AVS › AVS Forum › Audio › Audio theory, Setup and Chat › No surround with my Pioneer vsx-819h receiver
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

No surround with my Pioneer vsx-819h receiver

post #1 of 10
12/28/09 at 6:54pm
Thread Starter 
I just got this receiver today, hooked it all up and followed the manual and onscreen instructions. I completed the auto speaker set up and the manual setup as well. During both setups, I was able to hear the test noise from both surround speakers. Now that I have put in a movie, the sound is only coming out of the two front speakers and the center one. My subwoofer is not yet hooked up because I need a different cable to hook it up to this receiver.

Here are the components I have and the cables used:
Samsung lcd tv
Pioneer vsx 819h receiver
Sony blu ray player

I have an HDMI from the blu ray to the tv.
A coaxial cable from the blu ray to the receiver(it is connected to the coaxial in 1. I have it set to BD on the OSD for component one)

I don't have the tv set up to go through the receive. I also have a wii that I am planning on running through the tv for now as well. The receiver is more just for movies and playing the ipod.

Need any help or suggestions to get the surround to work. Thanks in advance.
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 10
12/28/09 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mojoz View Post

I have an HDMI from the blu ray to the tv.
A coaxial cable from the blu ray to the receiver(it is connected to the coaxial in 1. I have it set to BD on the OSD for component one)

If you want to hear surround sound from BD, then you need to connect the BD HDMI output directly to the Pioneer AVR. Then connect the Pioneer's HDMI output to your TV.

Why? The TV, being a 2-ch audio device, is telling the BD player not to send it multichannel audio. That is affcting the audio on the optical output as well.

When you play BD movies, what does the Pioneer display say for audio mode?
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 10
12/29/09 at 6:08am
Generally, I agree with Roger. Connect through the receiver with HDMI.

If, for what ever reason you can't or don't want to, then you probably can select no audio on HDMI in the Blu-ray player (and maybe in receiver setup too) and that should make surround happen from the coaxial digital output, afaik.

The HDMI connection to the receiver will also facilitate the higher resolution audio formats whereas using the coaxial connection does not pass them.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 10
12/29/09 at 12:55pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks a lot guys, I will give that a try. I will need to go and get another HDMI cable. Thanks for the tips and the quick response!!!
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 10
12/29/09 at 7:21pm
Thread Starter 
I got another HDMI cable, got it hooked up and still only have sound through the front speakers. I have cycled through the settings, turned up and down the surround channels, went through the audio options on the Blu-ray player and still no surround...I talked to a best buy person and was told I need to also upgrade my subwoofer. I'm not sure if that is a reason fro the surround not working, can't imagine it is.

The HDMI cable I originally had has gold connections and the one I bought today has silver or non-gold connections. I know there is a difference in the connections but not enough to not make the surround not work. I am wondering though because of the two HDMI's, it seems that I am losing some video quality. The blu-ray looked very crisp hooked up to the tv, now through the receiver it seems to have lost a bit.

Any other advice on getting the surround to work would be helpful.

Thanks in advance
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 10
12/29/09 at 7:41pm
I dunno what the problem is, I don't use HDMI for audio (using multich analog), but I'm pretty darn sure it's not the sub or the new cable causing the problem.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 10
12/29/09 at 9:10pm
hmmm that's strange. Try a different BD movie, or you can try a regular dvd cuz those are 5.1 DD too. When your playing the movie set it so the surround R & L are up full and the rest are at the lowest volume. Also try pluging it in like this cuz your tv prolly doesn't out put 5.1, BD player (HDMI) to Pioneer Receiver to (HDMI) TV.

Hope that works, also how is the 819? thinking about getting one
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 10
12/29/09 at 10:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mojoz View Post

I got another HDMI cable, got it hooked up and still only have sound through the front speakers. I have cycled through the settings, turned up and down the surround channels, went through the audio options on the Blu-ray player and still no surround...I talked to a best buy person and was told I need to also upgrade my subwoofer. I'm not sure if that is a reason fro the surround not working, can't imagine it is.

What is the audio mode displayed on the AVR? How do you have the audio output of the player set? Bitstream, PCM, stereo? We need to know these details in order to help solve the problem.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 10
12/30/09 at 7:24am
You can verify that the receiver really can play something other than test tones in the surround channels by playing a CD in your BD player.

Select the "surround sound" effect "Ext. Stereo" (Extended Stereo). You should hear the same sounds coming from the surround R&L speakers at the same volume that they are coming from the front R&L speakers. If they're too quiet, then you need to increase their relative levels in the speaker adjustment menu.

Most movies really don't have much in their surround channels.

You can verify that the receiver is properly decoding Dolby surround sound by playing one of your THX certified DVDs and selecting the THX setup chapter from the disc's main menu. (There are over 300 THX certified movie DVDs, so I'm assuming you have at least one of them. A list of titles is at http://www.thx.com/home/dvd/search.html )
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 10
12/30/09 at 4:04pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, so I popped in an audio cd and still only had sound from the front channels. I then switched through some of the advanced settings found on the controller and got the CD to play in surround. I then popped in Transformers blu ray and the sound went back to just being the front again. On the controller I pushed advanced surround and then started to hear it in surround.

Trying to duplicate the sound from just the front again so I could actually know what and how I got it to work, I turned everything off and waited a few minutes. Turned everything back on, only this time everything stayed in surround. I'm still not exactly sure what and how I got it to work because I can't get the blu ray back to just the front channels.

As for now I am going to leave it as it is. Thanks for the help from everyone. The receiver sounds great, and the sound from the surround is excellent. Now just trying to get the volume for the speakers just right. Thanks again for the help!!!
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Audio theory, Setup and Chat

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Audio › Audio theory, Setup and Chat › No surround with my Pioneer vsx-819h receiver