Strange problem with a Sony UBP-X700 regarding error messages about audio

[MacinMan]

Hey All,

I posted the following post on AVSForum under the UBP-X700 thread, but thought I would also post here for a second source of feedback:

"Hey all, I am having a very strange issue with a UBP-X700, and a Sony XBR-43X800D TV.

I have connected a new Vizio atmos and DTS:X compatible sound bar to the TV on the ARC port, and can use ARC, or HDMI in for the most part the setup is flawless, and works as expected.

The issue is: Whenever I play certain discs with a DTS-HD-MA track, the TV will whine about an unsupported audio format, however, the audio plays fine since it shouldn't even be going through the TV since the BDP is connected to the HDMI in, but the sound bar does pass video to the TV.

Anyway, I've found two ways to correct the problem.
1. go into the player settings and set audio output from auto to PCM, so the sound bar receives 5.1 PCM.
2. going into setting and turning off 24p for UHD/BD discs.

As I've mentioned, not ALL discs have this problem, my 4k discs don't, and even some blu-rays. It seems to be older movies so far that were upgraded to Blu-ray from DVD, or VHS vs newer releases that go straight to the latest formats.

Everything such as HDR also works, and I've been using certified HDMI cables in this setup from the start.
I know people have said off and on Sony players are known for certain issues. For me though, Sony has always been quite solid except for these random little quirks that come up from time to time.
I also installed the latest firmware update Sony pushed a few months back as well. If anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to feedback. By the way, everything plays fine, the TV just doesn't like something it's receiving.

EDIT: It seems like it's a very strange issue with content that's not 4K. Going into the settings and setting 4k upscale to Auto2, fixes the problem with 24p enabled for BD/UHD. I also tried setting the player's set resolution to 1080p, and also got the errors, didn't try setting it to 4k vs auto, but turning on 4k upscale seems to stopped the messages from the TV. I have no idea what's going on.

EDIT 2: OK, I think I understand what's going on here now: It seems like, when set to "Auto" for output resolution, and the video isn't 4K, something upsets what the TV is getting. When I manually set the output resolution to "4K", or leave it on "Auto" and set the upscale function to "Auto 2" then things are happy, or leaving it on Auto and disabling 24p for BD/UHD things are happy, or lastly leaving it on Auto and 4k upscale off, and setting audio to PCM, things are also happy. So basically the TV isn't happy with auto resolution, 24p, and auto bitstream all set to on. When I was using it with an older sound bar that didn't support 4K HDR passthrough I connected the player's second HDMI port to the sound bar's HDMI in as in that case most things were directly connected to the TV and for streaming I used the TV's optical out to that sound bar.

With the new setup I can pass everything through audio and video and get full quality streaming AV as well. It's just in this new setup, the TV whines if Sony's output doesn't stay at a consistent output resolution, or variable resolution with consistent framerate. Hope I didn't confuse everyone here, but this was really irritating and somewhat confusing to get to the bottom of. For now, it looks like i'll just leave it set to the manual resolution of 4k. Will this affect quality of lower resolution content? I know streamers such as Apple TV (HD / 4K), or Roku output at a constant resolution and just upscale everything played that's not natively 4k, or the max resolution it's set to. I remember reading people having problems with Sony and auto resolution in the past and having fixed resolution as a suggested fix."

[chip75]

I'd assume it's a glitch since the TV can't passthrough DTS: MA through ARC, even though you're pumping audio to the sound bar and it disables the TV's audio, it might be acting up. Have you tried just outputting audio from HDMI 2?

Home > Setup > System Settings > HDMI Audio Output > HDMI 2

[MacinMan]

Originally Posted by chip75

I'd assume it's a glitch since the TV can't passthrough DTS: MA through ARC, even though you're pumping audio to the sound bar and it disables the TV's audio, it might be acting up. Have you tried just outputting audio from HDMI 2?

Home > Setup > System Settings > HDMI Audio Output > HDMI 2

The best solution I have found is to change the Player's output from auto toe a fixed resolution of 4K. The problem occurs when the X700 processes video at a lower resolution than 4K that has a different framrate. For example when content changes on the disc from the ads, or logo, etc to the movie, it triggers something in the TV to think it's getting a bad signal. So, I had two main choices, disable 24p, or change to the fixed resolution of 4k. Since the TV is just going to upscale anyway for lower res stuff, I just set it at the fixed res of 4k, and it's working without issues now.

Part of why I posted this was because of the strange nature of the problem, but how easy it seems to be to fix. DTS-HD-MA, must also play a part somewhere though, as well because Dolby tracks didn't have the problem. Maybe the way the Sony player changes resolution and frame rate at the same time scrambles the signal somehow, and it's a bug in the firmware. Either way the solution is a set and forget solution, and nothing outside the normal set of options Sony provides for the player settings.

I've read in the past, here, or AVS that setting a fixed resolution over auto can correct little glitches with handshaking, etc. Maybe one day I'll get a new player and try a different brand, but as long as the Sony works, I'll keep using it.

To answer your question though. I did try separating the audio again as I had with my older sound bar that didn't pass HDR, or 4K through.

The problem that introduced was the Sony having two connections to the TV:

The first was the HDMI video out to the TV, and the audio out to the sound bar. Because sound bar is also connected to pass video through, it wasn't sure which connection to use for the Sony ARC, or HDMI direct so things got hairy pretty fast. So keeping the single connection and changing the settings was the cleanest and easiest fix.