[PPigeon]

I'm trying to figure out if my receiver is defective or if I have a setting set wrong on it or my DVD player.


Here's part of my original post from the HTiB board:

I recently purchased the Onkyo HT-S7100 Home Theater in a Box and I currently think I may have a defective surround sound processor. I just need some of your opinions to see if I missed anything.


Here's my problem: any signal from any idividual surround sound speaker is blended in all four surround sound speakers (on any surround listening mode). I have properly setup all speakers with the Odyssey calibration tool and all speakers output to their respective locations from the receiver. I can even check it back with the Receiver's pink noise under Menu 2.4 Level Calibration and everything works as it is supposed to here.


The problem occurs when I use a test DVD like Digital Video Essentials and cycle pink noise to all 7 speakers and subwoofer. Everything goes fine with the Left, Center, and Right speakers but by the time it gets to Surround Right and Surround Left, the pink noise comes from all four surround speakers. The Surround Back Right and Left signal does the same thing but with the Surround Back speakers a lot louder than everything else.


I don't know if I have something setup wrong here. My DVD player is connected digitally with a coax cable. The receiver DD light is on and DPLIIx mode on. I've also tried DTS Neo6 and it does the same exact thing. I've also tried a different DVD with THX Optimizer and the problem still occurs. From what I've read here and on other sites, setting the DVD player to output in Dolby Digital and/or PCM souldn't make a difference (should it? I didn't try).


Is there anything else I should check before I give a call to Onkyo technical support? I can't think of anything else right now.


I also have a Dish Vip722 hooked up with HDMI but have no way to test for proper surround signal on this (with dedicated pink noise to each speakers). I could have a defective DVD player also.


(Sorry, I would have embeded the URL but this post is my 3rd one)


To clarify my concern, here's what the sound does when I use the panning pink noise from Digital Video Essential:


Left - OK


Left/Center - OK


Center - OK


Center/Right - OK


Right - OK


Right/Right Surround - pink noise comes from Right and ALL 4 surround speakers


Right Surround - pink noise comes from ALL 4 surround speakers


Right Surround/Rear Surrounds - pink noise comes from ALL 4 surround speakers (Rear Surround Speakers louder)


Rear Surrounds - pink noise comes from ALL 4 surround speakers (Rear Surround Speakers louder)


Rear Surrounds/Left Surround - pink noise comes from ALL 4 surround speakers (Rear Surround Speakers louder)


Left Surround - pink noise comes from ALL 4 surround speakers


Left Surround/Left - pink noise comes from Left and ALL 4 surround speakers


From what I have gathered in many other threads the sound should just pan from one speaker to the other, even if I have DPLIIx processing on a DD signal.


What's going on here? Am I missing something?

 

[sivadselim]

If you apply DPLIIx to a DD5.1 signal encoded in, for example, only the surround right (side) speaker, you should hear it from both the surround right (side) and surround right rear speaker.


But which version of DVE are you using and how is it encoded? In order for there to really be a discrete signal encoded in the surround rear channels, it would have to be encoded in one of the newer audio codecs that support 8 channels of information. You cannot pass these new audio codecs via a digital coax connection. So, you cannot calibrate DD-Plus or Dolby TrueHD encoded material properly without passing these codecs via an HDMI connection.


sanjay?

 

[PPigeon]

I use the DVD version of DVE, with the Dolby Digital EX track. I understand that this not a discrete channel for the two rear surround speakers. As you said, I should hear the pink noise from the Right Surround and Right Rear Surrounds when the Right Surround track is played.


(I revised my original post to accurately show the DD EX signal, sorry about that.)

 

[sivadselim]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PPigeon /forum/post/15509707


I use the DVD version of DVE, with the Dolby Digital EX track. I understand that this not a discrete channel for the two rear surround speakers. As you said, I should hear the pink noise from the Right Surround and Right Rear Surrounds when the Right Surround track is played.


(I revised my original post to accurately show the DD EX signal, sorry about that.)

Don't hold me to this, but if you are using a specifically-encoded DD EX encoded soundtrack, I do not think you should be applying DPLIIx atop it when using it to check your channel assignments.


Try sending a PM to "sdurani" (Sanjay) directing him to this thread.

 

[jwatte]

If the PLIIx receiver "knows" that it's decoding DD EX, then you should not hear anything from the left when you are playing into the right. However, because the rear is actually matrixed from the left and right, to "steer" something to the rear, it will have to put signal into both left and right rear channels. Because the matrixing is frequency dependent (and not full-spectrum), there will not be perfect channel separation, so there will be some noise into all the surround channels whenever you want to steer something to the rear.


In general, if the decoder is competent, then trying to steer something to "right" and "right rear" you will get a softer signal to the left than to the right. If you get the same level of signal to all four speakers, then the decoder has been cutting corners. However, that's likely a design issue, not a defect -- another unit of the same make/model would likely do the same thing.

 

[PPigeon]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sivadselim /forum/post/15510066


Don't hold me to this, but if you are using a specifically-encoded DD EX encoded soundtrack, I do not think you should be applying DPLIIx atop it when using it to check your channel assignments.

Isn't DPLIIx compatible with DD EX anyway? It is according to Dolby website and other threads I've seen here. As far as how it process the signal from one surround speaker to the others, I've read contradicting statements but the majority describe it the way we both are thinking right now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sivadselim /forum/post/15510066


Try sending a PM to "sdurani" (Sanjay) directing him to this thread.

PM sent.

 

[sdurani]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PPigeon /forum/post/15510380


PM sent.

Sorry for the delayed reply, been walking the floor at CES.

Quote:
Isn't DPLIIx compatible with DD EX anyway?

Totally compatible. PLIIx runs the two rear speakers in stereo but, when certains sounds need to image directly behind you (like the mono surround-back channel of a EX soundtrack), it can send the same signal to both rear speakers.

Quote:
From what I've read here and on other sites, setting the DVD player to output in Dolby Digital and/or PCM souldn't make a difference (should it? I didn't try).

Setting the DVD player's digital audio output to PCM converts all soundtracks to 2-channel before being output. Make sure your player's output is set to 'raw' or 'bitstream' or any setting that is not PCM. Then try the panning test again.


Sanjay

 

[PPigeon]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sdurani /forum/post/15514489


Setting the DVD player's digital audio output to PCM converts all soundtracks to 2-channel before being output. Make sure your player's output is set to 'raw' or 'bitstream' or any setting that is not PCM. Then try the panning test again.

That's exactly what I had set wrong. I checked my DVD player settings and the Dolby Digital and DTS mode were set to OFF (was outputting PCM I assume). Once turned ON, the whole system came alive and the panning pink noise panned as I was expecting, with DPLIIx on.


Thanks everybody.