Yamaha HTR 5940

[Josiah]

I have this receiver and I can't get "DOLBY DIGITAL" to show on the display while playing DVDs. Anyone know what might be up?

[Adam]

Josiah, welcome to the forum!

How do you have your DVD player connected to the receiver?

I have a guess as to what is going on. In your DVD player's set-up menu, make sure that it is set-up to output "bitstream" for Dolby Digital and not "PCM".

[Josiah]

Thanks for the welcome!

connected via HDMI for video to monitor
connected via Optical cable to receiver for audio

I changed it to bitstream (from PCM) and now it tells me

Unsupported audio signal
check your output device


???

[Josiah]

Whoa!! Got it!! I unplugged the optical cable from the DVD player and plugged it back in and VOILA!!

Thanks for the BITSREAM tip!! You rock!

[Josiah]

Unsupported audio signal
check your output device


???

I figured out that the message above is resulting from the HDMI connection between the DVD player and the monitor.

Not sure what to do about that. We go back and forth from my surround system to the built-in sound on the TV (depending on how late it is and who's trying to sleep! :D - I just turn the volume all the way down on the TV when listening through the receiver). So now, if I want to listen through the TV speakers, I have to switch the DVD player from Bitstream back to PCM. Not a HUGE deal but a little clunky. Worse than that, if I stay with the surround system, that message keeps popping up.

Any easy ways to get around this?

[Adam]

Thanks for the BITSREAM tip!! You rock!

Hey, no problem at all. I ran into that when I first got a DVD player back in 1998, and that issue comes up all of the time with my friends. It's strange to me that DVD players wouldn't always output the bitstream over a digital connection by default. Glad that it's working for you...at least when listening through the receiver!

[Adam]

I figured out that the message above is resulting from the HDMI connection between the DVD player and the monitor.

Not sure what to do about that. We go back and forth from my surround system to the built-in sound on the TV (depending on how late it is and who's trying to sleep! :D - I just turn the volume all the way down on the TV when listening through the receiver). So now, if I want to listen through the TV speakers, I have to switch the DVD player from Bitstream back to PCM. Not a HUGE deal but a little clunky. Worse than that, if I stay with the surround system, that message keeps popping up.

Any easy ways to get around this?

I have a couple of suggestion to try out:

1. One of the great things about Dolby Digital (and DTS, I believe) is the ability to control the dynamic range. If you're unfamiliar with that, it's the ability to adjust the difference in volume between loud sounds and soft sounds. Based on the owner's manual, your Yamaha has a "Night:Cinema" setting. That will reduce the dynamic range and let someone hear conversations in movies without having movie explosions wake up others in the house. You can set the amount of range compression to "Min", "Mid", or "Max". You might want to give that a try...maybe you won't need the TV speakers.

2. If you DVD player has analog audio outputs (RCA jacks for left/right), your TV has analog audio inputs, and you can set up your TV to use those analog audio inputs while still using the HMDI video, then you could do that. You'd have to run one other cable between the DVD player and the TV, though.

3. If your TV can be set up to decode a bitstream input over the HDMI cable, you could do that.

Just some things to try out.

Adam