Panasonic DVD Theater System SA-HT920 Hooked up to Panasonic DMP-BD85 - "Error Msg"

[MizNitch]

First off, this is a great site! Tons of useful info. I plan on visiting often.

Here's my problem. I've had a Panasonic DVD home theater sound system (SA- HT920) for about 7 years. It's been an absolutely incredible system. Incredibly reliable, awesome sound, and has survived two toddlers beating it up, sticking food in it, etc. Anyway, I recently purchased a Panasonic blu ray player (DMP-BD85). I'm not too up to date with the apparent 10 different types of audio signals this new blu ray player puts out. All I know is that when my 7yr. old Panny home theater system is hooked up to it via an digital optical cable, I get an "error" code on its display. No audio is output from the home theater system, just the "error" message. It's apparent that my old system can't handle the the audio signals being sent to it .

So, being somewhat of a techie, I've browsed through the blu ray player manual and changed the digital audio output from bitstream to pcm. Doing that actually works, kinda. When changed to pcm, my home theater system will only deliver sound to the front 2 speakers and subwoofer. I'm also delivering audio to my tv via the hdmi cable, so I'm getting the dreaded echo and it sounds horrible with both the home theater system and tv sound going at the same time.

Long story short, here's all I want. I want my home theater system to play 5.1 audio from the DMP-BD85. Is that possible? What other adjustments can I make? Or, do I just need to break down and buy a new surround sound system? I miss my surround sound

Thanks in advance for all your help,

MizNitch, M.Ed.

[MrBoylan]

Well that's odd. The BD85 outputs a standard PCM, Dolby Digital or DTS surround output from its fiberoptic output jack, depending on the soundtrack selected on the disc. The new lossless surround formats (DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD) are only output over HDMI so they shouldn't be throwing an error message. When you set your player to PCM output (in the digital aaudio output settings), it outputs only 2-channel PCM over the fiberoptic output - this is why you're only hearing sound from the front left/right speakers. There are a few things you can do to make things better but this might need some additional exploration.

First, to get rid of the "echo," simply disable the HDMI audio output. This is in the "HDMI Connection" menu (I think that's what it's called). Once HDMI audio output is OFF, the TV speakers will no longer attempt to reproduce sound.

Then you can go into the Audio settings menu and change the "Downmix" from "stereo" to to "surround-encoded." This will encode rear and center channel information into the PCM mix, so you will get surround sound this way (assuming you set you HtiB to "Pro Logic II""mode during playback), but it's not going to be quite as good as discrete 5.1 channel surround.

But to try to get to the bottom of this problem, try to get a hold of at least one Blu-ray that has a DTS-HD soundtrack and one that has Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. Set your player's digital audio output back to "bistream" both for Dolby and for DTS and see which disc gives you the error message. Taking an informed guess, I'm thinking that the DTS-HD disc will work fine, but you'll get the error on the Dolby TrueHD one. If this happens, then it means that your current HTiB includes one of the early Dolby Digital decoders that can't handle a 640 KBPS Dolby Digital signal (which is what you get from the fiberoptic output on the player when watching a movie with a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack). IF this is the case, then I don't think there is a fix for it. But if this is the case, then you can still enjoy 5.1 surround from Blu-rays with DTS-HD soundtracks by switching the digital audio output to "bitstream" for DTS, and you should still get matrixed surround for the Dolby titles if you set Dolby to "PCM" and set Downmix to "surround encoded."

Anyway... try out the above and post your results here so we can get to the bottom of this.

-CB

[MizNitch]

Thanks for the awesome reply. I'll try your suggestions out and let you know what happens.

If it helps any, I also had a Playstation 3 hooked up to the Panny SA- HT920 at one time and I got the same error message when trying to watch blu ray movies.

[MrBoylan]

Thanks for the awesome reply. I'll try your suggestions out and let you know what happens.

If it helps any, I also had a Playstation 3 hooked up to the Panny SA- HT920 at one time and I got the same error message when trying to watch blu ray movies.

Yes that would be consistent. The new lossless codecs are made to be backward compatible. DTS-HD tracks have a DTS "core" component (usually 1500 KBPS) which is delivered from the S/PDIF (fiber or coax) digital outputs. Dolby TrueHD tracks have a Dolby Digital "companion track" which is delivered over the S/PDIF digital outputs. In most cases, this allows a Blu-ray player to play nice with a regular old non-HDMI receiver. But there are some rare cases when the receiver or HTiB system can't handle these high bandwidth versions of Dolby and DTS. On DVD, Dolby Digital was actually limited to 448 KBPS so really Blu-ray is the first time that a consumer format is maxing out the Dolby Digital rate of 640 KBPS, and this causes some early Dolby Digital decoders (which were actually not in spec) to choke.

But if it also chokes on DTS, then that would be very strange indeed. So let us know what happens.

The fact is that to realize the full potential of Blu-ray's lossless codecs (Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD) you really need to be able to pass the full bitstream to your receiver, which requires an HDMI connection. Or you could get an HTiB system with a built-in Blu-ray player which also has the built-in lossless decoding. Frankly, the best performance will come from getting a separate receiver and speakers. It's rare that one company can make a good Blu-ray Player, receiver and speakers. Rarer still that they can do all this well and still meet a low price point.

The suggested workarounds should get you where you can get surround sound from Blu-ray Discs, butan upgrade would definitely give you improved performance.

Good luck!

-Chris

[MizNitch]

Ok, Update - I've got everything swapped over to PCM and changed the downmix from "stereo" to "surround encoded" and also enabled the Pro Logic II mode on my HtiB. Aaand, nothing's changed. It's still only outputting through the front two speakers and subwoofer. No 5.1 still. I've only tried using the Disney 'Up' Blu Ray and it's DTS-HD. I don't own any titles with Dolby TrueHD. I'm thinking I'm stuck...

I actually watched the blu ray movie with just the front 2 speakers and subwoofer working and it's wasn't all that bad... I just miss my surround sound.

[MrBoylan]

Ok, Update - I've got everything swapped over to PCM and changed the downmix from "stereo" to "surround encoded" and also enabled the Pro Logic II mode on my HtiB. Aaand, nothing's changed. It's still only outputting through the front two speakers and subwoofer. No 5.1 still. I've only tried using the Disney 'Up' Blu Ray and it's DTS-HD. I don't own any titles with Dolby TrueHD. I'm thinking I'm stuck...

I actually watched the blu ray movie with just the front 2 speakers and subwoofer working and it's wasn't all that bad... I just miss my surround sound.

Hmmm... I'll see if I can test that with the fiberoptic output to see if any center or rear channel info gets mixed into the PCM output. You did turn HDMI AUDIO OFF, right? Also, did you set "BD-Video Secondary Audio" to OFF? I didn't recommend that before (and actually it shouldn't be necessary), but it can affect the internal decoding of the lossless tracks so it might affect the surround encoding too. Verify that you have HDMI Audio OFF and that you have Secondary Audio set to off (in the Digital Audio output settings). Also, although this is unlikely, make sure you have selected the 5.1 channel track on the disc itself - "UP" has both a 5.1 and a 2-channel track (but I think the 5.1 track is the default).

BTW, does your HTiB have an indicator of some kind when DPL II is engaged? Does it say DPLII on the display when you have DPL II engaged?

As for bitstream not working, I haven't heard of a receiver or HTiB choking on the DTS 1504 KBPS core track before but I guess it's possible. DVDs were allowed to go up to 1504 KBPS for DTS but there were very few DTS DVDs that actually went that high. Most DTS DVDs only went up to 768 KBPS so again this is unlikely something you ever would have seen on DVD.

Also, the fact that the behavior was the same on the PS3 suggests that it is indeed a problem with the HTiB and not the player.

You should try to pick up a Dolby TrueHD Blu-ray and see if setting the Dolby setting to bitstream works. Check out Blu-raystats.com to find some Blu-ray titles with Dolby TrueHD. You can apply an audio filter to your screening to see only titles with Dolby TrueHD.

I'd recommend Batman Begins, Blade Runner, Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds at Radio City, Braveheart, The Dark Knight, The Hangover, I Am Legend... there are a ton of choices. If you can, use our Amazon link to buy one. Here's our link to Amazon's Blu-ray store:

Blu-ray Store on Amazon.com

But do make sure you have HDMI Audio OFF and you have set BD Secondary Audio to OFF and try one more time. MeanwhileI'll hook up an optical jack and se whether I can get any matrixed surround out of "UP."

-CB

[MrBoylan]

It's still only outputting through the front two speakers and subwoofer.

OK, I just tested using UP on the BD85 connected via fiberoptic to a Pioneer receiver. I left "Dolby Digital" set to "bitstream" so the trailers all came through in Dolby Digital 5.1. But I did set DTS to "PCM." So once the main feature came on, with its DTS-HD MA 5.1 track selected, I started getting a standard 2-ch PCM signal (verified as the Pioneer receiver put itself into stereo mode, based on the input signal). This is correct behavior. And when I switched the receiver over to Dolby Pro Logic II mode, the soundstage instantly shifted. The biggest difference was that the dialog of the newscaster in that opening newsreel locked into the center channel. I didn't hear a ton of stuff out of the rears, but when I went back there, I could definitely hear some ambient sounds coming out. I imagine during one of the action scenes it would have gotten a bit raucus back there.

So I'm not sure what's different about your system, but it's definitely working here. I guess it's *possible* that your HTiB can only do Dolby Pro Logic II from an analog source - or it also may be that the PCM output of the player is too high in precision or sampling rate to allow the HTiB to do any surround processing. So there actually is one additional setting you can try which is "PCM Downconversion=ON" (in the audio settings). This will make the PCM output closer to a DVD or CD format and this may be what the HTiB needs in order to do its DPL II processing.

If that doesn't work, then you can also revert to analog and see if this works better. Just connect a pair of audio cables from the main left/right output of the BD85 into the HTiB's analog input and see if it's any different when set to DPL II. This isn't ideal, but it won't be that much of a downgrade from digital since the Panasonic player's DAC and analog state are actually pretty good - probably better than what's built into your HTiB. If this works for you, then next step is try try a Dolby TrueHD disc and see if bitstream works, over the digital connection. If it does, then you should keep "Dolby" set to bitstream and just switch over to the analog inputs when watching a Blu-ray with a DTS soundtrack.

Also, if you want to just give up and you would like some speaker and receiver recommendations, I'd be happy to oblige.

Anyway... good luck and let me know if you make any progress.

-CB

[MizNitch]

Ok, I've got the HDMI audio switched off. Everything has been changed to PCM and I turned the "BD-Video Secondary Audio" to off. Aaaand, it actually works now! The pro-logic II is displayed on my HtiB and I'm getting sound from all 5 speakers now. However, on the HtiB display it's only showing that 2 speakers are lit up and working. It's not a true 5.1, but it's working well enough. It actually sounds just about right, with the ambient sounds you mentioned coming from the rear speakers. The rear speakers kick in really well when the action picks up. It'll do for now, until I get the funds for an upgrade (which I desperately need).

I found a Spiderman 3 blu ray that has True-HD audio. I'll try it out later and post the results. I'm hoping these changes work well for all my blu ray discs and regular dvd's.

Questions: When I do upgrade, would it be better for me to just buy a blu ray HtiB, or to just buy a 7.1 receiver speaker/combo?

Thanks for all the help!

[MrBoylan]

Glad it is working for you. The two speaker indicator light on your HTiB just means that this is what the receiver is receiving. It then extracts the matrixed center and rear channel to give you a flavor of surround. It's not as good as discrete 5.1 but it's something.

In terms of one set of settings for dvd and blu-ray, that may be possible if Dolby TrueHD discs work for you in bitstream mode. All you will lose out on is discrete surround on DTS titles. On DVD, that doesn't amount to much but on Blu-ray it does.

In terms of upgrades, I'd say there are some really good HTiBs out there, but you're going to get the best performance from a separate receiver and speakers, and there are plenty of options out there for that right now. It wouldn't be ideal but you could upgrade just the receiver at first and use your existing speakers. And then upgrade those when you are ready.

-CB

[MizNitch]

For amusement purposes, here's the response I got from Panasonic's customer service after e-mailing them about this problem:

"Thank you for your inquiry and we apologize for the inconvenience.
Based on the information that you have provided, we suggest that you set the bluray player to "Surround Encoded". In addition, you can try pressing the [Audio] button on the home theater remote.
We hope this information is helpful to you. Thank you for choosing Panasonic."