[scaesare]

I've not paid a whole lot of attention to the optical out of my HD-A2, as I'm using HDMI.


Initial models transcoded to DTS for the optical out. I know this caused some confusion for folks who saw DTS on their AVR's when they were playing back a DD+ disc. Has this remained the case, or have subsequent firmware upgrades changed the transcode to DD out?


My brother is looking at getting an A2 now that they are price-reduced, but his AVR apparently doesn't do DTS...


Thanks.

 

[geko29]

Time for a new receiver.

Seriously, DTS support has been standard on even $200 receivers for more than 10 years now. But yes, I'm 99% sure the HD-A2 player still outputs 1.5Mbps DTS over the S/PDIF when playing back advanced audio codecs (DD+, TrueHD, DTS-HD).

 

[shanec]

This may be my problem. My A/V receiver supports only DD5.1 (no DTS or better). My optical connection to the A2 is silent on HD-DVD's. With regular DVDs, its giving me DD 5.1.


Is it not possible to get the A2 to play DD 5.1 over optical?

SPDIF is set to bitstream. Setting it to PCM just gives me 2.0.


Yeah, I'm up for a A/V rec upgrade. But I wanted to put that off.

 

[BuGsArEtAsTy]

Yes. The A2 outputs DTS from HD DVD over optical. I wonder if that's why they switched to 640 Kbps DD5.1 for the A3.

shanec, you may want to:


1) Return the A2 and get the A3.


or


2) Get a new receiver.

 

[MEC2]

Wow, no DTS? 1999 called, it wants it's receiver back...


A good option might be the Onkyo 605.


Likely a very good reason they switched to DD on the A3. I'm actually surprised a little you don't get an option for it.


MEC2

 

[Snickering Hound]

Have your friend go into the setup menu of his A2 and change the audio option under spdif from bitstream to pcm.


This will be only 2 channel but if his receiver has dolby pro logic he can activate that to get 5.1.


I think he is in the market for a new receiver though.


The Onkyo is a good choice. The Panasonic XR-57 is a good deal right now at Amazon as well and is much cheaper.

 

[tpoise]

Yeah I was bummed out when I realized the A2 had NO coaxial output. My a/v receiver doesn't do optical in (yeah, about 6 years old).


However, Amazon has a Optical-to-Coax converter for about $20

 

[BuGsArEtAsTy]

I went to a local big box store and got a Sony STR-DG800 open box for $130, and it has 2 HDMI inputs and of course DTS support.


Obviously that's a steal, but as others have said, DTS support is pretty much standard... even for old closeout lower end stuff. Then again, I gave an old receiver to my GF many, many years ago, and she never bothered upgraded that Kenwood 1080VR, which has no DTS support. I could see a lot of people still with setups like these. They do work perfectly fine after all. DD is great for most people, even with something like HD DVD.


As much as I prefer the A2 for its DTS support, I think Toshiba made the right choice in picking DD for the A3.

Quote:
Originally Posted by tpoise /forum/post/12106731


Yeah I was bummed out when I realized the A2 had NO coaxial output. My a/v receiver doesn't do optical in (yeah, about 6 years old).


However, Amazon has a Optical-to-Coax converter for about $20

Check out Monoprice.

 

[JamminJoe]

Yeah, I just got the A2 for $98 and returned the A3 and now I just find out the very strange (IMHO) optical output configuration for A2. Others have been saying how there is not much difference in the 2 players but this is one that definitely affected me since I have just DD 5.1 on my cheap, but effective surround sound system. Definite bummer when I get no sound at all running optical out and bitstream option. Don't really want to settle for 2.1 sound.... Guess the a2 is going back and I'll wait for a better deal on the A3. Funny, the SDs upconverted play great and at 5.1 bitstream through the optical out. After reading the manual I see that all the main movie content for HD DVDs are output to DTS - would have been nice to know ahead of time. Arrrggghh.. I guess I either upgrade the AVR or get the A3, either way, its about $200+ now until A3 comes down. Too bad you can't choose an option for the bitstream output to be DTS or DD.

 

[cp1966]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Snickering Hound /forum/post/12106502


Have your friend go into the setup menu of his A2 and change the audio option under spdif from bitstream to pcm.


This will be only 2 channel but if his receiver has dolby pro logic he can activate that to get 5.1.


I think he is in the market for a new receiver though.


The Onkyo is a good choice. The Panasonic XR-57 is a good deal right now at Amazon as well and is much cheaper.

I get confused with bitsream and PCM mumbo jumbo. I have an Outlaw 990 preamp which has both DD and DTS modes. Do I need to be concerned about what method (PCM or bitstream) the audio is going from my new A2 to the Outlaw via optical?

 

[sharkcohen]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Snickering Hound /forum/post/12106502


Have your friend go into the setup menu of his A2 and change the audio option under spdif from bitstream to pcm.


This will be only 2 channel but if his receiver has dolby pro logic he can activate that to get 5.1.

And set up like this, it sounds surprisingly decent.

 

[shanec]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MEC2 /forum/post/12106421


Wow, no DTS? 1999 called, it wants it's receiver back...


A good option might be the Onkyo 605.


Likely a very good reason they switched to DD on the A3. I'm actually surprised a little you don't get an option for it.


MEC2

LOL, thanks for the info. I was a very early DVD adopter. I think I bought Sony's 1st gen DVD player. And I'm still using the Yamaha receiver I got at that time.


I did some looking and I'm going to pick up an Onkyo 705. So is $599 with a free HDMI cable and free 3-day fed-ex a good deal?

 

[shanec]



Quote:
Originally Posted by JamminJoe /forum/post/12107207


Yeah, I just got the A2 for $98 and returned the A3 and now I just find out the very strange (IMHO) optical output configuration for A2. Others have been saying how there is not much difference in the 2 players but this is one that definitely affected me since I have just DD 5.1 on my cheap, but effective surround sound system. Definite bummer when I get no sound at all running optical out and bitstream option. Don't really want to settle for 2.1 sound.... Guess the a2 is going back and I'll wait for a better deal on the A3. Funny, the SDs upconverted play great and at 5.1 bitstream through the optical out. After reading the manual I see that all the main movie content for HD DVDs are output to DTS - would have been nice to know ahead of time. Arrrggghh.. I guess I either upgrade the AVR or get the A3, either way, its about $200+ now until A3 comes down. Too bad you can't choose an option for the bitstream output to be DTS or DD.

My thought was this - I'm only in HD-DVD for $98. I don't want a bigger commitment with that...format war and all. Eventually I know I'll want TrueHD sound anyway, so instead of spending more on an A3, I'm upgrading my A/V now since that will work with both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Its more money spent, but no more money risked on a format.

 

[MEC2]



Quote:
Originally Posted by shanec /forum/post/12109337


LOL, thanks for the info. I was a very early DVD adopter. I think I bought Sony's 1st gen DVD player. And I'm still using the Yamaha receiver I got at that time.


I did some looking and I'm going to pick up an Onkyo 705. So is $599 with a free HDMI cable and free 3-day fed-ex a good deal?

Enh... not too bad.

 

[shanec]



Quote:
Originally Posted by MEC2 /forum/post/12109544


Enh... not too bad.

woo hoo...call in deal was better than online $568 shipped with hdmi cable.

 

[Hunter844]

I played the HD-DVD version of Unforgiven last night. It was encoded with Dolby Digital Plus and my Onkyo 604 doesn't handle DD PLUS so it shows up as MultiChannel 5.1 PCM 48k and it is not outputting through my Optical...it's coming from my HDMI which I wasn't aware my Onkyo 604 even supported. I took out the optical last night to see if that was what it was doing and sure enough that's what it did.


It sounds good but it's still a little annoying that I can post process (or whatever term you want to use) to 7.1 via my receiver. I put in Matrix this morning to see if the first HD-DVD I put in was just a fluke in lackluster quality and it was. The Matrix still shows up as Multichannel PCM 48k like the other but it sounded much better. Again a little annoying that I can't get 7.1 on HD-DVD but it will atleast give me an excuse to get better surrounds now so I won't feel so bad

I don't have anything with DTS-HD so I don't know if it handles it with SPDIF/Optical bitstream or if it's still coming through HDMI as linear PCM. So far all of my regular dvds are handled through SPDIF/Optical and show up as regular DD EX on my Onkyo.

 

[shanec]

Confirmed on page 53 of the manual (yeah, why read the manual - its all mere suggestions)... It says "bitstream" = DTS and if your A/V doesn't support DTS, you need to use PCM which will be 2.0.

 

[SamwisetheBrave]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Snickering Hound /forum/post/12106502


Have your friend go into the setup menu of his A2 and change the audio option under spdif from bitstream to pcm.


This will be only 2 channel but if his receiver has dolby pro logic he can activate that to get 5.1.


I think he is in the market for a new receiver though.


The Onkyo is a good choice. The Panasonic XR-57 is a good deal right now at Amazon as well and is much cheaper.

I just asked this elsewhere but this seems a good place to put a second query: With the optical out to the receiver, I'm getting great front-left and front-right sound, good sub, but NO center speaker. On some films (Seabiscuit) this means no dialog! What's up with this?

 

[dargo]

I have the hd-a2 and over optical it's dts.

I have all the firmware updates too.

 

[anavrin0901]

I picked up one of these for $98 yesterday at Wal-Mart. I wish I would have done my research better not knowing about this DTS output thing. Besides Toshiba making 1080i HD DVD players this is the second stupidest thing I ever heard of. Just another reason why i will always support the Blu side whenever possible.


I am only in HD DVD for the Transformers. I have an A-35. Yesterday i bought my second PS3 (the 40G) and I figured what the hell on the A-2 so i can watch Hi-def movies on my 1080i TV in my living room now. But ONLY outputting in DTS? What the hell is the purpose of that? I am one of the lucky ones whose receiver does DTS (although my receiver is 3 years old and does not do HDMI). I have never heard of an optical output before that does not do Dolby Digital out, worst yet, takes Dolby Digital and makes it DTS? Makes no sense to me. Just another reason for me to always select the Blu disc for format neutral titles.


Just my 2 cents. And my opinion only. $98 is good enough for me to watch a HD DVD or two upstairs from now on but puzzling enough enough for me to understand why no Dolby out of optical.