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Post by pto189 on Oct 14, 2015 19:04:53 GMT -5
Results from various connections using coax cable:
1. Motorola 7100-P2 ---> Marantz SR 7007: Normal audio.
2. Sony BDP-S350 ---> Stealth DC-1: Normal audio
3. Motorola 7100-P2 ---> Stealth DC-1: NO AUDIO!
I called Emotiva technical support. The technical person told me to set the cable box audio to stereo. I did and still did not get any sound. Calling Verizon technical support also had no luck.
Please help!!!
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hemster
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Post by hemster on Oct 14, 2015 19:39:11 GMT -5
How are the boxes connected? (i.e. coax, optical, ?). Cable boxes require a reboot between changes of settings.. just making sure you did that.
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Post by pto189 on Oct 14, 2015 21:01:35 GMT -5
I connected the Verizon Motorola cable box to DC-1 using coax RCA audio cable. As I mentioned in my question, the connection from cable box to Marantz receiver is fine. Similarly, the connection from Sony DVD player to DC-1 is also fine. However, when I connected using coax RCA audio cable from cable box to DC-1, I got no audio. The Emotiva technician reminded me to set the cable audio format to stereo, and I did, but still no sound! Again all connections are using coax RCA audio calbe.
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geebo
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"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are driving taxicabs and cutting hair"
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Post by geebo on Oct 14, 2015 21:12:11 GMT -5
I connected the Verizon Motorola cable box to DC-1 using coax RCA audio cable. As I mentioned in my question, the connection from cable box to Marantz receiver is fine. Similarly, the connection from Sony DVD player to DC-1 is also fine. However, when I connected using coax RCA audio cable from cable box to DC-1, I got no audio. The Emotiva technician reminded me to set the cable audio format to stereo, and I did, but still no sound! Again all connections are using coax RCA audio calbe. Does the Motorola have an option to set audio to PCM? |
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Post by pto189 on Oct 14, 2015 21:58:35 GMT -5
May be that is the problem. The Motorola 7100-P2 doesn't have the option the set audio to PCM. There are only three choices: Mono, stereo, and surround.
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Post by wiskers on Oct 14, 2015 22:34:32 GMT -5
You can use optical from tv to dc-1 or rca cables from set top box to dc1 analog.
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Post by pto189 on Oct 14, 2015 23:11:11 GMT -5
You can use optical from tv to dc-1 or rca cables from set top box to dc1 analog. Thank you. I'll try to use optical to connect from TV to DC-1. I need a longer toslink cable. |
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Post by vcautokid on Oct 15, 2015 6:42:24 GMT -5
Here is another question. Do you have the option to run HDMI video only, and run audio on coaxial, or optical? Maybe your audio is being routed out via HDMI.
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Post by brubacca on Oct 15, 2015 7:43:28 GMT -5
I have this same problem. My Verizon box does not put out PCM data, which is what you need for the Stealth. Also my TC does not downmix to PCM either. I must use a surround processor to decode the Dolby Digital coming from both sources.
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Post by pto189 on Oct 15, 2015 9:25:31 GMT -5
Here is another question. Do you have the option to run HDMI video only, and run audio on coaxial, or optical? Maybe your audio is being routed out via HDMI. The Motorola set top box can output both Dolby digital and PCM. The problem is Verizon FIOS delivers only Dolby digital 5.1 out from both coax and toslink. I'm looking for a box that has HDMI in put and PCM outputs. Does anyone know such a box. |
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Post by vcautokid on Oct 15, 2015 9:37:07 GMT -5
Most decoders will send out Dolby Digital out from the HDMI out. Also it would send out by the Coaxial or Optical digital if selected in the audio options menu.
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Post by pto189 on Oct 15, 2015 13:04:08 GMT -5
Most decoders will send out Dolby Digital out from the HDMI out. Also it would send out by the Coaxial or Optical digital if selected in the audio options menu. Did you mean if I use the box from the link above, the audio from the coax output would still be Dolby digital? If I connect the optical from my Samsung TV toslink out, which is decoded from the Verizon HDMI, to DC-1. it works. What do you think? |
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Oct 15, 2015 14:19:27 GMT -5
I didn't see enough information there to say for sure. Since the HDMI standard basically forbids stripping digital audio out of an HDMI signal and sending it out of a digital audio connection directly, odds are that some sort of decoding and converting or re-encoding is going on. The little box may send its output as PCM, or Dolby Digital, or one or the other depending on what the source is - and it may be possible to configure it to do any or all of those. either. Your best bet would be to contact the manufacturer and make sure that their box can output Stereo PCM digital audio - and do so regardless of what format you're sending to it. (It really depends on what the folks who designed that particular box decided to do - so it's probably best to check with them rather than to make assumptions that may or may not be true.) Note that MOST pre/pros can accept Dolby Digital inputs via a Coax digital input - but most Stereo DACs, including the DC-1, cannot. Most decoders will send out Dolby Digital out from the HDMI out. Also it would send out by the Coaxial or Optical digital if selected in the audio options menu. Did you mean if I use the box from the link above, the audio from the coax output would still be Dolby digital? If I connect the optical from my Samsung TV toslink out, which is decoded from the Verizon HDMI, to DC-1. it works. What do you think? |
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Post by wiskers on Oct 15, 2015 14:33:01 GMT -5
I have the same problem, if you google the set top box you will see a lot of people with the same problem. I use optical from tv to dc-1 and it works great.
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Post by jmilton on Oct 15, 2015 15:23:41 GMT -5
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Post by pto189 on Oct 16, 2015 10:32:29 GMT -5
Yes, if I connect the Motorola set top box HDMI output, will this box outputs the coaxial PCM audio signal? |
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Post by jmilton on Oct 16, 2015 10:39:38 GMT -5
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KeithL
Administrator
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Post by KeithL on Oct 16, 2015 11:49:22 GMT -5
The problem is that, while what's happening at the destination device is simple, what happens at the source often isn't....
As for the destination device:
Virtually EVERY receiver or pre/pro will accept either PCM or surround sound formats via its digital inputs (HDMI, coax, and toslink).
Virtually NO two-channel audio DAC will accept anything except two channel PCM audio.
The XMC-1 will accept surround sound; the DC-1, XDA-2, and XDA-1 will NOT.
The tricky part is in how various source devices "interpret" what you tell them to do - and how some seem to get it wrong.....
For example, some cable boxes can be told to "output two channel audio" and they will do so - always.
However, some satellite boxes treat that configuration setting as a "preference" only - so they give you two channel audio IF THEY HAVE IT, but won't convert.
(So, if the broadcast contains both surround sound and two channel audio tracks, they'll give you the one you asked for but, if the broadcast only has one or the other, they won't convert it.
In that case, you end up either getting the other format - whether you like it or not - or you get silence.)
Likewise, some disc players will absolutely give you what you ask them to - even if they have to convert the content to do so.
Others will only let you pick from the formats of the tracks provided on the individual disc or source you're playing.
We've even run into situations with certain satellite boxes where what happens seems to be somewhat arbitrary (sometimes you get what you tell them to give you, but sometimes you don't).
There are quite probably valid technical reasons why this happens. For example, if the program is coming in as Dolby TrueHD, the box can pass that on to the output as a "bitstream signal" quite easily,
and without having to do any complex processing, but, in order to provide a PCM output, the box would have to decode the signal in order to convert it; perhaps a given box doesn't have enough processing power to do so.
Also, with satellite and cable providers, there's no way for you to really know what formats they're providing to the box itself, which may in turn determine what the box is willing to give you.
(One common oddity is that some providers will send out older movies with two channel sound tracks as surround sound - with audio only in the front left and front right and silence in the other channels.
In this situation, even though the audio itself is simply stereo, the FORMAT is surround sound, and so cannot be played by a stereo-only device like a stereo DAC.
You also probably won't be able to make FAKE surround sound using Dolby PLIIx - because you already have REAL surround sound - just with silence in the surround and center channels.
From their side of the wire, this is simply a switch or configuration choice on the console - and they've decided to "always broadcast in surround sound".)
As a broad generality, if a device (like the little box shown in the previous posts) offers a Coax digital output, and offers the option of selecting "surround 5.1 or two-channel" as an output format,
then it PROBABLY will convert surround sound content into stereo PCM on the way out. (Because of the way HDMI licensing works, a vendor isn't allowed to simply separate the unmodified digital audio stream
from the HDMI video stream and let you have access to it, but they are allowed to decode it to analog, and give you the analog output, and they are allowed to then re-encode that analog version into a digital format.
Assuming that's what they're doing, then they can freely re-encode it into whatever format you tell them to.)
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Post by pto189 on Oct 17, 2015 0:17:00 GMT -5
Keith, thank your for your clear and complete explanation. If my 40' Samsung TV can accept the HDMI signal from the cable box and output digital audio in PCM format, the converter should be able to do the same thing. But this is only my guess. I need to buy one and try it out. If it doesn't work,I just return it and use the optical output from Samsung TV.
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