tv forcing 2ch audio from dvd via hdmi

The HDMI handshake is informing the DVD player that it's connected to a 2-speaker television that's not capable of 5.1 audio.

Can you find a way to either disable HDMI audio on the DVD player or tell the TV you want to use external speakers? Most TVs these days have that option, it's just well-hidden on some of them.

Well your HDMI connection is doing its job. That's one of the great (and also frustrating, as you're finding out) things about the standard: it's digital, so the devices can exchange information about one another - it's called their EDID if I remember correctly. Basically they can relay information about their capabilities both upstream and downstream so that the devices on either end work correctly with them.

It's also one of the more frustrating things about it. If a single setting on your AVR is wrong, for example, your HTPC won't output in multichannel audio, or bitstream - because it'll be getting information from the TV that says "Hey, I'm a 2-channel only device, 2-channel PCM for me kthxbai". Windows 7, ATI video cards and AVRs have a problem where enabling HDMI audio causes everything to go haywire, because it's having trouble with the multiple EDIDs I mentioned before.

If you can't find an option on either device to disable the TV speakers/HDMI audio and use external speakers/optical connection, you might have to use a component video connection instead. That way the TV will only recieve video and won't be able to communicate with the DVD player.

As long as you can't switch off HDMI audio, it'll happen with any DVD player you put on that TV. It's not actually the DVD player at fault though - the TV is telling the DVD player what to send it, and if you can't turn that option off, you're kinda screwed.

I could be wrong, but that's my understanding of how HDMI works.

Sounds like you need a new HDMI receiver and just hook the DVD player the the AVR and then the AVR to the TV - problem solved (maybe more expensive then you wanted ).

Many players gave a setting that disables HDMI audio. Or, if the player has component video outputs, that would get around the handshake that is causing the stereo downmix.

Hahaha, well yeah, that'd be the simplest answer. Something tells me he doesn't have the budget for that.

I'm gonna go with what I said before - component connection + coax/toslink digital audio. He might not get the benefit of a purely digital video connection, but component input is at least capable of HD and is probably second-best to HDMI in terms of quality.

It'll certainly let him do what he wants for the meantime, though.

This is true of all recent TVs, and is due to digital rights management issues, not TV specs per se. So it's more of a failure on the buyer's part for not adequately researching before setting things up. Most folks us a HDMI switching AVR which negates the issues, and use of component video also works with no loss of inherent quality. And last but not least, there ARE players which offer the means to deal with this issue, such as turning off HDMI audio.

My Bravia 52Z5100 passes 5.1 just fine...but it was one of ths reasons I bought the unit. At the time, most units would not.

Did my research HERE first. I love this place.

Gotta admit, I agree somewhat with saint. It's easy for us to sit here and go "bwaaaahhh (think melchett in blackadder), well you should have been more aware of what you were buying, caveat emptor, etc etc", but that's unfair because for the average consumer, they don't KNOW what to ask, or what to look for.

Most people encounter these things for the first time the way saint just did - discovering somewhat accidentally that their gear doesn't work right when placed together for whatever reason.

The problem though is that if they started putting all this information "out there" on the boxes and the advertising and whatnot, average people would see it as a broken/not worth it product. They'd look and go "oh well it DOESN'T do this" without actually understanding what it is they are reading. And most people couldn't care less about this stuff either. Everyone knows the people who "don't care" that their DVD player is vertically stretching anamorphic content to fit a 4:3 screen because it "looks fine". Those kind of people constitute the majority of home entertainment goods purchasers - and it's why all those "set up your home theatre" services are so damn successful. It's basically a case of "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!"