ok, so i've had my 1050 for just about a week short of a month and i've been loving every minute of it - until now.

today i finally added a dvd player to my setup for the first time. anyway, i popped in a dvd, and and as i was watching i realized i was hardly getting any sound out of my surrounds. it turns out that the 1050 is playing in pro logic mode instead of dolby digital (the dolby digital light on the dvd player is on, so i know it should be coming through). anyway, i fiddled around with the setup on the dvd player and the 1050, but nothing worked. i thought it might be the dvd (rushmore - criterion collection) so i put in the matrix instead, but still no dice. it seems like the problem is that the 1050 just isn't recognizing that the dolby digital is there at all, so it plays in pro logic instead.

naturally, i'm hoping that this is due to some stupid mistake i've made setting it up, but i've been up all night playing around with the thing and i'm getting nowhere and quickly losing hope. i'd love any help anyone can give me - i'll try anything.

thanks in advance,
nate

How are you connected to the 1050? Are you using analog connections or the digital output?

ive got it connnected with digital coax. i didnt go out and buy a cable, but in the manual it said to use a 75 ohm shielded. i happen to have one lying around that i was using for an old video connection. could it possibly be that the cable isnt high enough quality?

Greetings,

The Dolby Digital bitstream contains, in addition to the digitally encoded sound, metadata "about" the sound. This information includes the number of channels of audio that are encoded. The DD processor in the Outlaw receiver use this information to determine how to decode the channels.

The metadata information can also include a flag to indicate that a 2.0 DD signal (aka stereo) is actually a Dolby Surround matrix encoding that needs further (Dolby Pro Logic) decoding. Some receivers assume that a 2.0 encoded signal has a surround matrix and others respect the metadata flag (assuming it is present). I don't know exactly how the Outlaw receiver handles this but the manifestation when you have a 2.0 DD signal that is being matrix decoded is that the Outlaw receiver lights up the Dolby Digital display as well as the Dolby Pro Logic display. It also indicates that 5 speakers are active. If the DVD is DD 5.1 encoded, the display will look the same minus the Dolby Pro Logic indicator. In addition, the little arrows indicate what the digital coax (in your case) datastream is.

Many older Dolby surround recordings have little or no surround components when decoded with a Dolby Pro Logic receiver.

-andy

Many DVD players have the digital output configureable. My Sony had the digital out for both coax and toslink set to PCM by default. I had to set it to output AC-3 (DD) and DTS through the digital outs.

hooray!! morphsci, i could kiss you. that was it - the dvd player had the digital out set to pro logic. it's my roommate's dvd player and i had no idea you were able to do that. thanks so much.

by the way, morphsci, the dvd player is a sony too. do you have any suggestions as to any other set up changes i might need to make for the 1050. don't worry about every little thing - just the stuff that might be important. oh and thanks again.

That's great news. Most of the other features are convenience and do not really require any set-up. If it has built-in decoding you will not want to do any speaker set-up on the DVD player since you are using the Outlaw. BTW the reason I could answer your question is because I just set up my Outlaw on Friday and had to go through my Sony DVP-N500 manual.