Problems with outputting ac3 sound

[im85288]

I recently bought the ultimo having owned the Xtrend 9000 for about 6 months and to be honest I expected an easy set up as I use vix on the xtrend so know how straight forward setting it up should be.

So far though I have had various problems.

First one was when using the latest vix image the card reader did not work. I switched to a slightly earlier version of vix and then the card reader worked.

Secondly my normal procedure of just setting the tuners, then transferring a bouquet across without doing anything else just left all channels in the bouquet greyed out. It seems I need to scan each satelitte first..though still experimenting with that one.

Thirdly is a problem I'm getting with outputting ac3 sound to my receiver. Randomly, like after changing channel or going to the menu, it just stops outputting sound, if I turn downmix on sound is fine, but to get the ac3 sound to come back through my receiver I need to turn the receiver off then on again. This is really odd as I'm using the same hdmi cables etc that were in the xtrend and never once had these issues with sound.

Hopefully someone has experienced these and knows how to get around them or I may have to return the ultimo

[punisher]

sounds like a possible hdmi compatibility issue with your TV

[Sandman]

I recently bought the ultimo having owned the Xtrend 9000 for about 6 months and to be honest I expected an easy set up as I use vix on the xtrend so know how straight forward setting it up should be.

So far though I have had various problems.

First one was when using the latest vix image the card reader did not work. I switched to a slightly earlier version of vix and then the card reader worked.

what card do you have? that sounds rather odd...



Secondly my normal procedure of just setting the tuners, then transferring a bouquet across without doing anything else just left all channels in the bouquet greyed out. It seems I need to scan each satelitte first..though still experimenting with that one.

I only ever see this if my bouquet hasn't transferred properly....



Thirdly is a problem I'm getting with outputting ac3 sound to my receiver. Randomly, like after changing channel or going to the menu, it just stops outputting sound, if I turn downmix on sound is fine, but to get the ac3 sound to come back through my receiver I need to turn the receiver off then on again. This is really odd as I'm using the same hdmi cables etc that were in the xtrend and never once had these issues with sound.

Hopefully someone has experienced these and knows how to get around them or I may have to return the ultimo

I don't think its an Ultimo issue...as Punisher says, check the TV/HDMI, change your cable and check your amp settings..it could be something really simple!

[Trial]

Hi im85288,
concerning your second point. Bouquets are only containing links to the channel entry in the channel data base (lamedb). When you did not make a channel scan this data base is empty and all services in your bouquets are greyed out or replaced by <n/a>. That is the reason why you have to do a channel scan.

ciao

[Rob van der Does]

Normally no channel scan is required: I never do so after transferring settings (and lamedb is part of the files that have been transferred to the box). I presume your tuner config was OK?

But there are 2 important points of attention in this area:
1- After transferring settings an E2 restart is required to activate the new settings, and
2- even better: have E2 stopped ('init 4') before transferring files at all (to prevent E2 to overwrite the new settings).

When using DreamSet you can have this automated (in the settings of Dreamset).
Also make sure all your settings are going to etc/enigma2

[im85288]

Thanks all for trying to help me out. I'm using a sly Card in the reader, which is now being read with no problems. I must admit when transferring the bouquet across to the ultimo at the end it says something like it failed to reload so a reboot is needed...I never had this with the xtrend or any other box, I'll give dreamset a try to see if that helps.

With regards the sound issue, I have to emphasise I'm using the same hdmi cable, to receiver setup that I had with my xtrend and I never had a problem at all with that, just to satisfy my curiosity I switched back to the xtrend and it works perfectly with that. I tried putting the black hole 1.73 image on and it was even worse on their, in that every channel change caused the output to fail. At least on vix it is more random...I'm going to experiment more this morning as surround sound is vital to me

[im85288]

Update- Using Dreamset worked, for some reason it fails to reload the settings using http but then when it sends a kill message to restart enigma everything was as expected. Thanks for that tip :-)

[Rob van der Does]

My settings in this area are:
telnet usage: always use telnet command
telnet before writing: init 4 && sleep 5
telnet after writing: init 3

[judge]

Update- Using Dreamset worked, for some reason it fails to reload the settings using http but then when it sends a kill message to restart enigma everything was as expected. Thanks for that tip :-)

Id guess you haven't set the correct port for Dreamset to use, so the reload isn't working.

[im85288]

Id guess you haven't set the correct port for Dreamset to use, so the reload isn't working.

Wasn't sure that needed to be done, I guess then its the same port as what's used for looking at the box online? ie. 8088 ?

[judge]

Wasn't sure that needed to be done, I guess then its the same port as what's used for looking at the box online? ie. 8088 ?

Yes, that's the correct port if you haven't changed it on the current image.
On the next release you won't need to do this as port 80 is being used.

[im85288]

With the help of Stef from WOS I finally identified what the cause of the sound problems were. Basically ther HDMI out from the Ultimo is connected to a HDMI Splitter that sends one feed to the AV Receiver and another feed to a TV Upstairs. For some reason when it is connected to the splitter these problems occur. By connecting it directly to the AV Receiver everything works as it did with the XTrend 9000. I am not sure what to do now in terms of maybe trying a different HDMI Splitter or maybe this is a general problem with the HDMI out on the Ultimo compared to XTrend.

[Maxwell]

Does the HDMI splitter have its own power supply ? these sorts of problems can occur if not

[im85288]

Does the HDMI splitter have its own power supply ? these sorts of problems can occur if not Yes it has its own power supply and worked without any problems at all with the XTrend 9000. Maybe I should have waited for the XTrend 9500 :confused:

[Maxwell]

are you sure the PSU is working though as most splitters will work without, I had this problem with a splitter that would still give an indicator light that showed it had signal but its PSU was defective and because of that it would not lock on.
Try the splitter in there but with the cable for the TV upstairs removed as long runs on HDMI can cause issues which again could indicate an issue with the psu.
Also try it with everything connected without the psu and see what happens, then with the psu and see if there is a difference. Can you try a different psu ?

What make of splitter do you have as there are a couple about which are not as up to the job as they should be