HD200 AC3 audio problems

[valnar]

I have replaced my HD100 with an HD200 on my main HDTV using the same high-end cables as last time. I use HDMI directly to my Sony HDTV and toslink to my Pioneer Elite receiver (decodes DTS, AC3). I have upgraded to the latest beta firmware.

Well, I tried both Digital PCM and Digital Bitstream on the HD200 and neither work properly, or exactly duplicate the functionality of the HD100. On some of my MKV files encoded with a variety of audio settings, some get no audio from my receiver.

Digital PCM
AUDIO     TV         Receiver
AC3-6     yes        no
AC3-2     yes        yes
DTS       no         yes
AAC       yes        yes

Digital Bitstream
AUDIO     TV         Receiver
AC3-6     clicking   no
AC3-2     yes        yes
DTS       no         yes
AAC       yes        yes

With the HD100, I had no problems switching between TV and receiver as necessary, with just a simple mute of my TV to listen to the surround sound from my receiver. Of course, DTS was always to my receiver only. On Dolby Digital multichannel, I get no sound, and it appears my receiver doesn't even detect any input. I expected the "clicking" sound from my TV while in bitstream mode since it doesn't understand that, so that doesn't bother me. Ideally I should be able to leave it in one mode and have it work for everything. The HD100 did.

Any ideas?

[Watch22]

I have the same problem. I just recieved the HD200 and AC3 audio doesn't work correctly. It sounds like the voices are under water. I have it hooked up to the TV via HDMI and Fiber to the reciever. All my movies play great on the HD100.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Watch22

I have the same problem. I just recieved the HD200 and AC3 audio doesn't work correctly. It sounds like the voices are under water.

Hmmm. I get nothing at all for multi-channel. On two-channel, it works fine. It's basically the difference between movie rips and TV show rips respectively.

[Motofreak75]

sage support already knows about these issues and they are looking into this.

But fill a support ticket out. I'm sure they will solve this issue soon.

[jameswhite82]

I am connecting the same way - HDMI to the TV and toslink to my Bose 3-2-1receiver that support both DD5.1 and DTS.

When I play mkv files with Dolby Digital my receiver sees the Dobly Digital 5.1 stream and displays the DD logo on the front but has no sound coming out. Sound will come out of my Samsung TV if I turn up the volume (usually i keep it muted as I only use the Bose 3-2-1 surround sound. It appears that the HD200 is only supplying sound over the HDMI to the TV.

However, I am able to play DTS files just fine. They come out of the receiver with no issues.

I had zero problems on the HD100 playing these files through my Bose 3-2-1 over toslink. I even hooked my HD100 back up to ensure I wasn't crazy.

I even tried the new firmware. I double checked the setting for bistream output.

Someone please help, the HD200 has fixed most of the 1080p playback issues from the HD100. I cannot live without HDMI video and toslink sound though with my current set up.

[jameswhite82]

Originally Posted by Motofreak75

sage support already knows about these issues and they are looking into this.

But fill a support ticket out. I'm sure they will solve this issue soon.

I just filled out a support ticket. Hopefully they fix it soon. I am dying to use this HD200 as it fixed most of my 1080p mkv playback issues.

[valnar]

I filled out a support ticket too for the multichannel Dolby Digital issue. I'm extremely surprised something so basic made it past them.

I agree that 1080p support (provided you encode H264 within certain parameters) works nicely now. The UI response is a lot snappier too.

[Motofreak75]

the Dark Knight 1080P looks fantastic but sounds funny, until they fix it

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Watch22

I have the same problem. I just recieved the HD200 and AC3 audio doesn't work correctly. It sounds like the voices are under water. I have it hooked up to the TV via HDMI and Fiber to the reciever. All my movies play great on the HD100.

Ditto for me. I'll go fill out a bug report.

[Beefcake550]

Mines a little different.

I have an HDHR and a HDPVR. Watching recordings from either one works great. It's only live tv from the HDPVR that has problems. THe first channel I watch works great. If I change the channel in any way, everything gets borked. herky-jerky motion or sometimes it's smooth-ish with no sound. Once I changed my HDPVR to use the analog inputs, everything is buttery smooth and good (except for the lack of AC3 5.1 surround)

Please fix the problem soon SageTV! I love this extender except for this problem. I've been waiting since the day the HD100s went out of stock back in August to complete this media project for the new house. I think the WAF will go up now that this setup should just "work". She could care less about surround sound.

-B

[Lucas]

The issue is for Dolby AC3 >512Kbit/s soundtracks and is known.

The 384 or 448 Kbit/s AC3 soundtracks play just fine.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by Lucas

The issue is for Dolby AC3 >512Kbit/s soundtracks and is known.

The 384 or 448 Kbit/s AC3 soundtracks play just fine.

That makes sense according to my testing. Was that posted somewhere by Sage?

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by Lucas

The issue is for Dolby AC3 >512Kbit/s soundtracks and is known.

The 384 or 448 Kbit/s AC3 soundtracks play just fine.

This is my experience as well.

384 kbit/s = Good.
640 kbit/s = Bad.

I hope that a firmware fix is on the way soon because there's movie watching to be done over the holidays.

[Chriscic]

Originally Posted by Beefcake550

Mines a little different.

I have an HDHR and a HDPVR. Watching recordings from either one works great. It's only live tv from the HDPVR that has problems. THe first channel I watch works great. If I change the channel in any way, everything gets borked. herky-jerky motion or sometimes it's smooth-ish with no sound. Once I changed my HDPVR to use the analog inputs, everything is buttery smooth and good (except for the lack of AC3 5.1 surround)

Please fix the problem soon SageTV! I love this extender except for this problem. I've been waiting since the day the HD100s went out of stock back in August to complete this media project for the new house. I think the WAF will go up now that this setup should just "work". She could care less about surround sound.

-B

Beefcake, please see this thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37526
...and jump in with your thoughts there. Please also fill out a problem ticket with Sage as I and (hopefully) others do the same to get a fix to this.

Cheers,
-Chris

[jm9843]

Received the following reply from Sage support concerning the high bitrate ac3 problem:

We're aware of this problem and its due to a bug in a recent driver upgrade
we're using on the HD Theater. We're working with the vendor now to try to
resolve it.

Thanks,

SageTV Support Team
SageTV, LLC
betatest@sagetv.com
http://www.sagetv.com/

[Beefcake550]

If anyone is having a problem similar to mine, a solution has been posted and I've tried it and it works for me:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37526

It's basically adding a delay after changing channels before decoding. So, it will up your channel change time.

-Brian

[valnar]

Has anyone heard back from Sage on the AC3 bitrate issue through S/PDIF? It's quite annoying.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by valnar

Has anyone heard back from Sage on the AC3 bitrate issue through S/PDIF? It's quite annoying.

What we 've heard is that it is a driver issue that emerged in the last version sent by the chipset supplier. In the previous version it was OK.

This has been escalated to the supplier who presumably must fix it and send a new set of drivers to SageTV.

This has been identified for 2-3 weeks now - so we cannot and presumably SageTV cannot know exactly how long it will take.

My guess is that it won't be too long.

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by Watch22

I have the same problem. I just recieved the HD200 and AC3 audio doesn't work correctly. It sounds like the voices are under water. I have it hooked up to the TV via HDMI and Fiber to the reciever. All my movies play great on the HD100.

I have an HD200, but haven't noticed these issues. I have an HDMI connection to my Samsung 46A650 and a Toslink to my Yamaha A/V receiver. HD200 video output is set to HDMI and audio output is set to Bitstream (although not sure if it should be PCM). Can someone explain in simple terms what's happening with the sound? I might have the same problem, only I need some help understanding it.

[TexasTruck]

As stated above when the AC3 audio track is 640kbps (high quality) the audio is not correct over toslink. I have the same setup, from the HD200 I have HDMI to TV and fiber to my Denon amp. When I play my backup copy of Dark Knight Bluray, the audio sounds like I'm underwater or something, pretty obvious. Someone discovered if you down convert the audio to <= 448kbps the problem goes away. I did this and AC3 over toslink fiber worked.

In other words, if the videos you're watching don't have 640kbps audio (high quality), then you're more than likely going to be ok.