HD satellite receiver, No AC3 decoding.

[winston1]

I recently bought a low cost HD satellite receiver:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HD-DVB-S2...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

It all works except there is no sound on HD channels with AC3 audio (only), such as BBC News HD.

The spec in the listing says:

Audio Decoder:
MPEG-1 layer I/II, PCM down mix, IEC958 SPDIF, Dolby 5.1 channel, Dolby down mix 2 channel, Dolby Prologic2 for options

I believe this should decode AC3 (Dolby Digital).

Interestingly the spec in the users manual is different:

MPEG-1 Layer I and II, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AAC.

So audio experts out there should this decode AC3 or not?

 

[ironsidebod]

Does it have an output option for the audio? We've got a box that when set to multi channel produces silence on the TV as it only supports stereo. Once changed it works fine. I suppose it might have a separate down mix setting too?

 

[winston1]

Does it have an output option for the audio? We've got a box that when set to multi channel produces silence on the TV as it only supports stereo. Once changed it works fine. I suppose it might have a separate down mix setting too?

Not that I can find. The audio button on the remote changes the audio tracks, if there is more than one, but if there is only one AC3 there is no sound.

 

[Lucid]

The bottom of the listing it has wording to the effect of 'optional licences for DD'.

The listing itself just appears to be a jumbled list of key words, and the cynic in me says this is a cheap Chinese receiver so all bets are off.

I had a look at the the audio streams from a Sky+HD receiver. If set to bitstream (Dolby, in Sky lingo) then BBC News HD appears as DD 2.0 and I get sound via HDMI either via the amp or on the TV speakers if the amp is off. Switching the Sky box audio to 'Normal' gives PCM 2.0

If DVB-S/S2 works the same as DVB-T/T2 then the audio stream being received isn't PCM or DD, so there's no "decoding of DD " as such. The box decodes whatever audio format the satellite stream uses within the MPEG-II container (MP2?) and then generates either DD or PCM at the output. It's then a question of the downstream device (TV, amp, sound bar etc) to deal with that audio format.

Two questions arise then.

1) Is there some menu setting in the satellite receiver other than the soundtrack switch that sets the audio format at the HDMI output?

2) Do you know for sure that your TV can deal with Dolby Digital as a raw data stream (bitstream) signal. If you have a DVD player with HDMI out, or a Blu-ray player, then you can test how the TV responds to a bitstream audio signal. Just make sure to turn the speaker volume all the way down first though as the raw data stream isn't kind to the speakers in devices that can't decode the bitstream signal.


Let us know how you get on

 

[winston1]

Found it. Deep in the menus there is an audio out option LPCM out or BS out. Changing to BS out gives me the sound on AC3 audio.

Thanks for your help.