Monday, 19 December 2011
Nytol Herbal Danger to Life
Problem with sound Samsung LED TV and Sony STR-DH-800 AV Amp 2 Channel PCM ?
Had a really frustrating problem where every time I turned on my Samsung TV the Sony AV amp woulds change to 2 Channel PCM stereo no matter what the the sound source. It was obviously some too clever for its own good HDMI trickery going on but I couldn't figure it out for ages.
Now obviously I only discover this on the rare occasion I sit down with the wife to watch a blu ray. And the wife doesn't give a shit. " Sounds fine to me". But me I cant enjoy the film as I am sitting in front of at least a grands worth of bottom of the range 5.1 audio gear and it is giving me 2.0 PCM.
For example if I put on a Bluray with 5.1 HD audio when I turned on the TV the AV decoder would change from super 5.1 Dolby Tru HD DTS or whatever to the crappy 2 Channel PCM stereo. If I then turned off the TV the sound would return to super 5.1 Dolby Tru HD DTS. Great but no picture.
I disabled HDMI control on everything. Bluray, AMP and TV. this did not solve the problem
I did a system reset on TV , and Bluray player. This did not solve the problem.
Went through all the settings on the Bluray and then TV changing this that or the other. Nothing problem still there.
Finally I got it.
On the Sony AMP there is an setting under Amp Menu / HDMI / AUDIO OUT / then you can select either "AMP" or "TV + AMP."
Now it turns out if you select "TV + AMP" the amp gets some sort of HDMI signal from the TV and then decides to turn everything it receives on all HDMI channels into 2 Channel PCM. (Yes even if you disable all HDMI control). I'm sure there is some logical reason for this option which I have no interest in discussing.
So , solution, select the "AMP" only option and the Sony amp will then decode whatever it is fed the way it should do. HD audio here we go.
You can forget about any of the manuals telling you this so I am just posting in the hope that it helps another.
Cheers

