[PJFrank]

Hello everyone,
I am new hear.
I bought this system with the Yamaha RX-377V, which works great. I have it set up to have my bluray & Directv receiver to go to this receiver via HDMI, and outputting via HDMI to the tv.
Sounds pretty good.
However, here is my problem. I can change the MOVIE settings to the premade settings (i.e. Standard, Spectacle, Sports, etc). And it shows the 5 speakers on the display and it works. But what it doesn't allow me to do, is when I try to change the Surround Decode (labeled as SUR DECODE on the remote), I cannot change the sound for DOLBY II, NEO CINEMA, PROLOGIC, PL II MOVIE, etc. Is there a reason for this, or does HDMI type of setup prevent this from being configured?

PJ

 

[russdw]

PJFrank, you might get better responses here: http://www.avsforum.com/forum/90-re...yamaha-rx-v-77-owners-thread-2014-models.html

I have the RX-V577, but this probably applies to yours as well.

I think you would want to make surround decoding settings in your Blu-ray player, and that just flows through to the receiver. On my Blu-ray player, I have Digital Audio Output for both Dolby and DTS set to the Bitstream option. As far I understand, that outputs the best possible audio from your Blu-ray player. You just set it and forget it.

My DirecTV box has two audio options: PCM and Dolby Digital. I have it set to DD.

There are two ways to check what your Yamaha receiver is receiving and outputting. The quick one is to press INFO on the remote until you see "Audio Decoder" on the display. Then the display will show the decoder name. For more detail, press OPTION on the remote, and then select SIGNAL INFO. A box will appear on the TV screen listing a lot of information about the audio.

 

[PJFrank]

Rx-v377

Hi Russ,
I have done as you have advised. I press info and it does say Dolby Digital. That's cool. But I guess I am trying to figure out how I can use the remote to change it. (It sounds fine, but I am trying to figure out the other options). Only in AUDIO mode does it allow me to change to the different decode settings, but not thru HDMI. Not sure if that makes sense.

PJ

 

[jdsmoothie]

If the AVR is receiving a DD 5.1 signal, there is nothing to simulate. With a 5.1 setup, you would only see those simulation modes when the AVR is receiving a stereo 2.0 signal.

 

[russdw]

PJFrank, shortly after I responded previously, I had an occurrence that might shed some light on your situation. My DirecTV box normally sends Dolby Digital to my AV receiver. But when I changed channels to one of the SonicTap music channels that DirecTV offers, the DirecTV box began sending PCM to the AV receiver instead. At that moment, my AV receiver displayed the decoding Dolby Pro Logic II Movie, and I switched it to Dolby Pro Logic II Music so that it would sound better.

As an experiment, I just put an audio CD into my Blu-ray player, and similar decoding options popped up on my AV receiver that I could use to change the decoding. This is likely because the Blu-ray player started outputting the audio CD as PCM rather than Bitstream.

If you really want to be able to fiddle with the surround coding on the AV receiver itself, I think you could do so if you set your Blu-ray player to output PCM instead of Bitstream. However, it's my understanding that PCM likely would result in lower sound quality because you would end up downgrading the signal to an inferior format.

You may want to do some reading on the difference between PCM and Bitstream. Although I'm somewhat of an AV geek, I'm not enough of one to remember the differences between these formats.

 

[jdsmoothie]

^^
PCM simply means the audio has already been uncompressed from bitstream ---> PCM. In your example, the AVR was receiving PCM 2.0 Stereo audio. Also, doesn't matter whether PCM or Bitstream is selected at the source as the audio quality is the same ... simply a process of unzipping the file.

 

[Lils Roro]

Some playback devices like my Samsung BD player will not decode compressed audio into multi-channel PCM, so choosing PCM rather than Bitstream always gets you stereo. If you want to always be able to choose the Surround Decoder option, then select whatever option the playback device has that will give you stereo (2-channel) rather than multi-channel (5.1, 7.1). I don't quite understand why you would want to this. It's almost like saying you prefer upscaled 480p over 1080p.

 

[russdw]

I am indeed wrong about PCM being worse than Bitstream. Scott Wilkinson says the difference is probably not discernable, and he's as good a source as any on this subject:


http://www.soundandvision.com/content/pcm-vs-bitstream