The "Official" Onkyo TX-SR608 Thread (No Price Talk) - Page 39

So Zone2 doesn't work with digital signals?? I can't get Zone 2 to work when plugging in a digital signal into the coax port. Is this correct?

Before I inadvertantly raise the alarm, I want to confirm if anyone has noticed random fram dopping/stuttering with bd playback through the 608. I have confirmed it on two films (CrazyHeart and Striking Distance) from both my Oppo 83, Pioneer 320, and Sony 1000ES. When they are connected directly to the monitor, it is not perceivable.

I have HDMI set to through in both the monitor/input settings and in the source setup.

This may be an anomaly, but it is noticeable about every 3 minutes and unrepeatable.

Please keep an eye out for this on your end...

Hi maarek99, no digital just analog. (see page 57 in OM)
* Only analog input sources are output by the ZONE 2 LINE OUT and FRONT HIGH OR FRONT WIDE OR ZONE 2 SPEAKERS L/R terminals. Digital input sources are not output.

The trouble shooting area on Samsung's site says:
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Mode Not Supported:

This error message only appears if you have set the source on your TV to a device (such as a set top box or DVD player) that is set to a resolution the TV cannot accept. The conditions for receiving this error message are below, click on the one that best matches your situation to see recommended solutions.
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Neither option they listed pertained to me but the TV obviously thinks the source output is something it cannot handle. I wonder if the pass-through could be an issue?

The weirdest thing is that it starts up fine most of the time even with the cable remote so now I'm not sure why it is not showing the error consistently. I will try adjusting some of the video settings and see if that plays a role.

Oh and I tried a different cable and it did it again so I doubt that is it. I have the Monoprice heavy 6' HDMI cable [High Speed HDMI Silver-Plated Copper CL2 Rated] from the receiver to the TV and I've never had issues with them before.

HAving the un-opened box sitting on the floor mocking me was too much to take.

Setup was so fast/easy (I'm coming from separates w/out HDMI) I had my speakers and PS3 up and running in minutes to test it out.

For the past few days I've dropped down in speaker size across my front stage. gone are the Klipsch RF3 fronts and RC3 Center in favor of Orb Audio Mod2s (to match the existing surrounds due to apt/ size/space), this was prepare my ears for any 'downgrade' that may occur with switching to the onkyo while still using the same speakers.

First impressions: Wow! As mentioned above I'm coming from separates (Outlaw 990/770, which I've had since they were both released) and I'm blown away at the power/clarity of the 608, given my room size I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. There is no sign of downgrading at all, the Orbs sound just as good (but obviously a much different sound than the Klipschs.

Video-wise my image appears darker but then again my set was calibrated via direct connections via HDMI (no Receiver pass-thru).

The Fan is quiet but I'm leaving the unit on for a while to stress it. so far it's cool to the touch (and nowhere near as nuclear as my old amp

The audio switching/clicking is a bit on the annoying side but I'll get over it.
Handshaking via HDMI is just as bad as it ever was (Samsung LED DLP) so nothing new there.

DTS-HD when selected via BD doesnt' appear to have a display icon, it only shows up as DTS?

I love the onscreen GUI (and love the fact it comes up via any input, I was still having to hook up a component cable just to see the Outlaw GUI and would have to swap inputs just to do so); seems very straight forward.

Remote seems ghetto =D

So far so good! More to follow!

What modes are everyone using for Cable and Blu-Ray? I saw one person said Neo was in their opinion the best mode, but I'd like to hear from others. Strangely enough, TV Logic seems to sound the best for me for cable.

I have a 606, but I just use the native DD 5.1 for TV DD and one of the all speaker modes, usually DD PLII for TV 2-ch. That prevents clicking caused by channel amps going on and off. TV Logic and Neo might accomplish the same, but I wouldn't want to re-process DD 5.1 to another mode.

If you are using a fat ps3 for your bluray player then you can't pass undecoded DTS-HD bitsream to the 608. You will have to set ps3 output to pcm and let the ps3 do the decoding. The newer slim ps3 can send the encoded DTS-HD bitstream.

I remember seeing that posted somewhere before.

Thanks for the memory refresh!

Any idea of the sound is compromised this way or is it the same thing?

I own the onkyo 605. been reading the thread for the 608.
I was curious if they fixed the late night auto on trueHD? where you can have it on standby and it will still be off or something like that? once the onkyo 605 is turned off then it goes back to auto.

I mostly want to get it because of the 6 HDMI slots. the 605 only has 2. I am using an HDMI switcher which works very well.

thanks
Jacob

anyone also notice that even in "through" 8 bit sources are converted to 10 bit?

anyone else confirm this? it appears the 608 does molest hdmi signals even in through.

Well that's just unbelievable. I guess it goes for sale then. I mean how is it possible to have A/B channels but you can't output the same sound to the B-channels.

My 10 year old cheapest Kenwood receiver could do it and I thought offcourse it's able to do so.

big difference between a/b and zone 1 and zone 2. the onkyo allows for two different sources in two different rooms. just run a parallel analogue connection...not a big deal. can't think of a receiver under $1k that can send digital over zone 2.

Spent about half an hour on the phone today with the retailer regarding the video processing done in through mode...

favor to ask all owners...

put the receiver in through mode in the hdmi/resolution menu and in the source setup menu. turn on an hd broadcast encoded in 8 bits.

hit receiver on the remote, then hit display twice on the remote until the video info comes on. please confirm it says the following:

input
1920 x 1080i 24 bit
output
1920 x 1080i 30 bit

I test this further using an HDMI splitter on a paused blu ray. The feed directly to the tv had slightly different color and what appeared to be a bit more detail.

I do not know if I have a faulty 608 or the farjouda chip is processing all digital signals (for the worse) even in through mode.

Please let me know if owners have the same colorspace conversion i am seeing...

That's what I get on all sources (everything set to through) input says 24 bit and output says 30 bit. The picture on my cable box does appear to be slightly degraded... I thought I was imagining it....

Are you using TV Logic (and not DD) even when there's a DD 5.1 stream?

Thank you for confirming it's not just my unit!

Have you noticed any stuttering on bd sources?

Someting is not right with this unit for hdmi video...everything else is great though

Sorry no BD to test... but 1080p h.264 encodes look great (from htpc), and I feel the xbox looks good. These are both outputting 1080p, whereas the cable box is set to 720p and some processing is going on with it...

Last night my receiver became totally unresponsive. Remote doesn't do anything and none of the buttons do anything. Unplugging the unit and plugging it back in doesn't do anything. It stays on the VCR/DVR input at volume 60. Abt is sending me a replacement when they get some more in stock. I can't belive this thing crapped out on me in less than a month.

There should be no loss or modification of the information. Bits are bits and they don't (shouldn't) change.

Its kind of like if you took an 8 by 8 image and converted it to a 64 by 64 image. Should have exactly all the same information just 4 times as much of it, assuming there is no processing and just strict upscaling.

I have had mine for about a week and tonight I started to hear a ticking noise as well. It does not sound like a fan bearing going out... tick tick tick, pause, tick tick, pause, tick tick tick,etc. The ticks are about 2-3 per second with a second pause. I just noticed it, but haven't tried to remedy it at all... too late and time for bed. Will listen for it again in the morning and see about isolating it.

Has anyone seen a problem where the 608 puts red lines flashing across video files when switching to an input? Occasionally I'll switch from my HTPC input to my PC, and back to HTPC. The video will have red line flashing horizontally. It never did this with the HTPC hooked directly to the TV. The problem goes away by changing inputs again.

I've got the same popping. Isn't this a common Onkyo problem? Other than that I really love the receiver. Back to ABT it goes.

I am loving my 608, however, my pc passthrough hdmi looks horrible. Do you think its a setting?

I have had the 608 for about a week now, and I LOVE the sound that is coming from this receiver. With that being said, I am concerned that I will have to return it due to video quality degredation that doesn't seem to go away even with the video set to thru and passthrough on HDMI output. I took some pictures of my screen with the blu-ray running through the 608 and then the same picture with the blu-ray running straight to the TV. While these had to be converted to gifs for upload, the difference and noticable banding is still very obvious. The links are here: http://img22.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=close608.gif

If there is a video setting I have missed somewhere (I have gone through the menus about a million times at this point it seems, toggling everything I can find on and then off) please let me know, as I love how this receiver sounds, and that feels like it should be the most important aspect of a receiver to me. However, I can't really ignore it actively degrading the visual quality, which seems so avoidable if it would just do what it says it is doing and pass the video through without processing.

Please get back to me on this asap with your findings/opinions so I can settle my mind on this and either return it or not if a solution is present. Thanks in advance for any help.

I just bought one of these at BB. While I am still setting up the unit, I did find a deal breaker for me: The OSD is only available via HDMI, not even component. I had asked about this at BB and said it would. I must have the OSD through component. I don't have HDMI on my display, only DVI or component, etc. I will play with it some more, and then return it and look for another unit.

will it not display with an hdmi to dvi cable?

I am glad I am not alone in noticing this. I hesitated to post my concerns about the processing the receiver is doing in the event I just got a faulty unit. I am going to call Onkyo, but I have a feeling where the conversation will go...

I assume the pics on the right are the ones running through the 608, right? Yes, it looks like banding is more pronounced in the ones on the right. There is slight banding also on the ones on the left.

Yea, the 608 images are the ones labeled with 608, and the ones that run straight into the tv are labeled no608 at the very top in the URL once you select them.

The slight banding on the ones on the left are more a byproduct of turning them into a gif with only 256 colors for upload to the web, but you can trust me the difference when simply watching back and forth is unfortunately undeniable. I can also see some sort of smoothing, or anti-noise filter that is attempting to be applied which is added a subtle ghosting at times to the image. I would really love to just have 0 processing actually touch the image (to its detriment imo), because the sound is undeniably amazing.