A20 - No sound with HD-DVDs

Howdy All:

My HD-A20 got demoted to the bedroom about a month ago when I got an LG BH200 for the family room.

The A20 is connected to the TV (Sony KDL-32VL140) via HDMI_4. The HD cable box is connected via HDMI_1. There is a Wii and a Panasonic DVD-R/VCR (Panasonic DMR-ES40V) connected via component cables. There is no AV receiver in the bedroom; each component goes straight to the TV.

Everything was great until a couple of nights ago. No sound at all from either the cable box or the A20. I eventually fired up the Panasonic SD-DVD and sound was produced.

I tooled around the net and discovered that this was a known issue with the Sony TV. Conventional wisdom said to unplug power and unplug the HDMI cables. I did this, reconnected; and lo & behold, got sound from the cable box.

I put an HD disc into the A20 and no sound. So I put an SD disc into the A20 and got sound.

The Sony issue noted that HDMI_4 was the most common problem and there was a firmware upgrade. So I upgraded the Sony firmware and moved the A20 to HDMI_3.

I fired up the A20 and put in an HD disc - no sound. SD disc, sound was fine.

Digital Out SPDIF is set to PCM. Digital Out HDMI is set to AUTO.

The HD disc menu (Planet Earth) did not seem to have a choice to turn on 5.1; so I guessing it's it is not how the disc menu is set up.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Welcome to the forum! :hithere:

Try setting the HDMI output to PCM and choose the downmix to 2-channel setting as well. Setting the optical output will not help since you do not have that connected.

Hope this helps!

Welcome to the forum! :hithere:

Try setting the HDMI output to PCM and choose the downmix to 2-channel setting as well. Setting the optical output will not help since you do not have that connected.

Hope this helps!

I tried this when I got home and no joy. I then updated the firmware on the A20 from v3.0 to v4.0 - still no joy.

Thanks for the suggestions, I guess a call to Toshiba is next.

Try unplugging the player for an hour and see if that resets it for you.

Good luck!

Try unplugging the player for an hour and see if that resets it for you.

Good luck!

No joy, but thanks again.

Try another HDMI input on the display and if still no joy, try just hooking up the Left/Right analog outputs to the corresponding analog inputs for one particular HDMI input that most displays allow. You will have to check your manual for which HDMI input this is, but most have it for when the source is only DVI which has no sound capability.

Try another HDMI input on the display and if still no joy, try just hooking up the Left/Right analog outputs to the corresponding analog inputs for one particular HDMI input that most displays allow. You will have to check your manual for which HDMI input this is, but most have it for when the source is only DVI which has no sound capability.

Thanks, I will try that when I get back in town.

My other though is to bring the Denon AVR from the other room into the bedroom and see if I can get sound to the display from that. If I do then I know it's the display and not the player.

Thanks, I will try that when I get back in town.

My other though is to bring the Denon AVR from the other room into the bedroom and see if I can get sound to the display from that. If I do then I know it's the display and not the player.

If it turns out to be a player defect (which it could be, because I bought a defective A20 where there is no sound no matter what you try), then maybe you could buy a non-functional player on ebay that has a defective drive (a common drive failure is not reading HD DVD but only DVD), and swap your good drive out with it. Swapping drives is easy and it's just taking out 5 screws and two ribbon cables. You could probably win a non-functional player really cheap and even working players can be bought for under $50 shipped. It's just a thought (of course, there's some risk involved buying used players on ebay, especially non-functional ones. It could be that the sound doesn't work as well).

Try another HDMI input on the display and if still no joy, try just hooking up the Left/Right analog outputs to the corresponding analog inputs for one particular HDMI input that most displays allow. You will have to check your manual for which HDMI input this is, but most have it for when the source is only DVI which has no sound capability.

Houston, we have sound!

I spend almost an hour on the phone with Toshiba yesterday; running through all of the same stuff I've tried and what's been suggested above. They told me to send it in and they'd send me a refurb for $115.

I thought that heck, I'd just go ahead and get the Sony soundbar as that has the optical input that I knew worked. But I though about one last thing the Toshiba rep mentioned and thought I'd try that first.

So, I take the HDMI cable that runs from the HD to the TV and removed it. (Like I've done 20 times before!) But this time, I swapped ends like the guy said to do and voilà! Sound.

Who'd thought? And why!?!

Thanks to all.

Houston, we have sound!

I spend almost an hour on the phone with Toshiba yesterday; running through all of the same stuff I've tried and what's been suggested above. They told me to send it in and they'd send me a refurb for $115.

I thought that heck, I'd just go ahead and get the Sony soundbar as that has the optical input that I knew worked. But I though about one last thing the Toshiba rep mentioned and thought I'd try that first.

So, I take the HDMI cable that runs from the HD to the TV and removed it. (Like I've done 20 times before!) But this time, I swapped ends like the guy said to do and voilà! Sound.

Who'd thought? And why!?!

Thanks to all.

Glad you found the solution, but since the HDMI cables are 2-way cables this should not matter except that possibly the connection mated better the opposite way.

Strange indeed, but I am glad you solved the issue. :yippee:

Houston, we have sound!

I spend almost an hour on the phone with Toshiba yesterday; running through all of the same stuff I've tried and what's been suggested above. They told me to send it in and they'd send me a refurb for $115.

I thought that heck, I'd just go ahead and get the Sony soundbar as that has the optical input that I knew worked. But I though about one last thing the Toshiba rep mentioned and thought I'd try that first.

So, I take the HDMI cable that runs from the HD to the TV and removed it. (Like I've done 20 times before!) But this time, I swapped ends like the guy said to do and voilà! Sound.

Who'd thought? And why!?!

Thanks to all.

Strange indeed. Glad to hear it worked for you.

I will have to remember this one for people to try in the future as part of the troubleshooting process. :D

I think it may be a faulty connection possibly on one end also.

I will have to remember this one for people to try in the future as part of the troubleshooting process. :D

I think it may be a faulty connection possibly on one end also.

Thanks again, I sincerely appreciate your assistance.

I have seen this strange phenomena happen before with the HDMI end reversal. No idea how or why this works.

On a sidenote, i TOO, had a similar problem happen but with optical to my receiver. All of a sudden I got sound with SD disks on my A20 but NOTHING with HD disks. I went insane trying to figure this out. I tried a different optical input on my receiver and all was fine. I still have no idea why the original optical IN stopped working for HDDVD sound only.


Ahh well, doesnt matter i guess.

I have seen this strange phenomena happen before with the HDMI end reversal. No idea how or why this works.

On a sidenote, i TOO, had a similar problem happen but with optical to my receiver. All of a sudden I got sound with SD disks on my A20 but NOTHING with HD disks. I went insane trying to figure this out. I tried a different optical input on my receiver and all was fine. I still have no idea why the original optical IN stopped working for HDDVD sound only.


Ahh well, doesnt matter i guess.

It sounds like that original optical input on the receiver has died. Have you tried hooking a different device up to that original optical input to see if it works?

It could also be that someone played with the receiver menus and that original optical input was redirected/mapped to work in a different mode (i.e. instead of being assigned to DVD, it could be assigned to CD now, etc). You could check that out as a possibility too.

Hope this helps!

Hey PFC, yea, I just swapped my optical cords to the receiver . I put the cable box into the one that didnt work for the HDDVD player. That worked fine . It was ONLY HD-DVD's that didnt work in that optical input.. standard disks played audio fine. Very VERY strange.