Sound From 52xbr4

[ttibsen]

Motorola PVR DCT 6416
Sony AV Receiver 3300ES
Sony TV 52XBR4

I just unpacked the above boxes and hooked up the components as follows -

cable outlet in wall to PVR
PVR to receiver via HDMI cable
receiver to TV via HDMI cable

A couple of questions aside from the obvious one that came to mind when I looked at the manuals - do you need a degree in electrical engineering to understand all this stuff? OK now for my more practical question

1. with the above setup, obviously the receiver has to be turned on for the TV to display a picture. The sound comes through the 5.1 speakers powered by the receiver which is fine. But when I turned the receiver volume down to Zero and tried to get sound out of the TV's speakers, nothing happened. You could see the Volume progress bar at the bottom of the screen moving to the right - indicating a rising volume - but no sound was coming through the TV's speakers. How can I get the sound through the TV's speakers when I set the receiver's volume to zero?

Thanks

John

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, John!

My guess is that the Sony needs to be set up to both process the audio over HDMI and to pass it out through the HDMI output (if it can do both...some receivers can't). I'm downloading your owner's manual now and will let you know what I find.

You could also directly connect an audio output from the PVR to the TV, assuming it can output audio over two different connections.

Let me look at the receiver manual first, though.

 

[Adam]

Alright. In the owner's manual, check out the section on "Settings for HDMI (HDMI menu)" (that's on page 57 if I downloaded the same version of the manual that you have).

Under the "HDMI Audio" section, you'd want to set the audio up as "TV + AMP", meaning that the audio will be processed by the receiver to output through it's speakers, plus it will pass the audio out to the TV.

If that doesn't work for you, we'll look further.

 

[ttibsen]

That was it Adam - thanks so much for your expert input. It took a bit of navigating through the GUI choices but in the end there it was - TV + AMP just like you said. It wasn't a really big deal but when you have laid out this many shekels for your entertainment system, you expect to have a choice in the audio coming through the 5.1 system or the TV (when somewhat quieter listening is called for).

Thanks

John

 

[jostenmeat]

If Adam got a dollar for every time he read a manual for someone else...

 

[Adam]

John - that's excellent! I'm very happy that it's working for you now.

If Adam got a dollar for every time he read a manual for someone else...

I could peruse the dollar menu at McDonald's without worries.

I'm happy to do it, though. A number of us here know what to look for in those manuals, which isn't true for a lot of people. If they can come here and get a quick answer - that's fantastic in my book!

 

[ttibsen]

Hey JostenMeat

I don't want to get off on the wrong foot in this Forum by being accused of being too lazy to look at the manual. I did in fact look and it is a case of exactly what Adam said

<< A number of us here know what to look for in those manuals, which isn't true for a lot of people. >>

I would never have come to the right approach for my dilemma from reading the manuals. I consider myself fairly bright but really, the manuals may as well be in some foreign language - they seem that complex. So I'm very grateful for Adam's help.

John

 

[Adam]

John - I really don't think that he was poking fun at you. I'm known around here for looking up manuals and stepping through them with people, so he was just making a joke about that.

 

[jostenmeat]

Hey ttibsen.

I understand. That's why I clicked the thanks buttons on your behalf.

I never called you lazy. If I wanted to belittle you, I believe I could do a much better job.

 

[ttibsen]

OK - OK, I will endeavor to be a bit less sensitive. You are right in the technical sense - the stuff is all there in the manuals but the manuals read as though they may have been literally translated from Japanese and something has definitely been lost in the translation.
Another non related question that you might be able to answer for me is - yesterday I posted a query to this forum and it never made it to the forum. There was a link in the message and this is the only reason that I can think of for the message NOT being posted. Is it the case here that if a message contains a link, it doesn't get on the board?


Regards
John

 

[jostenmeat]

John, I'm not 100% sure, but I would venture to guess it's because you need at least 5 posts to add links. Now that you have 6 posts, try again?

 

[ttibsen]

That sounds like a reasonable explanation. I'm sure that I will have an opportunity to check that out shortly.

Regards,

John