No voices during some HDTV shows

[mbowling]

I know I'm a little late to the party, but last night I was experimenting with viewing HDTV using my HVR-2250 via clear QAM from the cable company. In the past I had been using the cable company converter boxes and recording SD.

On some HD shows everything looked and sounded normal. On other HD shows like "Human Target" the video looked good but the audio was not right. I could hear the music and other sounds, like people walking, but the voices were missing. This occurred on my SageTV PC client with the audio going through an Onkyo receiver. On the SageTV server I could hear the voices through the regular PC speakers. I played with the settings on the Onkyo receiver but could not hear the voices. It seems like the surround sound center channel was not working. I listened to the center speaker and I could hear music but no voices. Is this a problem with the configuration of my receiver or something else? Thank you.

[MitchSchaft]

Are you using AC3filter to send the digital sound signal to your receiver? Sounds like a decoder/codec issue to me.

[mbowling]

I changed the "MPEG2 Audio Decoder Filter" from Default to AC3Filter. I'll test it again tonight. Thank you.

[mbowling]

I tried watching the HD Human Target again tonight on the SageTV PC client. There were no voices using the AC3Filter. I also tried all of the other filters and none worked. There was music and background sounds but no voices. When I switch to the SD channel I can hear the voices.

I was able to hear the voices when watching the HD show on the SageTV server through the regular PC speakers.

How can I get the misses voices when watching an HDTV show on the PC client?

[Striker:WG]

How many speakers do you actually have setup?

It sounds like you are trying to run 5.1 sound out through 2 speakers. The SD channels will all be in Stereo so 2 speakers will sound perfect whereas HD will have some shows encoded in 5.1, if your not properly downmixing that to 2 channels before sending to 2 speakers you'll loose a bunch of audio.

-Striker-

[mbowling]

I do have 5 speakers connected to an Onkyo surround sound receiver. When I play a DVD the word "Digital" is displayed on the receiver and the surround sound sounds normal. However, when the HDTV show plays without voices the word "Digital" is not displayed. It's like the receiver does not recognize the show as 5.1 sound.

Do all newer PC sound cards deliver 5.1 sound? The computer is one year old. Do I need a special cable from the PC to the receiver?

[MitchSchaft]

You have to set up AC3filter to output digital in it's settings.

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...57&postcount=8

Check out the screenshots attached to that post on how to set it up. AC3filter is in the SageTV main directory. Browse there and open up it's settings.

[Striker:WG]

Originally Posted by mbowling

I do have 5 speakers connected to an Onkyo surround sound receiver. When I play a DVD the word "Digital" is displayed on the receiver and the surround sound sounds normal. However, when the HDTV show plays without voices the word "Digital" is not displayed. It's like the receiver does not recognize the show as 5.1 sound.

Do all newer PC sound cards deliver 5.1 sound? The computer is one year old. Do I need a special cable from the PC to the receiver?

What kind of cable are you currently using?

To send 5.1 sound to your receiver you will need to do one of 3 things:

1. Connect 3 analog cables, one for FR/FL, one for RR/RL, and one for Center/Sub
2. Connect an optical spdif cable
3. Connect a digital coax spdif cable

You say that when you are playing a DVD it says "Digital" on your amp. Are you playing the DVD from your PC or from a seperate DVD player?

It sounds like you have your PC configured to send 5.1 sound but you only have a single analog cable connected so only the FL/FR channels are actually making it to the amp.

-Striker-

[mbowling]

I am happy to report that I can now hear all audio channels through my Onkyo amp from HDTV shows with 5.1 sound. Mitch and Striker were a great help in pointing me in the right direction with the comments below.

I selected and configured the AC3Filter. Then realized from Striker's comments realized that I didn't have the proper cables connecting the SageTV client PC to the amp. I only had a single analog cable running from the PC to the amp. I didn't have digital output on the sound card so I used Striker's suggestion and ran three analog cables from the PC to the amp. Now I know what all those output jacks are used for on the sound card. The proper PC to amp connection required three mini-jack to RCA adapters/cables connected to the DVD input on the amp. The DVD input was the only place available on the amp to connect front, side and center RCA audio inputs. I was surprised that after doing this there was still no voices from HDTV shows with 5.1 sound. By trial and error and pushing lots of buttons on the amp I realized that the Audio Selector on the amp had to be changed from "Auto" to "Multi-Channel".

So in a nutshell, the solution was to use the AC3Filter, the proper cables from the PC to the amp, and configuring the amp to receive Multi-Channel audio from the analog inputs.

Thanks very much for your help!

Originally Posted by MitchSchaft

Are you using AC3filter to send the digital sound signal to your receiver? Sounds like a decoder/codec issue to me.

Originally Posted by Striker:WG

What kind of cable are you currently using?

To send 5.1 sound to your receiver you will need to do one of 3 things:

1. Connect 3 analog cables, one for FR/FL, one for RR/RL, and one for Center/Sub
2. Connect an optical spdif cable
3. Connect a digital coax spdif cable

You say that when you are playing a DVD it says "Digital" on your amp. Are you playing the DVD from your PC or from a seperate DVD player?

It sounds like you have your PC configured to send 5.1 sound but you only have a single analog cable connected so only the FL/FR channels are actually making it to the amp.

For others who may be wondering what all those sound card jacks are used for, the sound_card_jacks.jpg attachment really helped me understand the connections.