The "Official" VSX-94TXH Thread...:0) - Page 144

When in Auto-Surround or Direct, it goes to Stereo. (It says Stream Direct). When in Pure Direct mode, it goes to PCM Stereo. I don't see Analog anywhere in the display.

I called Pio about it and the tech support guy said to contact Oppo because he thought it was on their side. I called Oppo and they said they have many units that work transparently with the 94 and they haven't seen this issue so they think it's the receiver.

As an experiment, I have a Sammy BDP-1600 fairly new BD player upstairs so I decided to drag it down and hook it up to see what would happen. Well, it worked flawlessly. No such issues at all. Now I'm looking menacingly at the Oppo player and trying to think about why the Samsung would have no problem with the HD Audio streams and the Oppo would need me to cycle/refresh the signals.

Legairre, this may turn out to have been on Oppo's end but I want to try one more Oppo directed experiment before I point my finger at them.

Just logically thinking, I can't reconcile to why the Samsung would bitstream okay and the Oppo wouldn't, and how that could possibly remain a Pio problem at this point...

Cheers, (and to be continued)

RobbW

Rob, can you try something for me. I know it sounds crazy, but just give it a try. When the BD gets to the part where the movie actually starts and it should be playing DTS-HD MA(but shows stereo on the display), pull the HDMI cable from the back of the OPPO, wait a second or two and plug it back in and see if the display changes to DTS-HD MA.

Also do me another favor. Start from scratch again and repeat the procedure that causes the problem and and get the BD to display stereo on the display again. This time instead of pulling the HDMI cable from the Oppo, simply switch the 94TXH to another input like TV, CD or something else and then back to the HDMI input the Oppo is on.

If any of these fix the problem then there is an HDMI handshake issue with the Oppo and 94TXH

Hi Legairre -

You nailed it. While I didn't perform the HDMI cable test as yet, switching inputs did exactly as you thought it would.

While it was playing True HD as muted stereo, I switched from BD (for the Oppo) to DVD (for my PS3) and back again. When it switched back, it automatically found the True HD stream on HDMI Auto.

Handshaking problem it 'tis. I'll call Oppo.

Thank you SO much (as always) for your assistance. I hope Oppo is willing to own this but prior experience tells me they will.

Robb

Update: Just got off the phone with Oppo. They appreciated the feedback. They will try to work on these handshaking issues but asked me to try a pending beta firmware update that is due over the next day or so. While not directly related to solving my issue, there were improvements to HDMI handshaking in general and they're curious as to the outcome for me. Problem is, at this point, they don't have 94's to test with like they did in "the old days" (sigh) so it may be a bit tricky to fix this specific to our receiver.

I'll update this site as I hear more.

Always glad to help Rob. Glad to hear we found the problem. Sounds like it's the Oppo since other players work fine with the 94 & 92. Please post back and let us know how it turns out with Oppo. Your experience will help a lot of people.

Legairre

Hey Legairre, you're not going to believe the surreal day I've had as I continue to figure out this whole Oppo/Pio handshake thing. At this point, Oppo tech support is absolutely pointing their finger at the Pioneer and saying they can't help me further until I update the Pio firmware. I didn't have a chance to speak with Pioneer today so I'll have to wait until after the long weekend to hear their side.

Check this out:

After reading a stray comment on the Pio 92 board tied to a Deep Color setting being the catalyst for a 92txh audio problem, I recalled that I had Deep Color set to "36-bit" on the Oppo. Sure enough, once I turned Deep Color from 36bit to off, the problem was fixed! All codecs locked and lit without issue! You'd think that would be the happy ending, but get this: I was messing around with the AIX audio evaluation BD that comes with the Oppo and randomly decided to test the included speaker placement test tones. Among other choices, you can test speaker placement using a 7.1 True-HD, DTS-HD Master or PCM stream. I tried all three.

Well, DTS-HD Master worked fine, and as it cycled through "left-front channel, center, right-front", etc., all was as it should be.

Then...I tried the True-HD test. Unbelievably, my right surround speaker played through the subwoofer, the left surround played through the right surround, and the subwoofer played through the left surround!!! In PCM mode, all was fine except for the subwoofer, which came out of a blend of back speakers!

I was beside myself!! I tried putting the BD into my PS3 and it worked perfectly, although as we both know, I could only test PCM on that. Actually, I later had the Oppo switched from Bitstream to LPCM and all codecs played fine in LPCM mode.

At that point, Oppo said it was the Pio firmware and said to call them if the Pio firmware upgrade didn't work. =(

To add insult to injury, I ran upstairs and grabbed my Samsung BD-P1600 to hook up to the Pioneer in order to match bitstream mode and see what would happen when I do the same experiment with the AIX disc. Guess what - the Samsung BD-1600 won't even READ the AIX demo BD! LOL

Anyway, that's where things sit for now. For the record, I tried this experiment with the HDMI monitor out unplugged from the Pioneer but it didn't change anything.

Best regards,

RobbW

Is anyone using an ipod doc and passing video to the pdp?

Well it looks like my problems were down to firmware bugs, fingers crossed I haven't just jinxed myself!! The folks at the service centre updated my firmware and weren't able to reproduce my problem - 2 days in now and I haven't had a hiccup yet.

Before: -
M=1.004 E=1.002
Disp=1.000
D=1.002 H=1.002
F=2.004 S=1.000

After: -
M=1.006 E=1.002
Disp=1.000
D=1.005 H=1.010
F=2.007 S=1.000


I was in luck, the 94 was still in warranty too so no $$$

Hello swhittak. This is good news. I have your before firmware settings and I just dropped off my 94 at the Pioneer Canada Head office in Toronto. Please keep us updated on how things are going with this new updated firmware.

Thanks

I have handshaking issues with my 94TXH and will have to get it updated to the latest firmwares. (mine is from sept. 2007)

Unfortunately for me I bought my receiver in the US and it won't be covered under warranty so I'll have to pay (no idea how much, I'll check into it next week). I saved a ton of money buying it from the US so I'm still saving money though. I just hope I don't have to leave my receiver behind for long.

Kool, I'm pleased it all worked out for you in the end. The before and after firmwares look like my 94 and sweet news on the warranty.

So I'm on month 14 with my Pio 94txh and I started noticing an issue. Every once in a while, the left channel will drop out. After a minute or so, it comes back on and acts like nothing happened.

At first I only noticed it while watching TV and figured it was something funky with the signal coming in. But tonight I was watching a BD and bitsreaming DTS MA and sure enough, the left channel dropped out for about a minute. I rewound the disc to a point before the drop out occurred and the issue remained. Then randomly, it started working again.

So I figured that maybe it was a loose speaker cable because I had actually redone all the wiring recently because we had our carpet cleaned. Heck, I even recall that when I originally set it all back up I had accidentally swapped the center and one of the main channel wires. I wiggled the receiver and some of the cables and couldn't get the issue to replicate.

Needless to say, I'm a bit concerned as to what's going on here. There's a lot of pages on this thread and it seems like the last few have been about issues so I thought I would throw mine into the ring.

Has anyone else seen anything like this? Should I just rewire everything to ensure a good connection? Could a loose connection even cause an intermittent issue like this?

Any help would be appreciated. I've been a longtime lurker on this site but this is my first post so go easy on me if I've crossed any lines

How long did it take for the service place to get your firmware updated? I haven't got any response from Pioneer on any questions I had (emailed them over a week ago)

If I ever get another receiver it'll be one that can be updated by myself...I hate having to bring something like this in

my post from the 92TXH thread...

Just got off the phone with Pioneer...

I have to pay $96 (including taxes) to update the firmware on my 94TXH because there's no waranty on my unit (purchased in the US).

I don't have a problem with that because I still saved a bundle buying from the US as opposed to Canada.

What did bother me however was when he said it would take 10 business days!! I told the guy that seemed quite excessive and would it be possible for me to speak with some people in the service dept. to see if there's a good day for me to bring it in for faster service. He said this wasn't possible and said it takes 10 business days because they have to test it after updating it. I'm sorry but that's just insane...I wish I could do this myself because I don't want to go without my receiver for 2 weeks

Sorry to hear about the long wait time MyT, not wanting to gloat but the shop I took mine to does a same day firmware update (no expansive testing though). Do you have any other Pio repair locations local to you?

There was one other place downtown but same story.

From what I've read a lot of other people have had theirs done fairly quickly (usually less than a couple days).

Oh well...no more expensive electronic devices for me unless they are user-upgradable

Legairre, I am a bit confused with your explanation... Please help me understand crossover thing.
'all above crossover to mains or any speaker set to SMALL'? Should not be that read LARGE

thanks,
D

If you set any speaker to LARGE then that speaker will receiver the full range of signals from 20Hz(low bass) to 20kHz(highs). So setting a speaker to large will essentially disable/ignore the crossover no matter what you set it at and that speaker will play all frequencies.

The only time the crossover is enabled is if you set a speaker to SMALL. When set to small the speaker will play only the frequencies above the crossover. Everything below the crossover is sent to the subwoofer.

For example: if you set the crossover to 80Hz then the speaker will play only the frequencies above 80Hz. Everything below 80 Hz is re-directed to the subwoofer.

Also crossovers are not, as they say a brick wall, and there are slopes. But that's another explanation.

Legairre, thank you for your help.
Guys, I hav one question left thoug, it's about the firmware on my receiver. I am not sure if I need to update that. I just checked my firmware version and numbers as follow:
M1. 004
E1. 002
DISP 1.000
D1. 002
H1. 006
f2. 004
S1. 000

Do you guys think it is better to update while it is still under warranty?

please advise.

Dimako, I had the same firmware numbers as you and I thought well I'm still under warranty and I'm having some HDMI switching issues, and thought well just get it done. I picked up my receiver from Pioneer Canada today with the latest firmwares on board. In a couple of weeks I will report to the forum to update everyone on how things are going. They even updated the firmware on my Pro-930HD media box which I thought I would just bring in just in case there was a better firmware for it. No charge for both updates.

Anyone play this bitstreamed on their 94 (DTSHD Mstr)?

To this point I have had only one other BD that gave the 94 trouble (Jewel, the essentials). This one plays fine on my Denon989 but there is an occasional buzz when played through my 94 (both bitstreamed). The 94 does great otherwise (was listening to Botti 2 just before - both great concert recordings btw).

Thank you Edllguy, I am going to be waiting for you to post your report

Check your firmware version. You might need a firmware update on your 94.

Yeah, that was my thought too but it was just updated last month (I was hoping it would fix my issues with the Jewel BD but no such luck, and I checked the revision, they did the fw update correctly).

Since it only impacts a couple of BD's, I won't sweat it, at least the 94 works, which is more than I can say for my SC07 (and the Styx BD I had borrowed and will thus not buy).

One interesting note, I took that Jewel BD to a number of friends (I installed a lot of Pioneer Elites but also Denon's and Onkyo's). When bitstreaming disc 1 track 8, DTSHD mstr, every 9x series Elite did the same thing (5 of them, all could not play it properly), it was fine on Denon, fine on Onkyo, and even fine on a few SC's.

I'm curious to know a couple things as I've yet to bring my receiver in yet...

What firmware versions do you have now that you got your receiver back? I have the exact same ones as you had before.

How long did it take them to do it? They told me 10 business days. I'm assuming you brought it to their place in Markham?

thanks!

Had my 94 firmware updated by Bestec in Southern California. I Drove 350 miles yesterday and driving back tomorrow. My daughter lives down here so I get to visit her and I did get same day service on the receiver. Thanks to Robbw for the heads up.

Maurice was super in customer service. He made it all happen in the short time frame I needed. Bestec ran full tests after the update and said I shouldn't worry about driving all the way home only to find a problem. But if there happens to be one, just call them for a shipping label.

Back at home and my 94 is performing just fine after the firmware update. Mine, just like Robbw's, now plays the Dolby TrueHD channel ID track on the AIX test disc properly.

Just got a 94 today and I'm not able to get my powered sub to work. It was working fine with my old Elite before I hooked the new one up.
In the menu, I turned on zone 2 to normal, SW to yes, and still hear nothing when running a test tone.

And can't ANYONE figure out a way to read the firmware update or get it from Pioneer!!!

Thanks,
Eric

PS-Anyone want to get rid of their ipod cable and dock?

Check to see if all of your speaker sizes are set to large. I configured my brother's 94 and he has all 3way large speakers in his listening room...and if all sizes are set to L, the sub turns off for him.

I have what I consider a bit of a silly question..but I want to get the most of my setup so I have to ask. I'm in the market for a new bd player. Are there any bd players out there that would do a better job with audio internally and then sending via anologue to the 94 than bitstreaming and letting the Pio do the work? I have a SACD/DVD-A player that I like and that does DSD via HDMI, so my 7.1 inputs are open. If I picked up, lets say the Marantz bd7004 or the Oppo83, would I be better off going 7.1 in or letting the Pio decode everything?

That's an interesting question. I would say both the Marantz and the Oppo would do a better job BUT....Bass management can be a real PITA. When you use the analog inputs the receiver doesn't do any processing. The signal comes and goes "as is". If you read the high-end BD players threads there is a lot of people complainning about poor or lack of bass management. I have seen few comments about people using bitstream even with the mighty players. If you already have a SACD player doing DSD via HDMI, I would say: forget about it and buy a $200.00 player to play Bluray with the same quality as any much more expensive player.

I'm considering ripping all of my CD's to the Flac format so I can access them through the HMG function of the 94. I want to use the USB port and go that route. Has anyone had any success or preference in regards to a hard drive or storage device? I also noticed that Linksys just released (maybe not) a device specifically made for media.

Also, is there any work around to using the front USB port and being able to still close the front panel of the unit?

Thanks.