Post by whovous on Feb 3, 2013 8:29:13 GMT -5
This happens fairly often, and I do not know what to do about it. I am pretty sure it is a UMC-1 problem.
Examples from last night - Watched Netflix House of Cards in 5.1 on Roku XS. At first there was not much going on in the way of effects sound, but what little there sounded crisp and clear. Spoken voices were the same.
What happens next seems to be something of a pattern - we go to a scene with a lot of background noise, like music in a bar scene, and it is as if the L&R speakers were turned way up and the center channel was turned way down. Worse, the whole mess gets a bit distorted, too. Thus, merely boosting the center channel does not seem to fix much. The center gets louder, but the whole mix gets muddy.
I can try switching among the various surround modes (I am sure I do not come close to trying them all), but doing this either does nothing, or causes me to lose the picture, or it otherwise changes but does not solve the problem. Worse, the problem does not go away when the "noisy" scene ends.
When I switch to stereo on the UMC-1, however, all of the problems go away. Muddiness is gone and voices are fairly clear. Not as good as good 5.1, but pretty good nonetheless. And, obviously, switching to stereo gets rid of every vestige of surround sound.
I tried switching over to the Michigan-Indiana basketball game on ESPN in HD and it got even worse. The center channel virtually disappeared, and it sounded like nothing but surround feed was fed to all of the speakers (not sure if that is a good description, but it was definitely a mess). Again, switching the UMC-1 to stereo clears up the problem.
While I do not recall this next problem occurring last night, it has also happened quite often. I will switch to a live sporting event in HD, and basically get nothing but the surround channels, like maybe a pep band in the background. However, whenever the event goes to commercial, the sound is once again perfect. Can this be a UMC-1 problem as well, or is it a red herring to the problems above?
Anyhoo, suggestions for how to think about and to deal with this would be greatly appreciated. And yes, I am pretty sure this box came with the latest firmware, so that is not part of the equation here.
Examples from last night - Watched Netflix House of Cards in 5.1 on Roku XS. At first there was not much going on in the way of effects sound, but what little there sounded crisp and clear. Spoken voices were the same.
What happens next seems to be something of a pattern - we go to a scene with a lot of background noise, like music in a bar scene, and it is as if the L&R speakers were turned way up and the center channel was turned way down. Worse, the whole mess gets a bit distorted, too. Thus, merely boosting the center channel does not seem to fix much. The center gets louder, but the whole mix gets muddy.
I can try switching among the various surround modes (I am sure I do not come close to trying them all), but doing this either does nothing, or causes me to lose the picture, or it otherwise changes but does not solve the problem. Worse, the problem does not go away when the "noisy" scene ends.
When I switch to stereo on the UMC-1, however, all of the problems go away. Muddiness is gone and voices are fairly clear. Not as good as good 5.1, but pretty good nonetheless. And, obviously, switching to stereo gets rid of every vestige of surround sound.
I tried switching over to the Michigan-Indiana basketball game on ESPN in HD and it got even worse. The center channel virtually disappeared, and it sounded like nothing but surround feed was fed to all of the speakers (not sure if that is a good description, but it was definitely a mess). Again, switching the UMC-1 to stereo clears up the problem.
While I do not recall this next problem occurring last night, it has also happened quite often. I will switch to a live sporting event in HD, and basically get nothing but the surround channels, like maybe a pep band in the background. However, whenever the event goes to commercial, the sound is once again perfect. Can this be a UMC-1 problem as well, or is it a red herring to the problems above?
Anyhoo, suggestions for how to think about and to deal with this would be greatly appreciated. And yes, I am pretty sure this box came with the latest firmware, so that is not part of the equation here.
