Weird Audio issues with HD Broadcast

[briangtbc]

I recently replaced a ViP-211 receiver in my living room with a ViP-622. I have the 622 connected to my Dolby Digital receiver through an optical connection. Since this receiver was installed on 2/17, I've been having issues with some shows, but mainly commercials during an HD broadcast.

What sound that should be coming from my center channel speaker, will on occasion come out of the rear channels. This seems to happen the most when the audio changes from Dolby Digital to non-digital, which happens to be most of the commercials. It also happens when the local affiliate (or national?) has problems with the broadcast of an HD show switching back and forth between HD and SD. When the show is in SD on an HD channel, the center channel dialogue comes out of the rear speakers. Very annoying!

I don't ever have the problem with the SD channels, and I've only encountered it once on the non-local HD channels (Discovery). Has anyone else experienced this issue? I'm not sure if it's related to my hardware, Dish network or perhaps the audio format the broadcaster is sending out.

-Brian

[Slide]

I'm pretty sure it is a Dish issue with the locals. I'm getting audio problems from one of my local channels when it switches from HD to SD for commercials also. A weird sound comes out of the center channel speaker for about a second.

[fredinva]

More than likely an A/V setup problem

fred

[briangtbc]

More than likely an A/V setup problem

fred

How so? I only have one connection coming from the Dish receiver to my Onkyo receiver (optical). Why would the sound work perfectly fine when the station is a SD station or when the HD broadcast is working normally? It only seems to happen during commercial breaks and when the HD broadcast gets switched to SD.

I'm just trying to see if others were having the same problem so I could determine if this was a Dish broadcasting problem or perhaps I have a defective ViP-622.

[Mr.72]

it has to either be a problem with the broadcast (or dish's translation of the broadcast), the 622's DD encoder, or the onkyo's DD decoder. you can rule out the onkyo by plugging in a DVD player over the same optical and playing a DVD or CD with 2-channel soundtrack (like a a CD would work if it was mono or L=R, or more likely, some low budget indie film with 99% dialog with be predominantly L=R 2 channel mono... if you have a really flexible DVD player you may be able to configure it to downmix to 2-channel mono, my Oppo will do that, that woud be a good test). i'd say the odds of it being the onkyo are nearly zero. likewise the odds of it being the 622 are not much higher. sounds like a mixdown/bus error in the broadcast or the conversion to SAT.

it's not switching to analog, BTW. it's still DD, just DD with only 2 channel audio. DD is very flexible and can carry a large number of formats and channel configurations. and actually, sounds like the problem is you have dolby pro logic turned on and the signal has one or the other channel out of phase, and the material is intended to be "center channel" (which is not a discrete channel in dolby pro logic, but is created by summing L+R and using some steering circuitry to try and mute L and R during this condition). instead it sounds like the L and R are identical but out of phase, which results in DPL decoding it as "surround channel" (L-R). i can't think of a connection scenario that would result in this.