Playing files with DD5.1 audio on a stereo system

[wayner]

Some movie files have no audio when I try to play them in my kitchen via an HD-200 extender but they play fine in other places in my house. I believe this is becuase the files have 5.1 audio when I only have analog audio cables connecting the extender to my TV. Is there any way to get Sage to downconvert to stereo and output via analog?

[ccsmoke]

Most likely these files are dts 5.1 and not dd5.1. Since the HD200 cant decode dts you have to convert the files or add a decoder into the mix. Receiver, some soundbars, or external decoder.should do the trick. If you have a receiver hooked up to your HD300 in a non critical area like a bedroom, for an example, you could swap the HD200 and HD300 around. Should give you sound in all zones, though you will lose the DTS MA / DDHD but still have 5.1 available.

[routerunner]

Originally Posted by ccsmoke

Most likely these files are dts 5.1 and not dd5.1. Since the HD200 cant decode dts you have to convert the files or add a decoder into the mix. Receiver, some soundbars, or external decoder.should do the trick. If you have a receiver hooked up to your HD300 in a non critical area like a bedroom, for an example, you could swap the HD200 and HD300 around. Should give you sound in all zones, though you will lose the DTS MA / DDHD but still have 5.1 available.

Apparently the HD200 can playback DTS 5.1 (via trans-coding if your server has the "man"), please have a look here for details...

Eddy

[ccsmoke]

A free solution is a good solution, thanks for the update With his setup, according to his signature, it will certainly be a load if running comskip etc...just so he is aware.

An old program I used to run should give more detailed info about the file and confirm the dts track.

http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

[wayner]

I guess the other option is to re-encode the files- maybe I should just do that. Can Gspot, or another similar program, scan a folder of media files and give me a report that tells me what files use which codecs?

p.s. Gspot choked and died on one problem file, which is an mkv. The latest version of Gspot appears to be from 2007. According to properties in MPC-HC the audio is DTS 48000HZ 6ch and according to Sage details it is "DCA/1536Kbps@48kHz 5.1 eng"[sic]

[ccsmoke]

Its been a while since I ran Gspot, its a great program but as you found out it hasn't been updated so didn't know if it would read MKVs or not. I'm assuming that most of your problem files are going to be your blu ray rips with dts ma / dts. Wish I knew of a similar program that don't have that maleware crap.

Did correctly identify that it is dts that is the issue according to media player classic. So the solutions are posted.

Curious to what audio equipment you have to your HD300s.

audio side

1) If they going to a TV = no point of swapping
2) If one is going to a older dts / dd receiver (optical) - would swap
3) If going to a dts-ma / dd hd receiver / preamp (1.3 or better hdmi) = would work but lose the advance decoding. As blu ray has 30% more audio would be a hard to give that up for me.

video side

might give up 3d and possibly deep color

Remote
TV control with stock remote

[spacecadet]

Originally Posted by wayner

I guess the other option is to re-encode the files- maybe I should just do that. Can Gspot, or another similar program, scan a folder of media files and give me a report that tells me what files use which codecs?

p.s. Gspot choked and died on one problem file, which is an mkv. The latest version of Gspot appears to be from 2007. According to properties in MPC-HC the audio is DTS 48000HZ 6ch and according to Sage details it is "DCA/1536Kbps@48kHz 5.1 eng"[sic]

Before I converted from HD200s to HD300s, I used to convert my file's using mikep's "SageAudioConvert" utility. You might consider giving this one a try:

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45902

[wayner]

Originally Posted by ccsmoke

Curious to what audio equipment you have to your HD300s.

I have many extenders, 2xHD-300 and about 8XHD-200 (I recently bought several extenders from someone else in Toronto who has stopped using Sage so I have lots of backups) and they are not currently optimized in terms of location taking into account the audio decoding issues.

I have an HD-300 that normally (mid April through mid-Oct) sits in my pool cabana that is connected to a Yamaha AVR and then a TV. I use an HD-300 in this spot since it is useful to have the external IR input as the HD-300 is mounted in a spot where you don't always have LoS so I have the external input attached to the TV. Unfortunately my receiver in this spot is a several year old Yamaha that has HDMI inputs but the HDMI just passes through the signal, it does not decode the audio, so I also need to use an optical audio cable.

My other HD-300 was just acquired recently so I haven't set it up yet. I will likely do this in the near future as I have to go through all of these extenders that I purchased and make sure that the firmware is upgraded before Sage shuts down their extender firmware server.

[ccsmoke]

Basically, just wanted to see how you are using your HD300's and to see if it would be possible to swap in a HD200. Sorry for the pesky questions but just trying to get a better picture of whats is going on .

The external ir input was something that didn't realize you were using. For that reason I can see why you want to keep your HD300 there.

As far as the yamaha just passing though the signal, I have to question. 95% of HDMI receivers will decode this so no need for optical. The ones that don't are typically HTIB or Receiver/blu ray (dvd) combos that don't carry the full license and those won't decode it with the optical either or will downrez to 2 channel. Perhaps a model number so I can verify?

[wayner]

The receiver is an HTR 6130 that is about three years old. Last year when I first tried to use HDMI this was driving me nuts but it doesn't decode the audio.

Here is a link to a forum that describes this: http://www.highdefforum.com/high-def...tr-6130-a.html

If I would have know this I never would have bought this AVR but who would even know to look for this as I assumed that if it has HDMI inputs that it can actually process the sound from these inputs. And I didn't try to use it with HDMI for a could years after buying it.