Cable guy just came out and got my home theater hooked up to cable. High def channels are awesome, great picture and sound. Non high def channels have decent picture, but the audio has a sparking sound every few seconds. Why would this only be on the non high def? Cable guy was clueless. DVD's are OK too. Thanks.
It is possible that the cable guy forgot to remove a filter that was put there to prevent you from getting certain channels. This happened to me when I upgraded my cable from basic to digital. I had to raise hell before he did some troubleshooting and discovered the problem.
Your receiver probably is on the wrong setting for the low def channels signal. That happened to me before where I changed my receiver setting, and the low def channels had a squealing sound, but everything else sounded perfect. A properly engaged auto detect mode should prevent this problem.
Anonymous
Posted on
Thanks for the replies. I went all through the menu and couldn't figure out how to change the settings. Didn't see anything obvious, but there were lots of codes. New cable guy coming out Monday night. Will report back. By receiver you mean the cable box right? Not the amp.
No, I meant the amp settings. If both DVD and Cable 5.1 signals are playing correct through your receiver, both your cable box and DVD player setups are correct.
If DVDs and HDTV sound fine, but the low def channels sound bad while playing through your receiver, then the AMP isnt agreeing with your PCM signal.
The low def channels broadcast a PCM signal, but DVDs and HD channels broadcast DD. If your receiver is stuck on DD for a PCM source, it will sound awful. In my case, it made a squealing sound and sounded echoey.
Read the little display lights on your receiver when you play DVDs or HDTV. The little DDigital light should light. Now switch to a low def channel and see if the display light changes to PCM. Based on what you've told me, I'm guessing that yours doesnt. If that is the case, all need to do is change your receiver to 'auto-detect' to correct the problem. If you're setup correctly, it will show the source as PCM for lowdef channels, and then switch automatically to DDigital for your DVDs and HDTV.
Good luck
Anonymous
Posted on
I checked that setting. Nope. Wasn't it. Darn, I thought we were on to something.
It's an Onkyo TX-SR502 if that matters.
On my cable, channels 0 to 99 are analog, 100 to 200 digital, and over 200 HD. Something like that anyway. My package only gives my about 5 or 6 HD. The 100 range channels are OK too. It's only when I go below 100, the noise is heard. It sounds just like a spark.
I'm beginning to think I have a defective cable box.
Anonymous
Posted on
Cable guy number 3 came out. He agreed there was a problem, that's more then the other two did. He did a hard re-boot on the box. When it came back up, the noise was almost totally gone. Most people might not even notice it.
Today I pulled the rca audio jacks and put on an optic cable. Noise (crack) is still there every once in a while. Maybe I will eventually call them back out and change the box. For now I will live with it.
Paul, now that I'm using an optic cable, it does show PCM as the source for lowdef and digital for digital and hidef. It didn't show that using rca jacks.