No voices or sound effects through 5.1 ch audio

the4horsemen

Hi everyone, I wonder if anyone could help me with an issue I've got with a new bluray player I have.

The Blu-ray player in question is a Sony BDP-S185. I've set the player up and it has all the latest firmware to my television via HDMI. The player plays Blu-ray Discs flawlessly but the standard audio for each disc which is usually Dolby or DTS 5.1 only plays music and no effects or speech/voices. If I select 2.0 ch sound the voices appear but it is rather flat as a result. The 5.1 ch sound plays no problem when I use an RCA cable but then lose the quality of the image.

I've never seen this problem before and suspect it's to do with my television being unable to decode 5.1 ch sound through dolby or dts via HDMI although I'm a bit of a novice in this area so could be wrong.

if anyone has any ideas what I could be doing wrong please let me know.

Many thanks

BIslander

The HDMI handshake between the TV and the player should force the player to decode and downmix to the same stereo output you get over the analog RCA cables. When you say you've tried a 2.0 setting, is that on the player or the TV? If you set the player's HDMI output to 2 channel PCM, you should get a properly downmixed stereo signal.

the4horsemen

The 2.0 setting is set on the player through the Blu ray disc under audio options. I have some Blu ray discs which only have a 5.1 setting so they are virtually rendered useless under the current setup because There is no voice or sound only music.

rbinck

On page 16 of the manual (http://www.docs.sony.com/release/BDPS185_BX18.pdf) there are two settings I would try. One is the PCM audio out which looks like you need to set the Dolby Digital and the other is the BD audio mixing. I don't know which way the mixing needs to be because it seems confusing, but it does talk about mixing primary and secondary audio.

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the4horsemen

I've tried every combination of audio setting on the player without success. The sound is fine when you select a different audio option on the disc but not all movies I own have this option. Is it possible to play the sound through RCA and the video through HDMI?

It's baffling as to why the sound is fine when outputting through RCA or SCART but nothing when using HDMI unless I select the inferior 2.0 ch sound option on certain discs

BIslander

Something is amiss here. This player lacks a setting to force a stereo output over HDMI, meaning it relies on the HDMI handshake between the two devices to negotiate that setting, a negotiation that is not working in your case.

Perhaps there's a setting on your TV that will tell the player to send stereo instead of multichannel. Or, do you have another TV you could try as a test? Connect the player to it and see if it gets correctly downmixed audio.

You should also try resetting the player. p18 of the manual.

RCA audio and HDMI may work. If not, use component video instead of HDMI. The picture should be just as good.

rbinck - audio mixing refers to secondary audio (menu sound effects and PIP commentary tracks) and should have no bearing on whether the output is stereo or multichannel.

the4horsemen

I have trid the player on another TV and the sound is perfect regardless of what settings I adjust on the player itself. The only audio settings I have on the problem TV is to put into mono or stereo.

The picture using component video is nothing compared to HDMI for some reason so don't think that will be an option.

Baffling

BIslander

It looks like the TV is not sending the right handshake information to the player. If your player had a setting to force a stereo downmix over HDMI, that wouldn't matter. But, as it doesn't, I don't know that there's a solution. Perhaps customer support for the TV can help.

Meanwhile, to be sure we are talking about the same thing, component is three cables (red, green, blue). It should provide a picture about as good as HDMI.

the4horsemen

If the handshake info wasn't working surely there would be no sound at all rather than music and effects but no voice?

There is an option in the menu to output stereo rather than surround but no success.

Looks ill be returning the player

BIslander

Not necessarily. If the TV is not directing the player to downmix to stereo, then the player is probably sending six channels of audio and the TV is only processing two of them.

I didn't see that option in the player's audio settings. If that's a TV audio menu, it may not have anything to do with the sound input, just the output through the TV speakers.

OK, although the fault seems to be with the TV, not the player, which works just fine with another TV. Then again, most non-Sony players have settings to force two channel outputs over HDMI, which would likely fix you up.

the4horsemen

Ok thanks for your help. Player will be going back and I'll stick to DVD

BIslander

Sure thing. But, I hope you'll give another BD player a try since the picture quality is so much better than DVD.