modes. Closest I get is prologic II displays on the Sony that all channels are being played back, but I'm not getting anything out of L/R or the surrounds. (FYI, I did pick out an HD channel and also tried Star Wars III from On Demand - figured those should be Dolby).

Have I messed up my connections, or is the only way to run sound from all speakers with cable to use the 5 channel stereo setting?

thanks

One of life's less rewarding mysteriers, is the number of digital cable (CCast SF EB)
programs, showing 5.1 in the guide, 5.1 in the program info dialog, 5.1 at the receiver, and having nothing at all in the left and right surrounds.

I've had three back to back 3412's, a tech who said yeah I can hear see it but not hear it, two phone calls back to the office to "senior" and "expert" guys, who said , "uh" and "I don't know what would cause that".

TNT is never in 5.1 no matter what flags are set. NBC sometimes. But TNT's 5.1 is never right and NBC's is sometimes right. On some programs on some channels the initial 5.1 indication flips to DD which seems to be right.

So far all that I know is that some others report the same 5.1-NOT, and that in my case Comcast did not just blame the program provider. They promised a call back-- I am still waiting.

I've found that DD/5.1 is seldom carried unless you are using the HD channels and some premium channels.

I've been TRYING to figure out what I've been doing wrong.
One of life's less rewarding mysteriers, is the number of digital cable (CCast SF EB)
programs, showing 5.1 in the guide, 5.1 in the program info dialog, 5.1 at the receiver, and having nothing at all in the left and right surrounds.


I have a 3416 at home....and ONLY center channel for Dolby inputs .... there is a faint bit of subwoofer hum on the occasional channel.... and the ProLogic seems to have a some sound on the L/R channels....

trekguy....have you solved this??? Maybe I need to try the Pace 775....??? Cable folks say I'm not hooking up my receiver correctly (I'd be happy if that were true--I'm still obsessing over the manual to try to figure it out.) Cable folks also say I'm getting whatever the station is sending....to me it's as if the Dolby Digital has been turned off in the 3416.....

whoaru99...have you found the center-chanel olny issue? any thoughts as to what I'm doing wrong?

--Sharon

-Sharon

No I have not. I thought it was a minor victory when we got past user or user setup error right away. I had the guy listen to a 5.1 DVD to show that we had a good receiver and speakers. Daytime programing is not 5.1 rich, but INHD had 5.1 working, and the placeholder for INHD2 had 5.1 music as well as a 5.1 music video on UHD. So we agreed that my setup was OK. I had exchanged the box the two days earlier and he changed it out again; but no joy. He used his phone in speaker mode to call in so I heard the techs when both said that they did not know of the problem or what might cause it. All three agreed that I was the first in the area to complain.

I went next door and asked them if they noticed the problem. They both said no, but let's listen. No L/R surround on TNT for them either. I think that because Prologic is matrixing the back channels people are fooled.

Anyway I've given comcast a good many days to get back to me and plan to follow up next week.

My feeling is that we are being cheated when the program has a 5.1 soundtrack, sets the5.1 flag, shows in the guide as 5.1 but only 2.1 is delivered. :mad:

If I get anywhere with this I will post.

On your allegedly incorrect setup how are you connecting to the receiver. The usual way is a digital connection between the moto and the reciever. However if the receiver shows a 5.1 or 3.1 signal comming in from the DVR --it ain't the connection.

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I went next door and asked them if they noticed the problem. They both said no, but let's listen. No L/R surround on TNT for them either. I think that because Prologic is matrixing the back channels people are fooled.

Yep--I think that's the issue.....even for the cable folks.

Yes! It's a digital connection to my receiver (optical)...and the DVD works just fine. One cable technician was convinced that I'd just not gone deep enough into the menu on the receiver. Yes those receivers are complex…I was hoping to find a solution there. Turns out, though, if I receive a dolby signal it won’t even allow me to use 5 channel stereo or other 5 channel “fakes”, just stereo….. (BTW my receiver doesn’t tell me the number of channels, just the signal type—Denon AVR-1803) ish…)

So nice to find someone who understands the issue!!

Please do post more results—
Sharon