Post by unfrostedpoptart on Nov 3, 2020 0:50:46 GMT -5
My recent post about all the hundreds of possible A/V settings for my system was too much at once. So, let’s narrow it down to just the audio settings for watching cable TV with my TiVo Bolt and my MC-700 driving a 7.1 speaker system. This is still a lot to consider and I could use some help since the MC-700 manual doesn’t even list all the audio modes much less describe them – or even web links.
The TiVo only has one setting with two choices: Dolby Audio or PCM only.
But this leads to a question earlier in the chain; what are the audio formats of various cable channels and/or programs? I have Cox Cable of North County San Diego. It looks like the audio is defined by ATSC ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_standards#Audio )
Dolby Digital AC-3 is used as the audio codec, though it was standardized as A/52 by the ATSC. It allows the transport of up to five channels of sound with a sixth channel for low-frequency effects (the so-called "5.1" configuration).
Is this correct and up to date? Is there some way to display what format a particular show is using?
What would be the advantage / disadvantage of the TiVo sending the audio to the MC-700 as DD vs PCM? I guess the MC-700 would do a better job decoding the DD than the TiVo.
Now, on to the MC-700. First, I tried just using the Mode button on the remote. It cycled through a long list of choices which were dependent on the program playing on the TiVo. These included Direct, Stereo, All Stereo, Dolby DEX, Dolby D, PLIIx-Music, PLIIx-Movie, Neo6. I haven’t found any info online about the two versions of PLIIx, but I liked the PLIIx-Movie for most shows since it put the dialog to the center speaker. Any comments on this? I don’t want to have to keep changing the mode depending on what I’m watching.
Next, I went through all the choices under the setup menus and came up with this table of possible output settings for each possible input format:
So, for each possible input format on the left, which format on the right should it decode to? Again, this should not need to be changed on the fly and work well whether I’m watching the news on a local channel or The Avengers on HBO. With the TiVo only allowing Dobly Dig or PCM, I guess I can ignore all of the DTS rows and columns. Correct? And what’s MultiPCM? Just PCM with more channels than stereo?
One last issue is that I want to use EmoQ / Base-Management and saw that some of these modes will support that and others might not.
Well, I think that’s it for watching TV. Next topics will include watching various streaming on Apple TV and DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray Audio, Blu-ray UHD on my universal player. It would be great to document this stuff and put the files somewhere on the Lounge. Or maybe Emotiva should have a Wiki.
Thanks so much.
David
The TiVo only has one setting with two choices: Dolby Audio or PCM only.
But this leads to a question earlier in the chain; what are the audio formats of various cable channels and/or programs? I have Cox Cable of North County San Diego. It looks like the audio is defined by ATSC ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATSC_standards#Audio )
Dolby Digital AC-3 is used as the audio codec, though it was standardized as A/52 by the ATSC. It allows the transport of up to five channels of sound with a sixth channel for low-frequency effects (the so-called "5.1" configuration).
Is this correct and up to date? Is there some way to display what format a particular show is using?
What would be the advantage / disadvantage of the TiVo sending the audio to the MC-700 as DD vs PCM? I guess the MC-700 would do a better job decoding the DD than the TiVo.
Now, on to the MC-700. First, I tried just using the Mode button on the remote. It cycled through a long list of choices which were dependent on the program playing on the TiVo. These included Direct, Stereo, All Stereo, Dolby DEX, Dolby D, PLIIx-Music, PLIIx-Movie, Neo6. I haven’t found any info online about the two versions of PLIIx, but I liked the PLIIx-Movie for most shows since it put the dialog to the center speaker. Any comments on this? I don’t want to have to keep changing the mode depending on what I’m watching.
Next, I went through all the choices under the setup menus and came up with this table of possible output settings for each possible input format:
| | Direct | Stereo | All Stereo | PLIIx | Dolby Dig | Dolby HD | DTS | DTS Neo6 | DTS MA | DTS ES | DEX |
| PCM | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||||||
| MultiPCM | Y | Y | Y | Y | |||||||
| Dolby 2CH | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | |||||
| Dolby Dig | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | |||||
| Dolby EX | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||||||
| Dolby TrueHD | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||||||
| DTS 2CH | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | |||||
| DTS HD | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | |||||
| DTS ES | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | ||||||
| DTS MA | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y |
So, for each possible input format on the left, which format on the right should it decode to? Again, this should not need to be changed on the fly and work well whether I’m watching the news on a local channel or The Avengers on HBO. With the TiVo only allowing Dobly Dig or PCM, I guess I can ignore all of the DTS rows and columns. Correct? And what’s MultiPCM? Just PCM with more channels than stereo?
One last issue is that I want to use EmoQ / Base-Management and saw that some of these modes will support that and others might not.
Well, I think that’s it for watching TV. Next topics will include watching various streaming on Apple TV and DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray Audio, Blu-ray UHD on my universal player. It would be great to document this stuff and put the files somewhere on the Lounge. Or maybe Emotiva should have a Wiki.
Thanks so much.
David
