DVD Settings Control Receiver Even By Optic Cable

[hershon]

Don't know how many of you know this, but I totally learned by trial and error today that if your DVD player is connected by Fiber Optical Cable to your receiver, its the settings on the DVD player that you've made that control what's coming out of the receiver not vice versa. Specifically, we're talking about my Harmon Kardon 31 DVD player with its own settings connected by my Denon 3801 receiver with its own settings.. I imagine the same thing would apply to all systems. As such, you may want to double check all your settings in case something was accidently set on your DVD player that you're not aware of. If you think I am in error, just alternate the big and small speaker setup on your DVD player and see what happens to your sound. This probably explains whats happening to the guy who can't hear dialogue on "Master & Commander".

[Quagmire]

Hershon,

Someplace in the menuing of your DVD player it should allow you to select the "audio output" and the available options should be something like: "Bitstream", "2 Channel Analog", "6 Channel Analog", or "PCM". There may also be a place for you to select whether the audio output will be "Fixed" or "Variable". For connection of a DVD player to a receiver via the digital output, be it optical or coax, the audio output should be set to "Bitstream" and set to "Fixed" if this option is available. With these settings, the DVD player should send the raw digital data to the receiver for decoding and none of the speaker settings or bass management of the DVD player should matter. Do you also have analog connections between the player and the receiver? If you do, some of the settings that you have for the analog connections maybe overriding the proper setup for the digital connections. As a general rule, unless you are outputing DVD-A or SACD through a 6 channel discrete output, you don't even need the analog connections. I know there are some receivers which require you to have both connections for a particular device like "DVD" but even then, your DVD player's output should be setup to optimize the digital connection -- so even if you have a 2 channel analog connection from the DVD player to the red & white analog jacks for the "DVD" input in addition to the optical cable, the DVD player's audio output should still be set to "Bitstream" and not to "2 Channel Analog".

Q

[hershon]

Thanks for explaining this to me. A few questions if you don't mind. 1. In the DVD set up menu it says audio output and the choices are: a. Original and b. PCM There are no others I take it Original Means coming from the DVD which is where I have it and its controling the receiver and thus PCM means the receiver is controling the action, is that correct? 2. The DVD player gives me 3 choices for dynamic range: Minimum, medium and
maximum. If I want the DVD controling this what should I put down? Right now I have it set to medium. Appreciate your advice.




Hershon,

Someplace in the menuing of your DVD player it should allow you to select the "audio output" and the available options should be something like: "Bitstream", "2 Channel Analog", "6 Channel Analog", or "PCM". There may also be a place for you to select whether the audio output will be "Fixed" or "Variable". For connection of a DVD player to a receiver via the digital output, be it optical or coax, the audio output should be set to "Bitstream" and set to "Fixed" if this option is available. With these settings, the DVD player should send the raw digital data to the receiver for decoding and none of the speaker settings or bass management of the DVD player should matter. Do you also have analog connections between the player and the receiver? If you do, some of the settings that you have for the analog connections maybe overriding the proper setup for the digital connections. As a general rule, unless you are outputing DVD-A or SACD through a 6 channel discrete output, you don't even need the analog connections. I know there are some receivers which require you to have both connections for a particular device like "DVD" but even then, your DVD player's output should be setup to optimize the digital connection -- so even if you have a 2 channel analog connection from the DVD player to the red & white analog jacks for the "DVD" input in addition to the optical cable, the DVD player's audio output should still be set to "Bitstream" and not to "2 Channel Analog".

Q

[Quagmire]

Per your owner's manual (pg. 19), the audio out should be set to "Original". I think where you may be having trouble is in the "Audio Adjustments" submenu -- It is intended to offer speaker setup and bass management for the 6 Channel discrete analog signal for DVD-Audio playback IF your receiver doesn't offer this kind of control. If you have it set to "On" you should set it to "Bypass" instead. This will allow the receiver to handle all of the speaker setup and bass management, which, as your manual states is really the preferred method.

As far as the Dynamic Range control, it should be set to "Minimum" to receive the best quality audio signal from your DVD player to your receiver. I'm sure that if you want to add some "Compression" to the signal, you can do so by using the Dynamic Range control on your receiver, which is sometimes referred to as "Night Mode". This just reduces the Dynamic Range (the difference between the quietest sounds and the loudest sounds) so that if your watching under conditions (like at night) where you don't want the peak sounds to be quite so loud, you can reduce them and still hear the dialogue in the movie.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Q

[hershon]

I just (re)read the Harmon Kardon Instructions- its amazing how easy it is to pass things over & was just about to revise my post, when I read yours. Do you have this DVD player as well as you seem to know the instruction book backwards and forwards. Again, I really appreciate your help. Its amazing how much room for error things are with electronics. I'm betting this guy who has problems with "Master Commander" messed up similarly. What's also bizarre is, if I do the DVD takes over mode, I am suppose to adjust the receivers settings to large speakers & I've been listing this as small. I also need to change the PCM range from No Limit to 96 and will be changing to Bypass (to let the receiver take over) and also minimum on dynamic range. I'm still a bit unclear on the Denon 3801 how to set the decibel level to 75- is that a default level & what the sub crossover level is- I think its 80 & don't really understand the channel testing. As far as I know, the Denon when I listen to either to it in the 5 channel naturall mode which I believe changes to 5.1 surround sound for DVD's, does not have a dynamic range adjuster for this setting.

Anyway, really appreciate your invaluable help.


Per your owner's manual (pg. 19), the audio out should be set to "Original". I think where you may be having trouble is in the "Audio Adjustments" submenu -- It is intended to offer speaker setup and bass management for the 6 Channel discrete analog signal for DVD-Audio playback IF your receiver doesn't offer this kind of control. If you have it set to "On" you should set it to "Bypass" instead. This will allow the receiver to handle all of the speaker setup and bass management, which, as your manual states is really the preferred method.

As far as the Dynamic Range control, it should be set to "Minimum" to receive the best quality audio signal from your DVD player to your receiver. I'm sure that if you want to add some "Compression" to the signal, you can do so by using the Dynamic Range control on your receiver, which is sometimes referred to as "Night Mode". This just reduces the Dynamic Range (the difference between the quietest sounds and the loudest sounds) so that if your watching under conditions (like at night) where you don't want the peak sounds to be quite so loud, you can reduce them and still hear the dialogue in the movie.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Q