DTS Master HD - No Center Channel Audio?? Common Problem?

[zachd73]

I am going nuts! Can't figure if this is a limitation of my system or if something is wrong.

I have a samsung 2500 BDP-2500 player and a Marantz AV Receiver.
I have both an optical cable and the multi-channel analong inputs connected as per the sticky thread on these forums (well, the thread details how to use multi channel outputs you know)..

I have tried a few blu-ray movies that have DTS Master HD audio. If I play through the optical it just shows and sounds as though front and center are playing with no surrounds. I think that is normal that the optical doesn't have bandwidth for the full DTS Master Audio track.

However, if I switch to Analong inputs - I can hear awesome sound coming from all channels except center. It's completely silent. On most movies there is no dialog at all, you can just hear everything but dialog from the other speakers.

I can't figure if this is normal or if something is wrong with my setup.

I tried switching the cables but that did not help.

Can anyone tell me if this is normal or not??!

Thanks
Zach D.

[Opips2]

DTS HD and TrueHD Dolby are more deep sound, not most centre speakers.
need share loudspeakers front, surround, center speaker.

normal DTS and Dolby Ditigal expect to most centre speaker.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Opips2

DTS HD and TrueHD Dolby are more deep sound, not most centre speakers.
need share loudspeakers front, surround, center speaker.

normal DTS and Dolby Ditigal expect to most centre speaker.

What? No. No matter what the codec, most of your sound comes from the center speaker.

Sorry . . . aside from double and triple checking your connections, I don't know what could be wrong. Maybe a bad output/input, if everything's hooked up correctly. Just a question though . . . why bother with the optical connection? I haven't read that sticky, but it seems unnecessary as you're not going to get anything with optical that you won't get with the analogs.

[zombie77]

try flipping one of the other cables with the one for the center.

[zachd73]

That was fast.. thanks...

I did try and switch cables to make sure the cables were not bad.

I did not try sticking a right or left channel cable in to the center to see if it would play... at first I didn't see why I would want to but now I do, I can see if the input is blown out on my amp.

I must leave the optical cable in place because I need to be able to watch a movie if the center channel fails to work trying to use the analog inputs!

I already took the movie back to the store 10 mins ago so I'm not sure if I will be able to do any more testing tonight but you guys are saying that I absolutely SHOULD be able to hear audio from all channels with this set up..

If that is the case I can troubleshoot it but I didn't want to go through a lot of work if it wasn't supposed to be working in the first place. It is confusing as sometimes I read (in the sticky thread edit that DTS HD Master audio will only bitstream via HDMI. But I am not bistreaming?? Is that correct? What am I doing? LPCMing?

It does seem like it should work since the other speakers are working great in this mode.

ARG!

I'll have to try and figure ways to test the inputs and outputs on the bdp player and on my amp.

Any thought on that are welcome... not sure if I need to go get another blu-ray disc or not for this.

[zombie77]

for now i would just throw in a dvd and figure out what was wrong. i would also try running my speaker set up through your recever again. i know if this was me i would be up all night tying to fix it, cause i couldnt lay down and have this weirdness on my mind.

[Sammy]

I have not experienced this problem on either my old school Sony or on the new Denon. The center channel is the most important as most if not all the dialog is directed there. Try switching the speaker wires around too to see if maybe one of the speaker outputs is bad. Does the receiver except HDMI input? If so, try that too. Get your HDMI cable at www.monoprice.com . They are consistantly the lowest price. I've been shopping there for years and their customer service is great.

[zachd73]

Originally Posted by Sammy

I have not experienced this problem on either my old school Sony or on the new Denon. The center channel is the most important as most if not all the dialog is directed there. Try switching the speaker wires around too to see if maybe one of the speaker outputs is bad. Does the receiver except HDMI input? If so, try that too. Get your HDMI cable at www.monoprice.com . They are consistantly the lowest price. I've been shopping there for years and their customer service is great.

Thanks again.. yeah I wanted to stay up and figure it out but I have to work to be able to afford home theater

The center is working fine when I switch back to optical. I'm going to focus on the center output on dvd player and center input on receiver first.

If that is not the issue then I would not know what it is. I have a pretty new firmware flashed on the player from about 2 weeks ago and I have not read of any problems like this on the bdp-2500

Thanks will keep you updated

[aramis109]

Actually, the problem is probably that you don't have a setup that'll support full lossless audio. DTS-HD MA and TrueHD will only output as 2.0 via optical. Hence, no center channel.

If you have a receiver that can support HDMI audio then you shouldn't be using an optical cable at all. Also, depending on your player and receiver capabilities, you may have to output as LPCM or bitstream. You listed a Samsung 2500, but I don't see such a player. Is it the Samsung 2550? If so, it can't decode DTS-HD MA. I would assume the 2500 can't either. Thus you have to output it via bitstream, but that will only do you any good if your receiver can decode it. What is the model # on your Marantz?

[zachd73]

Almost too embarrassed to say I fixed it.. speakers cables had come loose.

The fact that the audio sounded really good via optical made me not even think to check that.. it sounded like it was working but I guess my speakers have a decent enough soundstage that I couldn't tell it was off...

It is working now and sounds great.. it is perplexing why the difference is so drastic even with a DVD.. why it is putting so much dialog through the L and R and with analogs it's mostly background and music from the L and R and dialog and some effects in the Center.

I may have to go rent robo-cop and watch it again

[dobyblue]

The audio track on Robocop isn't great to begin with.

Are your speaker settings on your Samsung Blu-ray Disc player all set to SMALL? You need to set that inside the player when you're using analog outputs.

[Sammy]

Originally Posted by aramis109

Actually, the problem is probably that you don't have a setup that'll support full lossless audio. DTS-HD MA and TrueHD will only output as 2.0 via optical. Hence, no center channel.

If you have a receiver that can support HDMI audio then you shouldn't be using an optical cable at all. Also, depending on your player and receiver capabilities, you may have to output as LPCM or bitstream. You listed a Samsung 2500, but I don't see such a player. Is it the Samsung 2550? If so, it can't decode DTS-HD MA. I would assume the 2500 can't either. Thus you have to output it via bitstream, but that will only do you any good if your receiver can decode it. What is the model # on your Marantz?

The Samsung BD-P2500/P2550 decodes dts HD MA with f/w 2.4.

[aramis109]

Originally Posted by Sammy

The Samsung BD-P2500/P2550 decodes dts HD MA with f/w 2.4.

Then someone needs to update the player page. I was just going off of it. OP, do you have the latest firmware on your player?

[Sammy]

Originally Posted by zachd73

Almost too embarrassed to say I fixed it.. speakers cables had come loose.

The fact that the audio sounded really good via optical made me not even think to check that.. it sounded like it was working but I guess my speakers have a decent enough soundstage that I couldn't tell it was off...

It is working now and sounds great.. it is perplexing why the difference is so drastic even with a DVD.. why it is putting so much dialog through the L and R and with analogs it's mostly background and music from the L and R and dialog and some effects in the Center.

I may have to go rent robo-cop and watch it again

The optical "cable" only carries the 2-track core dts (stereo with encoding to try to direct the audio to the correct speakers) track that is compressed and then decoded again in the reciever if it decodes dts. The analalog output has discrete sounds in each discrete pair of cables.

[Sammy]

Originally Posted by aramis109

Then someone needs to update the player page. I was just going off of it. OP, do you have the latest firmware on your player?

I've tried to post a review of it on that page twice now and it just vaporized after a lot of typing and hitting 'submit'. In the review I mentioned that it now does MA with f/w 2.4. I gave up on reviewing it as I've spent enough time on doing that. It is a pretty darn good player thus far.

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by Sammy

The optical "cable" only carries the 2-track core dts (stereo with encoding to try to direct the audio to the correct speakers) track that is compressed and then decoded again in the reciever if it decodes dts. The analalog output has discrete sounds in each discrete pair of cables.

The optical cable will carry multi-channel core dts up to 6.1 channels providing the player has optical output set to "bitstream".

[Sammy]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

The optical cable will carry multi-channel core dts up to 6.1 channels providing the player has optical output set to "bitstream".

That's why it still sounded pretty dam good on the old Sony! But it was only a 5.1 channel system and was showing its age... remote control of volume hadn't worked for 5 years, one of the optical inputs wasn't accepting the signal anymore and the LFE low level channel was creating a nice humming noise... So it was time. With any luck I'll get another 10 years out of the Denon that has replaced it because I'm not one to upgrade every year or two.

[zachd73]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

The audio track on Robocop isn't great to begin with.

Are your speaker settings on your Samsung Blu-ray Disc player all set to SMALL? You need to set that inside the player when you're using analog outputs.

I will double check that tonight.

I watched Road Warrior last night. It sounded pretty great although I do not think it is really a disc to use to show off the new audio formats. It sounded much better using the analog inputs than using the optical cable.

I've always been miffed by the lack of surround when using dolby and dts via optical prior to getting the blu-ray player. I could turn the volume on the surrounds up +10 and I'd still have to put my ear up to the speakers to verify any sound was coming out at all.

On Road Warrior whenever that guy flew over in his little hellicopter he clearly went from behind you in the surrounds to the front. It wasn't a very smooth transition though.. but I imagine the production of the road warrior on blu-ray was not something they took a lot of time on - it isn't a very deluxe disc judging from menus and featuers.

Still, like I said, it sounded much better than prior connection with the optical cable.

Although I did notice the subwoofer was not really putting out much sound during road warrior. Even when they blew up the refinery it wasn't very loud and I had it turned up almost all the way.

Either it just wasn't done well on the disc or maybe I do have my fronts set to large and that is limited the bass to the sub although I wouldn't think it would (I think that would give me more bass in the fronts plus the same amount of bass in the sub but not less).

I probably need to get a better 'demo' disc with a movie produced in the last few years to test things out more.

This now no longer pertains to my original issue but I have to say I am not that impressed with the picture so far on the blu-ray but then again I have read that unless the movie was produced in HD you may not see a lot of difference. I mainly watch older movies (like robo-cop, or road warrior, or even older) so it may not be a big difference in picture but the sound so far is a huge leap.

Also I suspect when I make a jump to a good projector the blu-ray picture will make a bigger difference on a larger screen (currently have an older mits 55' rptv)