Sony Blu Ray and Sony Receiver 5.1 Surround

[Kreuzer]

I have a Sony Blu Ray player model BDP-S350 and a Sony Receiver model STR-DE835. The BRP and my digital cable are connected to my Sony TV with HDMI cables for video and both are connected to the receiver with digital optical cables for audio. The receiver has a blue light on it that indicates when 5.1 surround sound is being used. When I watch a movie on HBOHD the sound is amazing, blue light is on the reciever and things are great but when I watch a Blu Ray disc I don't get the light on the receiver and it says "5.1 Dolby not enabled"...what am I doing wrong or does anyone know if Blu Ray discs aren't 5.1 Dolby? Do I need different cables? I'm new to this and would appreciate any help people can offer.

 

[jostenmeat]

I would bet it has to do with settings in the bluray player, firstly. See if there are settings to choose SPDIF/optical for output, and set Dolby/DTS to bitstream.

Some bluray discs might come defaulted as 2.0 PCM, if rarely. If you select something like uncompressed PCM on the disc's audio choices, you might be getting 2.0 PCM there (downmix), but I'm not sure if that is necessarily the case. (Optical can carry only up to 2.0 in uncompressed PCM).

Therefore, to repeat, make sure the player is bitstreaming, and choose the correct codec on the disc.

DTS MA will work just fine, since the "core" bitstream will pass thru the optical.

 

[Jack Hammer]

just to clarify, you are getting a picture, but no sound. Both can be handled similarly,in short, make sure you player is set to output sound over teh cable your using, do the same for video. Next go to your reciever and re-verify the proper input is selected for each. Also, as mentioned above, verify your players setup is set to output multichannel audio.

Let us know what you did and how it worked.

Jack

 

[Kreuzer]

I can't find the option for "Bitstreaming" anywhere in the settings menu? I made some other changes that you suggested and just received a new blu-ray disk in the mail so I'll give it a try. I think it is a settings thing with the BR player somewhere though.

 

[Jack Hammer]

For your player, (sorry, I'm not familiar with that model), try the general setting and look under something like hdmi settings. Also look for audio settings and look for something related to output or output type.

For you receiver, make sure your input is the correct one. This should be under the specific source setup in the menu. Make sure it is set to recieve a signal via hdmi and the correct input# is selected. Check this for both the input sources audio and video.

Let us know specifically what you have verified for the reciever and for the BD player.

Jack

 

[Kreuzer]

Thank you for your advice, you were right, there was a setting on the bluray player to choose Dolby Digital as the audio output. Once I found it and made the change it worked perfectly.

 

[Tsar]

I've got a similar problem...just bought my Blu-Ray player yesterday. None of my Blu-Ray discs are lighting up the magical blue diode on the front of my Sony receiver...

...however, when I inserted my regular plain-Jane DVD of Lord of the Rings, the blue light goes on, so I know it isn't the player itself.

I've got the Blu-Ray hooked up directly to a Toshiba HDTV via an HDMI cable. From the TV to the receiver, I have an optical audio cable. This is the same setup I have with the DirecTV...I run an HDMI cable to the TV, and I still get the blue light whenever I am on an HD channel.

SO....what do I do to have my new Dark Knight blu-ray disc "light up the blue?"

 

[Mike JL]

I just got a Sony BDP-S350 last week and had a similar problem initially. Check in Setup under audio settings. There is a parameter to select optical/coax as the primary audio output. If you don't select it, you will get a stereo signal from the player on the optical output.