Just got an Onkyo SR705 to go with my Panasonic BD-30K.... stuck on PCM!

[Hicksatpd]

Hi all. I've lurked this forum a little bit since getting a BD player a month or two ago, and I am optimistic that you fine folks can help me.

As I said in my subject heading, I just got an Onkyo SR705. My player is a Panasonic BD-30K.

I can't seem to get Dolby True HD or the like to work. I just set up the Onkyo this afternoon. I popped in Batman Begins, which has Dolby True HD as an audio option.

However, regardless of whether or not I choose it or the standard DD, my receiver is set to PCM!

I can alter the audio settings on the receiver, but only between things like Dolby Pro Logic and DTS neo 6.

I've tried having my BD-30K's settings set to bitstream and also with them set to PCM, but either way, I get PCM no matter what, it seems.

I've owned other audio receivers previously, but they've always been relatively easy to set up, so I've never gone beyond a novice's level in terms of how to tweak/setup a receiver.

I don't know what to do, but it's depressing to spend almost $500 to get the HD audio tracks like DTS-HD and DD-THD, and to not be able to get those very things to work properly!

Makes me a bit nervous about my purchase.

If anyone can help, I am extremely grateful! Thanks!

[DBlackGT]

Welcome and nice choices there. Well lets see here. You've set the player to bitstream on everything and still nothing right? have you turn off the secondary audio option on the player? you cant have the secondary audio checked and bitstream the HD formats. Try that and let us know if that was it.

[Driver_King]

In bitstream on your player, do you have everything selected?

[aramis109]

Assuming that your player is the same as the BD-30 here:

https://www.blu-ray.com/players/play...d=5&show=specs

You need to have your player set to bitstream, not PCM. There have been some issues with Batman Begins and getting it to output TrueHD for some players. If you haven't already, make sure your player has the most up-to-date firmware. I think that corrected it for some people.

Also, try cycling through the audio while the movie is playing to see if you can get it to output TrueHD. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the player but hopefully that will help.

[Hicksatpd]

I just double-checked, and everything is set to bitstream, not PCM. Secondary audio Off.

Movie started, it says PCM on my receiver.

I changed the audio from its default DD to DD-TrueHD, and it still said PCM on my receiver.

I was not aware there was a problem with Batman Begins on BD regarding DD-THD.

I will go try some other BD's I have.

[crackinhedz]

have you updated BD30 firmware?

[Hicksatpd]

I bought the player around early September or so, and the first thing I did was update it with the latest firmware.

The most recent firmware, as of today, was released in July, so it should still be up to date.

Since my last post, I've put in Predator, which has DTS-HD, and 300, which has DD-THD and PCM 5.1.

In all three cases, I get the same options on my receiver as I did with Batman Begins.

Question: I don't think this is it, but maybe I'm wrong: I have a 5.1 speaker setup. Surely that alone would not prevent me from even properly playing these audio formats? They don't REQUIRE 6.1 or 7.1 setups to even play, do they?

[crackinhedz]

this may sound out of no where, but what video resolution are you using? 1080p, 1080i/720p?

[DBlackGT]

Originally Posted by Hicksatpd

I bought the player around early September or so, and the first thing I did was update it with the latest firmware.

The most recent firmware, as of today, was released in July, so it should still be up to date.

Since my last post, I've put in Predator, which has DTS-HD, and 300, which has DD-THD and PCM 5.1.

In all three cases, I get the same options on my receiver as I did with Batman Begins.

Question: I don't think this is it, but maybe I'm wrong: I have a 5.1 speaker setup. Surely that alone would not prevent me from even properly playing these audio formats? They don't REQUIRE 6.1 or 7.1 setups to even play, do they?

No not at all, your speakers have nothing to do with it. Ok if you could go into your audio menu on your bd-30 and list what you have selected and what you dont have selected. That would help us out alot instead of trying to guess your settings.

and you are using HDMI right?

[Hicksatpd]

Everything is 1080p as I am using HDMI to connect the BD player to the receiver.

As for the audio menu, here are the settings:

When I first go to Setup, and select Audio:

Dynamic Range Compression: Off
Sub-menu entitled, "Digital Audio Output"
- Dolby Digital: Bitstream
- Double Digital Plus / True HD: Bitstream
- DTS: Bitstream
- DTS-HD: Bitstream
- BD-Video Secondary Audio: Off
PCM Down Conversion: Off

[Papi6Chulo]

I am not very familiar with this player but after reading about it on the Panasonic website, I am wondering if this player can even output a raw bitstream for decoding on your receiver. The reason I say this is that many players on the market will decode a hi-res format (Dolby True-HD, DTS-MA), then pass the decoded audio via HDMI to the receiver. The Onkyo will see the decoded signals and output it as PCM (audio already decoded). Some players are capable of outputting a raw undecoded audio signal. In this case, if your receiver is able to decode the hi-res audio, then it will do it in the receiver.
From the overview page on the Panasonic website, it sounds as if the player decodes all the hi-res audio before it passes to the receiver, which is why you are always seeing PCM on the receiver. It did not mention the ability to pass raw undecoded audio to the receiver.
Maybe try to switch between the audio during a movie to see if you can hear any differences between the hi-res soundtrack vs the regular DD. Hope this is helpful.

[Hicksatpd]

Originally Posted by Papi6Chulo

I am not very familiar with this player but after reading about it on the Panasonic website, I am wondering if this player can even output a raw bitstream for decoding on your receiver. The reason I say this is that many players on the market will decode a hi-res format (Dolby True-HD, DTS-MA), then pass the decoded audio via HDMI to the receiver. The Onkyo will see the decoded signals and output it as PCM (audio already decoded). Some players are capable of outputting a raw undecoded audio signal. In this case, if your receiver is able to decode the hi-res audio, then it will do it in the receiver.
From the overview page on the Panasonic website, it sounds as if the player decodes all the hi-res audio before it passes to the receiver, which is why you are always seeing PCM on the receiver. It did not mention the ability to pass raw undecoded audio to the receiver.
Maybe try to switch between the audio during a movie to see if you can hear any differences between the hi-res soundtrack vs the regular DD. Hope this is helpful.

From a review on my BD-30K:

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/pa...30k-1403.shtml

Big Sound

In terms of support for advanced audio formats (DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD), the DMP-BD30 does not include on-board decoding, but it does offer you the option of passing them in unadulterated form (via bitstream) to a compatible receiver or processor. The on-board audio decoder will only decode the "core" portions of DTS-HD, Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby TrueHD soundtracks. But if you do own a receiver or processor that supports these formats directly, then this does not really matter to you - simply set the Panasonic's audio outputs to "bitstream" (and disable "Secondary Audio"), and the player will happily send along the raw audio bitstream via HDMI for decoding on your receiver.

To enable bitstream output of DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD, you'll need to disable Secondary Audio Output (which means no audio commentary tracks). Such is the price of being an audio purist.


We verified that it works as designed for both DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD. Using a DTS-HD demo disc for DTS-HD Master Audio, and the "Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City" and "Spiderman 3" discs for Dolby TrueHD, connecting via HDMI to an Integra DTR-7.8 and Onkyo TX-SR605 home theater receivers, we were able to listen to the next generation lossless surround sound codecs, which produced extremely high quality surround sound. The surround soundstage was rock solid, with excellent separation, effortless dynamics, accurate timbral reproduction and a complete lack of the usual digital artifacts that can plague bit-limited CDs and highly compressed DVDs.

[crackinhedz]

I can alter the audio settings on the receiver, but only between things like Dolby Pro Logic and DTS neo 6.

This statement tells me that there is a setting in the Receiver that may be incorrect? and could be forcing the BD30 to send two channel pcm. Because your BD30 settings look correct, so maybe its on the receiver end?

In the receiver settings, I think under advanced options, what does it say for Dolby, Dts, TrueHD, Dts'HD MA, PCM? (should say "Last Valid" or something to that effect)



also, is your 705 refurbished? and are you using a category 1 or category 2 hdmi cable?

[Hicksatpd]

Originally Posted by crackinhedz

This statement tells me that there is a setting in the Receiver that may be incorrect? and could be forcing the BD30 to send two channel pcm. Because your BD30 settings look correct, so maybe its on the receiver end?

That's what I'm thinking.

In the receiver settings, I think under advanced options, what does it say for Dolby, Dts, TrueHD, Dts'HD MA, PCM? (should say "Last Valid" or something to that effect)

After I had this trouble, I found that menu, and initially they all said "Last Valid". I tried changing them later to see if I could get them to work. So Dolby is set to Dolby (vs. Last Valid), DTS to DTS, etc.

Should I set all of those back to Last Valid?

also, is your 705 refurbished? and are you using a category 1 or category 2 hdmi cable?

It is new, not refurbished.

As for the HDMI, I'm not sure which it is. Here is where I got it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002L5R78

[Hicksatpd]

I got it to work!

First of all, thank you all VERY much for your assistance. I greatly appreciate it!

What it ended up being was a setting on my receiver.

When I brought up the main setup menu for the receiver, I chose "Hardware Setup", and then "HDMI". Inside this menu was "HDMI Audio Out", which was set to "On."

When I set this to "Off." I got the audio I've been looking for all along!

Reading in the manual, it has this to say about "HDMI Audio Out":

"This preference determines whether audio received at the HDMI IN is output by the HDMI OUT. You may want to turn this preference on if your TV is connected to the HDMI OUT and you want to listen to the audio from a component that's connected to an HDMI IN, through your TV's speakers. Normally, this should be set to Off."

I had turned this on at first glance because I mistakenly thought this toggled whether any audio was accepted INTO THE RECEIVER from cables connected to my various components. I didn't realize it was referring to audio traveling AWAY FROM THE RECEIVER to the TV.

So apparently by having this set "On," the Onkyo SR705 assumes that you would only want PCM because a TV is, of course, only going to have two speakers.

So there you have it.

Thank you once more to all who helped me figure this out!

[Driver_King]

I should have said that first. I figured that you had been too thorough to miss something like that.

[crackinhedz]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

I should have said that first. I figured that you had been too thorough to miss something like that.

usually people say they get audio from the TV speakers but not the receiver speakers...this red flags the "HDMI Audio Out" shenanegans.

how did we all miss that one!

[Driver_King]

He said the audio was coming out of his speakers and not his TV, like you said. Maybe he had a separate stereo input as well. That's something new to think about now.

[Hicksatpd]

Fyi,

I WAS hearing sound from my receiver speakers. My TV is left at volume 0 and was producing no sound.

The HDMI Audio Out being On simply fed those 5 speakers 2.0 PCM.

[Driver_King]

That makes sense.