MGM-HD Audio issue?

[metal83]

So me and my fiancee are watching the movie Carrie on MGM-HD. For some reason, this channel will only play through my center channel speaker no matter what i do. At the top of the info guide, it says English DD. So why isn't this channel coming through my receiver as DD?

My receiver is on PLII right now, when it should be showing Dolby Digital. I've switced to other channels and they are working fine, Dolby Digital is showing in my receiver. And if a channel is not in DD, well the it's on PLII, but still coming through all my speakers.

MGM-HD will only play through my center channel speaker, and for the life of me i cannot figure out why. I've never had this kind of problem before, and every other channel works fine.

Any ideas?

[trdrjeff]

I started watching something on there a couple weeks back and thought the sound was off. Definately did not sound like 5.1

[tzphotos.com]

MGM HD is only two channels of sound. Your DPL II receiver should be able to decode it just like any other Dolby Surround encoded audio.

"Carrie" is only mono, so that's why you would only get sound out of the center channel.

[CCarncross]

As noted DD does not mean 5.1 audio. It can be anything from 1 to 8 or more channels. MGM appears to honor the original soundtracks and OAR of movies, which for me is great news and would never want them to change that.

[GregLee]

In addition to DD 2.0, MGMHD sometimes has DD 3.0, at least, I guess that's what you'd call it -- left, right, and surround channels. But of course whatever the format is, exactly, the sound shouldn't be coming all through the center channel. It's possible that your receiver needs to be set up to apply the processing you would like for each different input format, and since DD 3.0 is uncommon, you never told it how to process this particular input format. Or maybe the receiver just can't handle DD 3.0.

[metal83]

I have a Pioneer Elite 92, it can definitely handle whatever audio formats Cable or Satellite put out.

New York, New York is on right now. So is this mono as well? Because it's only coming out of my center channel speaker.
I did put MGM-HD on earlier today, i forget what movie was playing, but my front 3 speakers were all firing, so that made me feel better.
I've just never encountered this before on any other Directv channel, and i never watch MGM-HD, so it sort of caught me off guard.

[davring]

New York, New York is 2ch Stereo.

[tzphotos.com]

I have never seen anything but 2 channels come from MGM HD. If a movie is recorded in surround(whichever format originally) MGM converts it down to two channels and Dolby PL II does a very good job of creating 5.1 sound.

[GregLee]

New York, New York is 2ch Stereo.
According to the panel display on my Pioneer 1017, it's 3 channels. Three speaker icons light up for "New York, New York".

[davring]

According to the panel display on my Pioneer 1017, it's 3 channels. Three speaker icons light up for "New York, New York".

Not sure how it is being broadcast but the original film, as per IMDB, was recorded in Stereo.

[GregLee]

Uh huh. But the dvd has DD 5.1: http://www.moviefreak.com/dvd/n/newyorknewyork.htm.

[tzphotos.com]

According to the panel display on my Pioneer 1017, it's 3 channels. Three speaker icons light up for "New York, New York".

This has something to do with the way your receiver is setup. The only signal I have ever received from MGM HD is 2 channel Dolby Digital.

[GregLee]

This has something to do with the way your receiver is setup.
I don't know what it would be. According to my manual, the display icons I referred to are "Program format indicators". It says, "These change according to which channels are active in digital sources." The various indicators are: L, C, R, SL, S, SR, SBL, SB, SBR, LFE, with mostly obvious interpretations. For ordinary DD 5.1, L, C, R, SL, SR, LFE light up (right now, e.g., HBOHD shows this, for a Harry Potter movie), for DD 2.0, L and R light up (right now VH1HD shows this), and for what I referred to as DD 3.0, L, R, and S light up (right now MGMHD shows this for "Best Seller"). The manual says "S" means "Surround channel (mono)".

[tzphotos.com]

Here's the interesting thing I found about the Dolby Digital Signal from MGM HD. There is a DPL encoded flag. This is probably what is triggering the surround channel to be displayed.

Another interesting thing I found was that some Channels are 384 or 448 kbit/s.

Here is a picture of what my Yamaha Receiver displays for MGM HD:

http://www.pbase.com/tzphotos/image/109774011/original.jpg

[GregLee]

Of course if there is a 3rd, mono surround channel, as my receiver claims, that could be for the Dolby A mono surround channel on film.