Before I stick my foot in my mouth

[JJMP50]

A friend of mine has recently purchased an entry level system consisting of a Pioneer 520, Boston Acoustics CS26 bookshelves with matching center (no rears or sub at this time) and a blueray player brand unknown at this time. He can't seem to get it running via the receiver. He's using HDMI from all sources into the receiver and HDMI to his flatscreen. I asked him if he did assignments and he told me the manual indicated that there were factory preset assignments. I'm going over sometime this week to check it out. I recommended this system so I feel an obligation to get it right and I'm sure nothing is malfunctioning (he can get test signals from the receiver to speakers.) I'm pretty sure it's an assignment thing, but maybe an HDMI issue. The pioneer supports HDMI 1.4 so I'm assuming it passes both video and audio.

 

[Pyrrho]

A friend of mine has recently purchased an entry level system consisting of a Pioneer 520, Boston Acoustics CS26 bookshelves with matching center (no rears or sub at this time) and a blueray player brand unknown at this time. He can't seem to get it running via the receiver. He's using HDMI from all sources into the receiver and HDMI to his flatscreen. I asked him if he did assignments and he told me the manual indicated that there were factory preset assignments. I'm going over sometime this week to check it out. I recommended this system so I feel an obligation to get it right and I'm sure nothing is malfunctioning (he can get test signals from the receiver to speakers.) I'm pretty sure it's an assignment thing, but maybe an HDMI issue. The pioneer supports HDMI 1.4 so I'm assuming it passes both video and audio.

Yes, the Pioneer VSX-520-K accepts audio via HDMI:

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/HomeEntertainment/AV-Receivers/PioneerReceivers/ci.VSX-520-K.Kuro

If it is a question of just the BD player not giving him sound, it could be a setting in the BD player. Of course, there are many settings that can be wrong to give him no sound (either in the player or the receiver), so spending some quality time with the manuals for everything may be useful.

 

[gmichael]

Sounds like settings to me too. Either on the BR player, the receiver, or both.
Check connections too. In/out can be confusing.

 

[jayg84]

yeah i bet its the settings in the bluray player, figure it would be able to set that up itself but it may not have that feature.

 

[j_garcia]

Audio may not be set to HDMI by default, though usually when you fire up a newer player, it has a "quick start" setup that asks you if you want audio and video via HDMI. If those questions are answered wrong, you simply go into the menus and set them correctly.

 

[JJMP50]

I'm going over today to look into this problem. One other question that I hope someone can answer....Does the Comcast cable box HDMI pass audio? I use Fios and when I had Comcast I didn't use HDMI. I think I'll bring a digital cable over to cover bases.

 

[bmurphy2121]

To the answer to your question about Comcast offering HDMI, yes they do I have Comcast and they do offer HDMI I've had them for a couple years now. So if he has Comcast he might want to get a DVR with HDMI.

 

[JJMP50]

OK...it's fixed but with problems

Went over to my friend's apartment yesterday. I had his main problem fix in under 2 seconds. I turned up the volume. Yes, the volume was too low and that was why he couldn't hear anything.

Now, after figuring that out and Comcast was working just fine via HDMI, I reconnected his BR player via HDMI through the the receiver. This is where I ran into problems, new ones for him. The audio worked just fine, but the video signal would not remain intact. It constantly would start playing then search for signal and back an forth. Sounded like some of the hand shake issues I read about. He had 2 HDMI cables and one was worse that the other, but neither got the job done. To get around this, I simply went directly to his TV with HDMI and ran audio via an optic cable (his player did not have a coax digital out). I have to say that the Pioneer 520 manual is one of the poorest written manuals I've read. Maybe because it's an entry level receiver but it seemed to only make sense once you figured it out by yourself.