Dolby Digital to PCM stereo

[Pinco Pallino]

Hi, I am Pinco Pallino, an audio oldtimer but new to this forum.

A friend of mine is viewing almost exclusively opera DVDs. He's got an entirely digital system consisting of DVD player, Behringer DEQ2496 digital stereo equalizer, Panasonic SAXR70 digital receiver, Magnepan speakers.

Sound is excellent. However, the Behringer cannot lock onto the Dolby Digital DVD (digital) data stream because it does not have the AC3/PCM conversion chip (which the Panny receiver has).

In order to listen to his opera DVDs my friend therefore either has to skip the (excellent) Behringer and go straight from the analog stereo outs of his DVD player to the analog stereo ins of the Panny, losing a lot of sound quality.
Or, alternatively, he can go from the player's analog outs to the analog ins of the Behringer. Again, sound is compromised because the Behringer will reconvert the analog signal to digital, process it, pass it digitally to the Panny, and the Panny will at the output stage again convert it to analog.

Does anyone in this lofty forum know any hardware that would convert the AC3 output of the player to PCM digestible for the Behringer? My friend is not interested in copying DVD soundtracks (he has neither a PC, nor any burner),
he just wants to listen.

Thanks in advance,

Pinco

 

[MACCA350]

In the DVD player setup there should be an option to output as PCM or NORMAL(BITSTREAM), just select PCM and the player will output Dolby digital and DTS as 2 channel PCM (the Denon 2200 will output both as 2 channels PCM(48 kHz / 16 bit) I'm believe this is a standard for most DVD players.

cheers

 

[Pinco Pallino]

DVD to PCM

I tried this with 2 DVD players, an old Sony and a new cheap one, and in both instances it didn't work. Perhaps I should follow your advice and try again with an upmarket model. Thanks!

 

[j_garcia]

I don't see how it couldn't work, this feature is available on ALL DVD players. As mentioned though, the resulting output will be stereo only because it will be downmixed, so this probably isn't going to work anyway.

 

[MDS]

The 'PCM' setting on a dvd player (under DD/DTS settings) DOES NOT mean it should output PCM - it means it should decode and downmix DD/DTS to PCM, then D/A the result and send the signal out the analog jacks. It's confusing and not explained very well by the dvd player manuals I've seen, but that is how it works.

 

[MACCA350]

MDS wrote:

The 'PCM' setting on a dvd player (under DD/DTS settings) DOES NOT mean it should output PCM - it means it should decode and downmix DD/DTS to PCM, then D/A the result and send the signal out the analog jacks. It's confusing and not explained very well by the dvd player manuals I've seen, but that is how it works.

Sorry MDS, but this setting allows DTS and DD to be downconverted to 2 channel stereo PCM and output over a digital connection(optic/coax) as well as analog, at least on my Denon 2200 it does.

cheers

 

[MDS]

I stand corrected.

I just tested mine (Onkyo) and the receiver does show 'fs: 48 kHz PCM' if I set DD to PCM instead of BITSTREAM in the dvd player menu. This particular player has an additional setting labeled 'LPCM' with settings of 'OFF' (analog) and 'PCM'. I thought I had tested it before and the LPCM setting controlled whether it uses the analog or digital outs, but it doesn't. It only affects analog vs digital when the input signal is PCM (such as CD).

I have been enlightened. I won't make that mistake again.

 

[MACCA350]

Attached is how the 2 settings effect the output signal on the 2200. If you set the NORMAL/PCM to PCM and LPCM to ON(or in your case PCM). This should allow you to output DVD-A as a downconverted 2 channel PCM signal over optical/coax digital connection(in the case of the 2200 its 2 channel 44.1 kHz / 16 bit PCM or 48 kHz / 16 bit PCM depending on the resolution of the recording)

cheers

 

[Pinco Pallino]

Dolby Digital to PCM

Thank all of you very much for this effort at clarifying a rather muddy issue.
I shall check out the Denon line of DVD players and see if I can find one that has the features of the 2200 without costing a fortune. You would perhaps agree with me that the quality of sound taken from the digital out is always identical, no matter whether you buy a cheapo or a >$1000 model.

Pinco