I got a new Samsung HLR5067W DLP HD TV. Bought an optical cable and hooked up to Marantz SR580 receiver. Sound was great, but cuts out then sometimes starts again, and sometimes I have to switch the receiver back to analog and then back to Optical to reacquire the sound. Any thoughts on whether the problem is in the signal, the receiver? The other audio out from the TV works fine to the receiver.
The source is cable, direct from the wall. No converter, no cable card. The set is receiving Dolby Digital HD over that cable. I have extended basic through Comcast. No premium channels, etc. Digital channels are in the range of 82-1 and above.
Ken, I'm not sure I understand your connection scheme. If cable is "direct from wall", is this a coax connection? How are you connecting with an optical cable-what source?
Dale it sounds like he's got a DCR TV, and he's pulling in clear to air HD channels right off his direct cable connection to his RF input on his TV. I would assume, not that Ken clarified, he's either optical or AC3 from TV to receiver. It's one of two things, either he's got an issue with his cable, or the TV is not passing digital audio through cleanly.
Ken, one thing you could try, if you have a digital STB, connect the digital audio out from the STB to your receiver. If you don't have the problem with the STB, I'd be placing a call to Samsung and see what they can tell you. If the problem exist from the STB, let the cable company figure out what's going wrong in your QAM
The cable goes from the wall by coax to the TV, no cable box. No cable card. I then have Fibre Optical from the tv's Digital Out to the receiver's optical input. I am probably getting the 'clear to air HD' channels mentioned by cableguy.
I replaced the first optical cable with an upgraded Monster cable and have the same issue. So having eliminated the optical cable as the issue, I guessed it was the receiver. I guessed this because if I switch the receiver to Analog and then back to Optical, the receiver re-acquires the sound (only to be lost again in a few minutes unfortunately). I wouldn't have expected this if the tv was the problem, but I have been wrong before.
The Marantz manual says that it receives the signal as PCM (whatever that means), so I set the tv's sound output to PCM. Any thoughts?
The sound via Analog (using audio output wires from the tv's other outputs) works ok as Prologic, but not as loud or full as the intermittent sound via optical cable.
Is there any test or device to monitor the output of the tv to insure the signal is constant?
Ken, the fact that the analog sound is working fine would seem to indicate the TV or the receiver isn't getting the correct tag stream to maintain audio. The easiest way to determine where the problem is would be to see if you can have somebody from the cable company bring a STB out, connect the digital audio output from the STB to your receiver. If no problem with the STB, start calling Samsung. There is a device that Dolby makes that actually reads the tag stream data from the AC3 (coaxial digital audio) I'm not sure if they have one that reads the tag stream via optical, but I'm sure if you contact a home theater installation company in your area, for a fee I'm sure they can check into that side of it for you.
Vince P.
Unregistered guest
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I have the same problem using my DVD player with my SR580. I had a Toshiba DVD player and the sound would cut out if we used the next button on the DVD player or when the player would first turn on. I would have to go from Dolby Digital to ProLogic and the back to Dolby Digital for the sound to come back. I switched to a Sampo DVD player and didn't have the problem in two years, now I hear a clicking sound, like a static or electrical discharge and the sound goes off. I think it's the DVD player but I haven't gotten another one to try it. I tried using ProLogic instead of Dolby Digital, I tried using the left and right channels instead of the Coaxial cable and the sound still cuts out. The SR-580 must be sensitive to variations in the DVD output.