Help with new receiver, HDMI, & sound with HTPC!

[htpc_user]

I bought a new receiver Friday; it’s a Denon AVR-X2000.  I got everything hooked up Friday afternoon and I was pleased that I didn’t have any HDMI video issues, and the receiver actually SOLVED a problem that I had been having with any version I’ve ever tried of TMT where the screen would go black as soon as a video would start playing.  With the receiver, now TMT will actually play fine.  I tried some different DVDs; everything worked as it should.  Come Saturday morning my 5 year old was watching some different ripped DVDs and then wanted to watch a movie that I knew was on Netflix but I didn’t have on my server.  So I go to Netflix and find out that I had never installed Silverlight (I did a re-install the other week to get rid of the annoying “Video files are not working or not installed…” error that I was getting with RecordedTV).  I install Silverlight and then find out I have to update Silverlight.  So I just go back to the ripped DVDs under “Movies” and try playing something and it immediately pops up “Video files are not working or not installed…”.  Thinking it’s a fluke I try again; same thing.  Seems as though Silverlight screwed up my system.  At least that’s the only thing I can think of.  Mighty fishy that it was playing fine until I installed it.

Any way, had to leave for the weekend to go to the lake; get back Sunday and mess with it…tried uninstalling Silverlight, restoring to before I installed it, uninstalled Catalyst drivers, installed latest beta version of Catalyst.  Still get the same error.  The receiver says “Multi In” but I don’t think it was saying that before the screw-up.  When playing a DVD when it was working I remember it saying “Dolby D”.  Now when I try to play a DVD it plays for a few seconds with no sound and then gives the error message.  In Windows I have it set as HDMI audio as default and then selected 5.1.  How are you guys setting it up?  Looks like I might have to try another re-install.

[babgvant]

The problem with audio is probably something with the HDMI audio driver included with Catalyst. So after checking everything, if it still doesn’t work go into Device Manager and find the HDMI audio device and manually select the AMD/ATI HDMI driver.

The “Video files are not working or not installed…” error usually indicates that something is wrong with DirectShow. If you have a codec pack installed, get rid of it and see what happens. DVDs should play OOTB.

[oliverredfox]

Also check your receivers’ settings.  I don’t know that model, but on mine there is a setting for HDMI throughput.  One is “Receiver+TV” the other for “Receiver”.  When set to “Receiver+TV”, it dumps the audio out through both my receiver and sends the signal on to the TV.  The problem with this setting is that sometimes my machine would see Dolby Digital, DTS, etc from the receiver and sometimes it would just see the modes supported by the TV.  Setting it to just “Receiver” makes my computer always see all the modes correctly and I don’t wind up with DD stuff playing as 2 channel PCM.

[NightCactus]

Try these settings: In Windows, set your HDMI audio to stereo… and in Windows Media Center configure speakers to HDMI and 5.1, then restart and test playback.

 

I’ve never fully understood the way Windows handles bitstreaming between applications… settings that look correct are often contradictory in practice. I have an Onkyo AVR and through trial and error, arrived at the workable settings above.

[htpc_user]

I got my receiver and HTPC to working together (knock on wood).  But I still have a question.  What I did was similar to what NightCactus suggested; I set Windows to stereo and at first I set Media Center to stereo as well.  That worked the way I wanted it to.  Messed with it some more and left Windows at stereo and MC to 5.1.  That worked as well; it doesn’t seem to matter how Media Center is set.  It’s still going to bitstream DD & DTS and it will still play 2 channel sources as stereo.

So the question I have to you all using receivers, if you have Windows set to HDMI and configured as 5.1 (or 7.1) does your receiver show “Mulit In” or something similar?  I’m a member over at AVS and have posted in the Denon X Series “Official” forum and there’s a guy on there who says he uses a 6450 (I have a 6570), he has Windows set to HDMI/5.1, and he says his receiver does not show “Multi In” when the HTPC is just sitting on the desktop.  On mine, as soon as I configure Windows to 5.1 my receiver immediately changes to “Multi In” even when just on the desktop doing nothing else.  The problem with this is when I play my recorded shows that I have recorded from the satellite box, which are all 2 channel, they play back in ONLY 2 channel.  I can’t use the receiver’s surround modes to apply anything like DTS Neo or Pro Logic II.  This is because the HTPC is doing the decoding and not the receiver.

Doing things the way I described in the first paragraph works 98% of the time but there is a problem with that.  Any bluray that only has an LPCM 5.1 or 7.1 track is sent to the receiver as 2  channels and then played back in DTS Neo 6 Cinema which is what I have the receiver to default to on the HTPC’s input.  I think in that case Windows would have to be set to 5.1 so that it will do the decoding and pass it to the Denon.

What am I missing or is this what you guys are experiencing too?

 

[oliverredfox]

Out of curiousity, if you go to your sound settings, select the device and do properities.  Under the “supported formats” tab, is the computer showing all the formats your receiver can handle correctly?

[NightCactus]

With Windows set to 5.1, you will see “Multi In” on your receiver…this is normal since Windows is outputting 6-channel uncompressed (PCM) sound. You won’t get simulated surround (i.e. Neo6, PLII) because they only work with a 2-channel source.

Because “Multi In” is the mode that you want to be in to get LPCM 5.1 or 7.1 sound out of your Blu-Rays, give these alternative settings a try:

In Windows configure Control Panel/Sound for 5.1, then in WMC, set speakers to 5.1 and disable WMC navigation sound effects (in Settings/General/Visual and Sound Effects). With these settings, you may loose the ability to use the simulated surround modes on your receiver, but Blu-Ray multichannel LPCM sound will likely work.

P.S. Configuring both Windows and WMC to 5.1 may result in HDCP errors in WMC’s Live TV and playback, but disabling WMC navigation sounds seem to get around this problem (I can’t explain why this is).

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