French TNT - No sound unless I flip channels - also low volume for pcm

[JerryK132]

Hello
I'm a newcomer to Enigma2 and Vix. I've set up my Vu+4K-SE and Denon AVR2700H Receiver and Sony Bravia as best I can and I have a number of difficulties. For clarity I'll keep them separate. I have read large parts of the relevant manuals and being pretty technical I've managed to figure a lot out even when the manual is different or silent. So I've tried to do my homework before bombarding anyone with silly Qs! So that's the context.

My aim in purchasing the STB is to have a unified system combining FreeSat and French TNT, preferably in one list. I have tuned the box to FreeSat and TNT using the two physical tuners installed. I'm near France and get my service xmitted from Rennes. My dish is fitted with a hybrid LNB and I am using two universal feeds as WB is not supported by the tuner. I frequently update all parts of the system software so I think I am up to date.

If I run UpdateProviders I get an err 404 for F Terrestrial (created by ABM, I think). This may be a clue.

I have two All Channels bouquets, one for FSat and TNT. I can select FSat channels but if I select a TNT channel i often get no sound. The sound is shown as PCM or PCM zero or MPEG. Sometimes selecting Ch+ gives me the next channel with sound. Then, usually, Ch- gives me the desired channel with sound. If there is still no sound I restart the GUI and the sound miraculously appears on the desired channel.

A potentially related sound problem is that if the sound is not AC3(+) or AAC - ie it's pcm or mpeg, the sound levels are very low indeed forcing me to turn the volume up very high. Both the AC3/AAC downmix settings are set to Passthrough. Any way this can be fixed to avoid low-flying speaker cones when the audio stream (or channel) changes?

Thanks for any help.

[twol]

Hello
I'm a newcomer to Enigma2 and Vix. I've set up my Vu+4K-SE and Denon AVR2700H Receiver and Sony Bravia as best I can and I have a number of difficulties. For clarity I'll keep them separate. I have read large parts of the relevant manuals and being pretty technical I've managed to figure a lot out even when the manual is different or silent. So I've tried to do my homework before bombarding anyone with silly Qs! So that's the context.

My aim in purchasing the STB is to have a unified system combining FreeSat and French TNT, preferably in one list. I have tuned the box to FreeSat and TNT using the two physical tuners installed. I'm near France and get my service xmitted from Rennes. My dish is fitted with a hybrid LNB and I am using two universal feeds as WB is not supported by the tuner. I frequently update all parts of the system software so I think I am up to date.

If I run UpdateProviders I get an err 404 for F Terrestrial (created by ABM, I think). This may be a clue.

I have two All Channels bouquets, one for FSat and TNT. I can select FSat channels but if I select a TNT channel i often get no sound. The sound is shown as PCM or PCM zero or MPEG. Sometimes selecting Ch+ gives me the next channel with sound. Then, usually, Ch- gives me the desired channel with sound. If there is still no sound I restart the GUI and the sound miraculously appears on the desired channel.

A potentially related sound problem is that if the sound is not AC3(+) or AAC - ie it's pcm or mpeg, the sound levels are very low indeed forcing me to turn the volume up very high. Both the AC3/AAC downmix settings are set to Passthrough. Any way this can be fixed to avoid low-flying speaker cones when the audio stream (or channel) changes?

Thanks for any help.

what happens if you chang passthrough to downmix?

[Joe_90]

Most AVRs will not decode AAC, so if your TNT channels are using AAC, then you will have to downmix them as @twol has suggested. AC3 or any of the Dolby/DTS variants are usually handled by AVRs and decoded internally, but not AAC.

As regards the fixed volume on passthrough codecs like AC3, what I do is set the box volume (the VU+) high so that non-Dolby channels are at a similar level to the passthrough channels. Then, you don't get huge variations when you switch.

[JerryK132]

Thanks Twol and Joe_90

If I set AC3 to Downmix the levels are roughly equalised - I have to raise the volume to 90% to hear AC3 as well! That reduces/removes the difference, but is a very low actual output. Also presumably I lose the Doilby etc data.

According to the docs my AVR supports MPEG-4-AAC as well. I assume that is the same as AAC.

The way I have set upo my TV/AVR/Vu+ causes the various volumes on the remotes all operate in tandem. The upside is that I need slightly fewer remotes to do anything! All those HDMI settings which are hard for me to get my head around. But you are suggesting that despite the passthrough settings, unlinking the vu+ volume from this might give comparable outputs for all the different signal formats, I think?

I'd tried to unlink the remotes volume controls by changing various HDMI settings without success. Then I understood that the VU+ front panel vol buttons are not linked to the AVR vol. In fact remotes are linked independently. So as Joe_90 said, the front panel can be used to set the box volume to match the passthrough volume which is independent of it. So that problem bites the dust.

Thanks both for your help.

[Joe_90]

I did a quick search on the X2700H and found this for bitstream format:


Dolby Digital / DTS / Dolby Atmos / Dolby TrueHD / Dolby Digital Plus / DTS:X / DTS-HD Master Audio / DTS-HD High Resolution Audio / DTS Express

This would be similar to my Sony AVR and my previous Onko. AAC is rarely supported on the HDMI bitstream. Usually you have to convert to LPCM between 32kHz and 192kHz.


EDIT - I did a bit of further digging. The USB and network interfaces will support AAC "The Denon AVR-X2700H supports the following audio formats, sampling frequencies, and bit rates via its wired network connection." My Sony is similar on the USB interface, but not on the HDMI interface which is how your sat/terrestrial receiver is interfacing, so we are both right. On the sat box you will have to downmix AAC to PCM .