Boost audio coming from STB RCA output?

[wirecreative]

I have a Motorola dct3416 STB/DVR from Comcast and I hooked it up to the S-video+red&white RCA inputs on one of my Sage PC's HVR-1800s. For some reason, the audio levels coming out the STB are really low.

When I bypass the Sage PC and watch straight from the STB, the audio levels are actually on the loud side (HDMI to my TV), and I have perfect audio coming out of Sage from either of my analog or QAM tuners (RCA jacks to my TV).

It's only with the combination of STB through the RCA audio connection to Sage that the audio is terrible. to get it lous enough to compare to the other audio levels results in a loud hiss and hum.

I've flipped through the audio setup options on the STB, but all of the audio compressing and normalizing features are turned off. My STB remote adjust the volume on the TV, not the box.

Anyone know of something I can do to get better sound from this connection, or is it just what it is?

Thanks.

[steven017]

Hi wirecreative,

Have you made sure that your input levels are not dialed down in the Window's audio properties? Having them dialed down low would result in the problem you are referring to. Turning the audio way up is definitely not the solution to your problem.

You can also check any other configuration panels/utilities that you have installed that control audio devices. For example, you may have a configuration utility for your sound card that can control your audio devices. Also, some codecs and packs have their own control panels. Check them to see if they are somehow interfering with your audio input.

That's where I would start.

Best of luck,

Steve

[wirecreative]

Thanks. I poked around the different audio control panels, but nothing worked.

Then I went to open up WinTV to see if that offered adjustments of the Hauppage card audio properties. Lo and behold, WinTV wasn't installed, and trying to install the latest version failed.

I removed and reinstalled the HVR drivers and software and with no further tweaking the audio levels of those cards' RCA inputs were back up to par with the other audio levels in the system.

There's a bit of background buzzing through the RCA connection, which I'm not crazy about, but I may have a modulator around here that can eliminate that.

UPDATE: I fixed this, finally. MY earlier software tweak had only really boosted the audio levels after they came from the STB creating a buzz that became more and more bothersome.

I fiddled instead with the Motorola STB's audio settings and found that, counter-intuitively, turning on audio compression to "Heavy" greatly improved the sound levels and quality coming out of the box. Also, selecting "TV Speakers" as my speaker type -- even though I'm running HDMI out to a DTS amp -- produced the same positive result.

So if any one else is puzzling over how to get better RCA audio output from a Motorola STB, go into the audio setup and set the options to the opposite of what you think you want.