Harman Kardon AVR 247 & 347 discussion thread. - Page 124

I broke down, and got the dinosaur out. Of course I didn't have a monitor handy, but I did have a VGA cable and my 56" Sammy DLP. Windows 98 doesn't look too bad on the big screen!

The direct serial to serial upgrade is in progress...we'll see how it turns out.

It's hard to believe I have all of these toys lying around all scattered out, the xbox 360, blu ray, the 247, my new laptop that wasn't working with the upgrade...and then my old dusty PC. It looks a little out of place.

By God it worked!!

So that settles it. I had a USB to Serial adapter that worked for the MCU/DSP upgrade, but it was hanging on the video upgrade. I went to a direct serial to serial connection from my old PC, and everything went fine. Now if I could just get that 4 hours of my life back.

Ok I have to give props to Hk customers service. I return my AVR 247 last week and got my replacement this week. on top of that they upgraded me to a AVR 347. I hooked everything up and it is working prefectly. it even has the newest firmware, I am a happy camper.

This is normal. My Sony XBR4 manual states that fact... HD programming has lower than regular volume and warns to make sure that volume control is not left at very high levels in HD programming before watching standard definition programs.

When trying to upgrade my avr-247 to the latest firmware I get HK_MCULoader error 4.... any get this and fix it?


*nm, got it to work.... had to lug one of my pcs downstairs, none of the laptops worked for some reason..

bummer...i didn't get the latest firmware on mine. i was in the same boat as you, but i got a faulty first replacement unit. i wish they would have picked up shipping both time. i just dropped $30 usps priority to send my original unit back.

I had to pay also but figured since I was getting a upgrade I didnt mind so much. I was shock that it was shipped so fast.

i think they shipped mine the day after they received my return. turnaround time was about a week. nyc --> atl --> nyc.

Jomama,

After reading a lot of responses on this thread about sparkles when passing 1080P thru PS3, it seems that you are pretty close understanding this issue. Is there another firmware upgrade in the works to sovle this problem, or is this a problem with the unit (AVR-247), and something we just have to live with. I love the sound quality from this receiver, but would love to have the video portion hold up to what was advertised.

HK has identified it as a hardware/heat issue. some units have sparkles, some don't. i believe it only shows up in 1080p. the only way to "fix" it is to exchange for another unit. there's no firmware that solves the issue. HK has a hardware fix for those units they identify as having the sparkle issue. all the replacement units supposedly have been tested/fixed for the sparkle issue. not all of them will have the latest firmware tho.

Could someone please answer me a quick question? I asked this earlier, but it got buried. I'm trying to hook my xbox360 up to the 247. I'm having to do so through component cables, because my HDMI inputs are tied up with the Blu Ray player and our HD cable box. I have the video component cables running into the video 1 input, and the audio cables running through the audio 1 input. When I go to video one on the receiver, I get sound, but no picture.

Any thoughts as to what the deal is here? Originally I thought that maybe the video wouldn't transfer from the component inputs over to the TV via the HDMI output. But, then I remembered that I had a PS2 hooked up through the front jacks for a short time, and the video passed through fine. So that leads me to believe I don't have it hooked up correctly. Any help would be appreciated.

Other details, the TV is a 56" Sammy DLP 1080p and I'm connected via an HDMI cable to the receiver.

might want to check your setup in the OSD to make sure that the video 1 selection is pulling video from component 1.

No FW but HW.

A HW fix was inadvertently posted on the HK site a while back. HK identified it as a SC only fix claiming it hadn't been verified. Some people on here probably dl'd it. But it does require soldering skills. GL

This is the situation I ended up the last time I tried the uprade with m Belkin-5U409 usb->serial adapter. My error was different. If you look back a few pages you'll find my posts on this particular problem. I tried this adapter with 3 different machines in all. An HP NC 6910p laptop, the Dell D610, and my desktop pc. I also tried two different serial cables with the Dell laptop but they turned out not to be true serial cables. Finally, I relented and went to Radio Shack to by a serial cable. Once I connected it to the D610 the upgrade went through without a hitch.

I noticed that the 247 is no longer available brand new from stores; only the 347 is.

Seems to me (speculation) that the 247 is so problematic that it had to be pulled from production? Any definitive word on this? Notice also that HK is sometimes shipping out 347 to customers to replace 247 units that have had multiple warranty issues.

Also, if you just try to google "avr-247 problem", you get disproportionately more hits than if you type "avr-347 problem", even considering that percentagewise, more people probably bought the 247. The disparity seems outrageous.

Do you have the 360 output set to 1080i/p? If so, that is the problem. The 247 will only pass analog signals (component, composite, etc.) through HDMI if they are 720p or lower. Anything higher will only be passed through the component out. That's why my 360 is connected directly to the tv.

Ahh, that's interesting, I believe it's set to 1080p, since I originally set it up when I had it connected directly to my 1080p TV. I'll give that a whirl when I get home this evening.

I bought the 247 new about 2 weeks ago and Nebraska Furniture Mart (which by the way is a great store if you've never been) However, it was part of a larger package, that included a Harmon Kardon 5.1 speaker set, and a DVD player (which is basically sitting on my shelf in the garage, because I was buying a blu ray player at the same time) If I didn't already have all of the speakers mounted to the walls, and all of the wires hidden, I wouldn't hesitate to take my 247 back and get something different. I'm toying with the idea of sending it into HK, and hoping that they exchange it for a 347, which it sounds like they have for several people.

Yep, you have to change it to 720 and it'll work.

When I first got my 347, I went component out of the AVR to the TV for just the 360 and was able to keep 1080p. The HDMI worked for the other connections and the Component worked for the 360. Might want to try that as well.

Any work around for this? i.e. using a optical cable for audio or something?
Its really annoying having the volume level go up and down drastically while changing channels...

Thanks

Quick question I hope....

I have a Sony DVPCX995V DVD changer hooked up via hdmi to my 347. I also have my PS3 hooked up via hdmi. Whenever I play anything through my PS3 the mini OSD says "Multi CH PCM" and I have no problem. When I play dvd's through my Sony, sometimes it plays fine (I keep it set to Dolby PLII Movie) but other times it flips to "Multi CH PCM" and I get no sound through the speakers. I am sure there must be a setting somewhere to avoid this happening, but I haven't found it in either manual. Whenever this happens, I can't change any settings on the receiver. What gives?

Harman Kardon AVR247 vs. Onkyo 605 - which is best?

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I am new to the HT scene and am building my HT system. I have a 52" XBR Sony LCD TV, a set of Boston Acoustics in-ceiling speakers, SVS PB-10 sub and purchased a HK247 but am having second thoughts on the HK 247 after reading so many more reviews.

I am comfortable with all my other purchases but am thinking of selling my new/unused in-the-box AVR247 (at a significant loss) as I am told that the 1.3 format recievers such as Onkyo 605/606 provide night & day improved sound and better video quality through the HDMI cable than the HK 1.1/1.2 models.

Will the new 1.3 HK models or the Onkyo 605 or 606 provide noticeably better sound and picture quality than the 1.1/1.2 HK AVR247?

I feel foolish for second guessing but I would like any experienced input on whether I should keep my HK AVR247, sell it for the new HK 1.3 compatible line, or go to the Onkyo 605/606? My goal is the best quality audio and video in this price range without hassles over HDMI interface and other problems...

Thank you in advance for your helpful comments/suggestions.

Gary

Hi,

I enjoy my home theater very much, and thanks to a few friendly advices I received on this board, I bought a AVR247 a few months ago along with JBL L880 speakers. Everything was great until I wanted clearer sound and I bought a B&K EX442 amp to push these two speakers I have.

Ever since the addition, I've experiencing popping noise from the speakers whenever I switch channels/sources or when a commercials kicks in at HD channels. The popping noise is very noticable and very annoying. I'm just wondering if anyone have a solution to this?

Thanks a lot for the help!!!

dK

Hi
Anybody still has this file ? Just out of curiosity to see how hard the fix is to perform...
Thanks

It's a little too big to post. PM me your email address and I'll send it.

I have installed the latest firmware upgrades and my PS3 is hooked up via hdmi (Thanks to all the great post on this site).

However, I'm having audio surround issues. When a movie is playing, the AVR-247 flips over to "Multi CH PCM". I understand that this is perfectly normal, as the PS3 is sending the signal to the receiver and the performance is outstanding.

During this process, the ability to change surround modes are frozen. Again, this issue is mute during movie playback, but when playing music through my PS3 dashboard, I am unable to select or change different surround modes (i.e Logic, Dolby PLII Movie, 5/7 Channel Stereo etc.) This question goes out to mainly owners of the PS3, but I know that there are a lot of members that have my setup. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!!

For those interested in the updated firmware for the 230V version, I've just sent an email to the H/K support to ask about it.
I'll let you know.

Damn! I have read several post about the video hang being cured by switching from USB-serial adapter to a direct serial port connection. I lugged my receiver all the way to work (I have two PCs w/ no serial port), hooked it up to a serial port, and it still hangs on the video update portion. I've tried the file hex file moving (the HK rep says you are supposed to move the 'sst' file out of the upgrade folder during the video upgrade, not before - but I have tried it both ways) and still nothing. This is firmware tool is a POS. Has anybody had as much trouble as me with the video update hang? Has anyone figured out exactly what causes the video update hang?

On another note, I contacted the original poster of this thread, and they said they haven't been up to date with the thread because they returned their 247. If someone (who has been following the thread closely - ie: not me) wants to summarize the updates to the original thread, he'll copy/paste...which will be of great service to the forum.

I have a PS3 connected via HDMI to my 247 as well. The only thing I think you can do is change the output format from the PS3 to Bitstream from LPCM. The only thing this gets you is the ability to have the 247 show DTS or Dolby Digital on the display because that will be the incoming signal it detects. The PS3 is doing the actual decoding of the signal. DTS and Dolby Digital are not lossless sound formats. If you leave the PS3 set to LPCM output it converts the DTS and DD encoding to the lossless LPCM format and you get superior sound, even though you might not be able to tell the difference. I don't think I could. I experimented with this for a week when I first got my 247 and decided to leave the PS3 on LPCM output. It sounds amazing by the way. You'll really appreciate the PS3 with Blu-Ray disks encoded with uncompressed LPCM soundtracks like "No Country for old men", for instance. In short, there is no way that I know of for the 247 to use the analog surround modes when playing DVD's or Blu-Ray disks. I have not tried playing music through the PS3 yet, but maybe the analog modes will become available if you change the PS3 output format to bitstream. Just a guess. I have not seen this subject come up yet.