I just purchased an AVR 525 and got it hooked up. Great system, I'm a big fan. I have a question however.
I have a Sony DVP-NS500V DVD player connected via Coax Digital Audio to the 525. When I am playing a DVD with Dolby digital (and I have Dolby Digital selected in the player) I can select all surround modes (including DTS) except for the Dolby Digital ones?! Additionally, the visual speaker display on the front of the unit only shows the L and R speakers icons filled (the others remain outlined only). Are these 2 issues defects or am I doing something wrong? It seems like I cannot put the reciever into Dolby Digital mode...
Could be configuration related. When you installed the AVR 525, did you configure the speakers? Did you perform the Speaker Setup part of the On Screen Display and identify all the speakers in your system?
The other problem could be the output from your DVD player. Do you have the DVD player set to "bitstream"? It should not be set to PCM.
With just the "L" and "R" highlighted and the others just outlined, it looks like you may have the DVD player set to PCM. (Although it's odd you can access DTS, unless you mean the DTS Neo "DSP" surround format.)
Scott: yeah, I think what I wrote was confusing! On my Sony DVP-NS725P, the setting for Dolby Digital MUST be set to "DOLBY DIGITAL", for real Dolby Digital encoded audio sent on the digital outputs (optical and coaxial) If it's set to "D-PCM", then it's for a "downmix" only. With this setting, only the "matrixed" playback modes would show on the AVR-525... like Dolby ProLogic (I & II)... making it (possibly) appear that Dolby modes are working.
I can't find a manual for the Sony DVP-NS500V so can't check. I hope it's working correctly for you.