Onkyo HT-S5500 / HT-R591 - no sound for DTS movies

[Kibwa]

Hi guys,
this is my first post as I just discovered and registered to this forum. I hope you guys can help. Hopefully is the right section to post this.

I recently bought an Onkyo HT-S5500 (HT-R591) AV Receiver and an Android TV box and I noticed there is no sound coming out from movies with DTS sound. I spent 3-4 hours easily trying different settings but nothing so far.

From the Android box I have an HMI cable going into TV for image and one optical audio cable going into the AV receiver. I have sound on all non DTS movies but none on DTS.

From the AV receiver I only have one exit HDMI cable to TV to be able to see the AV receiver setup.

From my LG TV (plasma, 6-7 years old) I have one optical cable going to the AV receiver so I can have the sound from TV playing on the AV receiver since there is no other sound out connection, no HDMI or anything else except the optical connection.

I have sound from the TV and from the Android box (non DTS) on the AV receiver. Movies with DTS on the Android box have no sound.

There is no HDMI passthrough from the AV receiver to TV, the image quality is pretty bad so I couldn't do Android box -> AV receiver -> TV through HDMI.

What I think it happens is that the HDMI from the Android carries video and audio to TV and the TV exits analog back to the AV receiver, therefore no sound. It's a pretty old 50' LG plasma TV and I read that a lot of these TVs are not outputting digital sound.

Is there any way to tell the Android box to carry video only through the HDMI and the sound through the optical cable to the AV receiver?

Or is there any other way to solve this?

I hope the link to my Onkyo AV receiver manual won't be stripped out but if it does, you can just google the model and it's in the first results: http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/ht-s5500_manual_e.pdf

Please help, not sure what else to try. Thank you!

 

[TLS Guy]

Hi guys,
this is my first post as I just discovered and registered to this forum. I hope you guys can help. Hopefully is the right section to post this.

I recently bought an Onkyo HT-S5500 (HT-R591) AV Receiver and an Android TV box and I noticed there is no sound coming out from movies with DTS sound. I spent 3-4 hours easily trying different settings but nothing so far.

From the Android box I have an HMI cable going into TV for image and one optical audio cable going into the AV receiver. I have sound on all non DTS movies but none on DTS.

From the AV receiver I only have one exit HDMI cable to TV to be able to see the AV receiver setup.

From my LG TV (plasma, 6-7 years old) I have one optical cable going to the AV receiver so I can have the sound from TV playing on the AV receiver since there is no other sound out connection, no HDMI or anything else except the optical connection.

I have sound from the TV and from the Android box (non DTS) on the AV receiver. Movies with DTS on the Android box have no sound.

There is no HDMI passthrough from the AV receiver to TV, the image quality is pretty bad so I couldn't do Android box -> AV receiver -> TV through HDMI.

What I think it happens is that the HDMI from the Android carries video and audio to TV and the TV exits analog back to the AV receiver, therefore no sound. It's a pretty old 50' LG plasma TV and I read that a lot of these TVs are not outputting digital sound.

Is there any way to tell the Android box to carry video only through the HDMI and the sound through the optical cable to the AV receiver?

Or is there any other way to solve this?

I hope the link to my Onkyo AV receiver manual won't be stripped out but if it does, you can just google the model and it's in the first results: http://www.intl.onkyo.com/downloads/manuals/pdf/ht-s5500_manual_e.pdf

Please help, not sure what else to try. Thank you!

I suspect your TV does not have the DTS codec. It is always best to send the peripherals to the receiver and TV to receiver. Getting audio back out from a receiver just leads to headaches and should be avoided.

You can not split the video from the audio in HDMI the way you want.

The audio should not be bad from the Android box. If it is then ditch it and get a better streaming device.

 

[Kibwa]

It is always best to send the peripherals to the receiver and TV to receiver. Getting audio back out from a receiver just leads to headaches and should be avoided.

It's exactly what I did, if I understand you correctly. The Android box and the TV send the sound into the receiver. However, like I said, when I output the video through the receiver as well, using the HDMI, the video quality decreases hugely so I have no other way than connecting the Android box HDMI directly to TV. I guess my receiver has no free passthrough so the video signal gets filtered outputting low quality.

 

[TLS Guy]

It's exactly what I did, if I understand you correctly. The Android box and the TV send the sound into the receiver. However, like I said, when I output the video through the receiver as well, using the HDMI, the video quality decreases hugely so I have no other way than connecting the Android box HDMI directly to TV. I guess my receiver has no free passthrough so the video signal gets filtered outputting low quality.

Well what happens if you use another video source to the receiver, like a BD player? I suspect that Android box needs deep sixing to the recycling center.

 

[Kibwa]

I found this in the receiver manual:

"Only DTS (but not DTS-HD) format input signals will be heard. If the input signal is not DTS, the dts indicator will flash and there will be no sound"

I'm just guessing those movies I try to play have DTS-HD sound. So it may be after all, my receiver not being capable of reproducing DTS-HD sound. Or it may be some weird encoding.

 

[TLS Guy]

I found this in the receiver manual:

"Only DTS (but not DTS-HD) format input signals will be heard. If the input signal is not DTS, the dts indicator will flash and there will be no sound"

I'm just guessing those movies I try to play have DTS-HD sound. So it may be after all, my receiver not being capable of reproducing DTS-HD sound. Or it may be some weird encoding.

That is not correct. DTS is the core. DTS HD is wrapped around the core, so both are passed together as one stream. Only HDMI can pass the DTS HD part of the codec. However whenever there is DTS HD, DTS is always with it. This is the way it should work unless there is something totally rogue with your Onkyo.

I want to know what happens if you play a DTS BD disc through the Onkyo.

 

[Kibwa]

I don't know what DTS BD is. I googled but is not clear, just another form of encoding? Sorry, noobie

 

[TLS Guy]

I don't know what DTS BD is. I googled but is not clear, just another form of encoding? Sorry, noobie

I mean a DTS encoded Blu-Ray disc form a player.

 

[Kibwa]

Thought is something with the Blu-ray. I have one but is not even connected, not to say I may not have a DTS one. Will check and let you know.

 

[TLS Guy]

Thought is something with the Blu-ray. I have one but is not even connected, not to say I may not have a DTS one. Will check and let you know.

I have never heard of a BD player that can not play a DTS encoded disc.

You need to connect this to the Onkyo so we can make sure your Onkyo can decode it. Send the stream from the BD player as Bitstream, not PCM so we can see what your Onkyo can decode.

 

[Kibwa]

I connected the BR player and played a DTS-HD movie and the sound worked though the receiver didn't show the red DTS logo. I'm thinking maybe the receiver doesn't recognize the audio format and it returns it as analog since I connected the player directly to the TV with an HDMI cable. The BR player doesn't have optical output, only coaxial and I don't have a cable to test. Still, it works which is what it matters.

I have the receiver setup to Optical / Fixed Mode OFF so it's not fixed on PCM or DTS.

Now I'm confused why the Android box DTS movies won't work.

Edit: The DTS red logo appeared on the receiver screen once I selected Neo 6.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Did you set the BD player to pcm, or bitstream? PCM is decoded in the player, and bitstream is decoded by the avr. That's why TLSguy suggested set the player to bitstream. If it's set to pcm, the onkyo display will show "multichannel". If it's set to bitstream, the onkyo display will show what format it's decoding. If in bitstream, the display shows dts-hdma then the avr is properly decoding.

 

[Kibwa]

Oh I see what you guys are saying, I will try that later today. I only looked into the receiver settings.

 

[TLS Guy]

Oh I see what you guys are saying, I will try that later today. I only looked into the receiver settings.

What I want you to do, is to connect the BD player to your Onkyo with a HDMI cable.

I want you to set the BD player to output Bitstream. This is crucial.

The HDMI out on the Onkyo needs to be set to OFF. If not you will get TV sound, but no sound from the speakers connected to the Onkyo.

You need to make sure the TV resolution matches the output resolution of the Onkyo receiver, otherwise you will have either no picture or a bad one.

Now I want to know how good the picture is on your TV and if can you hear audio from your speakers.

What you have done previously tells me absolutely NOTHING about this problem.

 

[Kibwa]

I set up the BR player HDMI and Digital Output both to Primary Passthrough. I connected the BR player to the TV via HDMI. Outputs DST HD in Onkyo. I also tried to connect the player HDMI to the receiver but I cannot see the player menu on TV, must be some setting. What now?