the "official Denon AVR-2308ci / AVR-888 owners thread - Page 2

hi guys.

if my tv doesn't have hdmi (2 yrs old, I dunno)
can i use a hdmi to dvi converter? i want to use the 888's video upscaling.
will that downgrade the video signal?
i realize i'll lose the audio.

On the futureshop website it says the Denon 888 doesn't have 5.1 or 6.1 channel discrete input. What exactly does that mean? Their explanation on the website didn't really help. I have a 5.1 speaker setup and plan to use the reciever with a Wii, PS2, 360 and PC for media playing with AC3 sound. Is this receiver not a good match for 5.1?

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...0092671&catid=

Just bought this unit last night.

Bought it for the upscaling / HDMi 1.3 feature. Doesnt seem to work completely.

my setup:
Denon AVR-2308ci unit
6.1 provided by JBL 500.5 speaker package and for rear center surround older JBL satelite from my old speaker system
Xbox 360 with component for video and optical for sound
Dishnet Sat Receiver - using S-Video for video and RCA L-R for audio
single HDMI cable to 37" Polaroid HDTV capable of 1080p max resolution

My problem:
the S-video upconverts fine, able to render the picture through the HDMI out connection.
OSD renders fine from the 2308 to TV over HDMI
Xbox 360, will NOT render at guide screen. Audio comes out fine through optical, if i play a DVD on Xbox it will render. once DVD ejects and go back to XBOX System Guide, blank screen. I think the DVD renders in 480P, gets upscaled to 720P ,and the Xbox renders 1080P which will not convert throught the HDMI i believe.

anyone have any suggestions on how to make this work? i bought this unit to run a single cable to the TV until i get an HD sat receiver. i know there will be a converter cable coming out from MadCatz this month to convert first Gen Xbox 360 to HDMI but until then.. any work around? thanks for your ideas.

Out of curosity, did you leave the up conversion at "auto"? I had something similiar on an 887 that my TV did not understand 480i. I took it back to the store and got the 888.

I had the up conversion set to on.

I fixed the problem! I hooked up the Xbox 360 to the V-aux port in the front temporarily, went to the system settings tab, changed to HD TV, widescreen, and changed 1080P to 720P. when i changed ports back to the HDMI Xbox was there. After reading the manual i learned that it will NOT upconvert or simple convert 1080P component to anything HDMI.

FYI, i talked to Gamestop and they are selling new 360 pro systems with the falcon mobo and HDMI port for 279, and if i trade in my current system and accessorries i am not using i will get about $210 off, so for about $80 i can get HDMI from Xbox and use the Xbox HD DVD add on without down converting anything so i plan to do that this week or weekend.

as far as the system is concerned it sounds really good, but it needs some tweaking. can anyone explain about the Audessy setup, it wants to sample from many different listening positions, does that mean moving the mic from one couch to the other within your room, or does it mean it simply wants to run the setup over and over from the same spot to make sure it is reading accurately? I ran it twice, once from one couch, once from the other. it takes a long time to run so i only want to run it as little as possible, especially since keeping my wife quite for 30 min will be hard!

XBOX:
Okay.. the $279 xbox arcade system i was told will NOT accept a hard drive, so i opted for the Elite sytem.. was only out of pocket $250 for the whole thing new.. and hooked it up last night and it sounds great through the HDMI cable, the system sees the DTS soundtrack!
Video:
The only thing is that while watching "Gladiator" it is not filling up my whole screen even using the new HDMI cable.. not sure what that is about... i did notice that with my old xbox the display settings would allow me to set at 1080p, the new one has 1080i selected but 1080p is greyed out, so i plan to plug in the HDMI cable to the TV directly without the receiver in the loop to see if it makes any difference in both resolution and the way it renders on the screen. i hope its not the receiver telling xbox it can only do 1080i because the Tv can handle 1080p, the xbox can render 1080p, and the cable i am using is HDMI 1.3 compliant so it should be pass through. at the main movie menu the whole screen is full, but when opening scene starts it goes to letter box, it is the wide screen version. maybe i need to test drive with a different movie and see if the "problem" follows.

Sound setup:
thanks hori.. i will play with it in different sitting positions and see what happens, i do find that this system doesnt seem to want to put out a lot of bass which i prefer so i guess i need to run through the whole setup, play with EQ settings, sound levels, distance settings etc., to the desired sound.

The above has nothing to do with your HDMI cable, your receiver, or the Xbox. It has to do with the aspect ratio of the movie.

so the short answer is it WONT fill up the screen, it's rendering the way the software / movie engineers intended? cool.. so i will test drive another movie then.. i thought maybe the setting in HDMI VIDEO might have something to do with it, when set to NORMAL it makes it look like a regular TV and Set to FULL then it goes back to wide. (i might have that reversed).

thanks Ymark

the manual recommends at least five different listening positions for the Audyssey setup, and says you should do all six.

The recommended listening positions are also in the manual...

Your TV likely has a standard widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 and Gladiator like many other movies was filmed in 2.35:1. So yes you will see black bars at the top and the bottom.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/

Hello,

Iam a newbie setting up my home theater with following configuration:
Denon AVR 888
Bose Acoustimass 10 Series IV - 5 speakers
Iam unable to use any modes other than Stereo and Direct. In those modes my front right and left speakers work, surround speakers don't(as expected). When I use any other modes such as 5.1 chanel, none of the speakers are working. I spent days checking denon manual for any clues about surround mode/5.1 channel setupse etc, but no use.

Earlier I had a Yamaha 7.1 receiver and everything was working fine. I returned and purchased denon because of its rave reviews, but I can't get this to work.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Rajeev

I've connected all i/o's properly, speakers as well, have performed the Audessy mic process...is there any short cut setting to have optimal surround sound automatically given any signal input? Blue Ray via HDMI to Denon 2308CI; HD Dishnet via HDMI2 to Denont; DVD via component to Denon, VHS likewise. Denon HDMI out to DLP Sony Bravia. Fronts, Center, Sub, Rears...actually in the "surround" speaker conx as Audessy didn't pick them up when used as "rears". Find the remote less than intuitive, as is the manual.

Any tips, shortcuts, best kept secrets for optimal audio surround sound performance? What are the "STD" & "Simu" buttons for?

Thanks Cisco bear and Leif81!

RodBallard,

i had a similar issue with the rear speakers not being detected with autosetup. i had one rear hooked up to the Left SB channel. what i did was go to manual setup, and enable SB Rears, i think i will make you choose whether you have one or 2 rears, choose which ever you have, save, then re-run auto setup. that worked for me to enable the rears. hope that points you in the right direction. i think that might help with RNair's issue too.

Just double check everything is connected properly and conduct the speaker tone test.....see what gives.

And why oh why did Denon put some of the more important controls on the back of the remote in that hidden panel

Ugh i really hope this is a user error on my part.

I cant seem to get ANY sound out of my Denon AVR-888.

Its hooked up through HDMI for video and audio. Only two sources hooked up is my PS3 and Comcast HD box.

Heres the kicker, if i change the Denon to play audio through the TV, then i get sound from the TV speakers. Once i change it to play through the AMP, then i get no sound at all. I even tried it with optical cable and still no sound at all.

Even when i try to Auto Setup, it says theres no speakers connected.

Someone please tell me my receiver isnt bad (bought is refurbished from Damart) and that its a simple fix....

OK i get sound but only when i crank it up all the way as it goes (+18) but the volume is still very low.

So confused, i even unhooked all the speakers and just left the center speaker connected. Same thing happens.

Is there a mute on here maybe that i cant notice being on?

Why does the display show DOLBY DIGITAL + PLIIX CINEMA or DTS + PLIIX CINEMA When the input signal is DD or DTS?

I'm helping a friend that has this receiver and although I read the manual about it displaying all the info, it doesn't seem right....

When the source input is DD or DTS is this receiver applying or processing the surrounds as PLXII and the FL FR C doing DD/DTS in a 7.1 configuration?

Please explain what is actually going on and/or do I have something set wrong in the setup menu?

HH

I only see Dolby Digital or DTS displayed on mine, but I've only got a 5.1 set up. I think the PLXII creates a stereo signal for the extra two speakers in a 7.1 set up if the source is only 5.1. Maybe try a true 7.1 source and see if it changes? I'm new to this receiver so if I'm way off base, sorry.

sbellius: Makes perfect sense what you wrote in response to husker harley. He was asking for me. Love the system, so easy to use, thanks for the response;ronomoo

What do you think is a better receiver Denon AVR-2308ci or Pioneer Elite VSX-90TXV???

Were can one find additional techincal information about the AVR-2308CI? The owners manual just does not seem to explain things that well. Thanks...

Some additional infor can be found here: http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/receivers/avr-2308ci

Got my 888 exactly a week ago today. Initially bought a 1708, but returned it the next day because it wouldn't upconvert component to HDMI and at only 75watts per channel it sounded kind of weak on my Klipsch Reference towers. Bit of a price difference for the 888, I know, but worth every penny.

Have nothing but good things to say about it. I upscale my cable box from component in to 720p over HDMI and have had absolutely no issues. I pass through my PS3 and the picture is perfect.

One thing I really like is the front display shows both the source channels and the output channels. Very comforting to see all 7 be lit up.

OK got my avr-888 back from Denon service, they replaced some part dealing with the power supply.

My question is how loud do you most of you have the receiver set at when watching movies? I had to crank mine all the way to (-15) to get decent volume. Is my receiver having powering issues or is that the norm?

I have the AVR-2308CI, which I got in December 2007. I find that some movies and TV shows I have to turn it up in te range of -20 to -16 or so to have decent listening level. I will tell y'all one thing... This unit does not hold a candle to my Marantz 2325 for fidelity and bass kick!

I'm in the -20 to -25 range as well, but I was playing around with the settings last night and was able to get that down to -35 by setting the CC to +2db and enabling manual EQ and upping the left most bar to +1 and second from left to +.5db

I think I might play around with the bass settings tonight to see if I can get even more improvement. One thing tho, it's not exactly intuitive. I had to read through the manual for 30min before I could figure out how to change the manual EQ and actually have it use that setting. The trick is to turn on room EQ, then it will use the manual overrides you put in, otherwise it ignores your inputs.

Question for the owners of this model

1) Can it run Dolby Pro Logic IIx on multichannel PCM 5.1 sources? Or only on bitstream sources? Both optical and HDMI?

2) Does the PLIIx function do anything on 7.1 sources? (it shouldn't do anything, right?)

3) Does a 7.1 PCM signal light up all the speaker indicators on the display? Or does it just say "Multichannel" and say nothing?

What is the difference between the denon2308ci and the pioneer elite VSX-90TXV?