Calling Sir T: Question About Headphone Output

[bfalls]

I work closely with our Media Test Center. They test playability of my projects after copy-protection on over 160 players which have a .1 or over presence in the marketplace.
When the center was setup over twelve years a go, they were not able to listen to 5.1 using headphones. When you plug into the headphone jack the display would change to 2-CH HP (headphone). Also there were blu-ray players a few years ago, with a feature of 5.1 sound being chopped in time to fit 2ch headphone configuration. The Tokyo blu-ray design team boasted this as an extra super feature. Several of our Engineers went to the Sony hardware facility in California to determine the best way to go about listening to the multi-channel stream using headphones.

The result was to connect the player by either optical or coax to the receiver, then connect the 5.1 analog outputs to a multi-channel mixer and listen to its mixed stereo output.

I no longer see 2-CH HP when pugging in the headphones. I'm guessing manufacturers now have (within the digital domain) the ability to perform a 5.1 to 2ch mixdown to present to the headphone jack.

We're starting to have issues finding 5.1/7.1 analog outputs, on any but the higher end models starting at around $850. In there situation this is very costly. I'd like to recommend they go with HDMI to the receiver to minimize cost and points of failure. It would also be easier to troubleshoot any hardware problems.

Sit T, or anyone else, Do you know if headphone jacks now generally output a mixdown of the multi-channel input?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I work closely with our Media Test Center. They test playability of my projects after copy-protection on over 160 players which have a .1 or over presence in the marketplace.
When the center was setup over twelve years a go, they were not able to listen to 5.1 using headphones. When you plug into the headphone jack the display would change to 2-CH HP (headphone). Also there were blu-ray players a few years ago, with a feature of 5.1 sound being chopped in time to fit 2ch headphone configuration. The Tokyo blu-ray design team boasted this as an extra super feature. Several of our Engineers went to the Sony hardware facility in California to determine the best way to go about listening to the multi-channel stream using headphones.

The result was to connect the player by either optical or coax to the receiver, then connect the 5.1 analog outputs to a multi-channel mixer and listen to its mixed stereo output.

I no longer see 2-CH HP when pugging in the headphones. I'm guessing manufacturers now have (within the digital domain) the ability to perform a 5.1 to 2ch mixdown to present to the headphone jack.

We're starting to have issues finding 5.1/7.1 analog outputs, on any but the higher end models starting at around $850. In there situation this is very costly. I'd like to recommend they go with HDMI to the receiver to minimize cost and points of failure. It would also be easier to troubleshoot any hardware problems.

Sit T, or anyone else, Do you know if headphone jacks now generally output a mixdown of the multi-channel input?

From what I have observed, the answer to this question is yes. IME it was an automatic process of mixing down the audio from 5 or 7.1 to two channel for any analog signal going to a two channel output.

Get ready, it won't be long before you don't see any analog outputs on any player regardless of price.

Multi Channel to stereo mixdown is not new or unique to Bluray. There were DVD players that could also do this as well. We even used to monitor how soundtracks were going to sound when the internal mixdown of the players was engaged. Quite frankly, it sounded horrible to me.

[bfalls]

Thanks for your input. It helps very much. It must be true or there would have been others to point out the mistake.

I'm surprised Pixie hasn't made an appearance for this one. True or not he would have questioned it, danced around the truth, called a few names and got several banned before it was over.

[bfalls]

To expand the question a little. What about the stereo outputs to other "Zones" rarely do you see multi-channel available to Zones, normally jusat a video output and R/L.

I guessing the same would be true for TV audio outputs where the input could be HDMI and either have a headphone jack or Audio Out R/L.