I really dont know if this is a 1050 problem or not. Ive got my digital cable box connected to the 1050 by the digital coax output. On new movies on HBO or Showtime they broacast it dolby 5.1 the first couple of times. My 1050 detects the signal and switches in the display to the correct mode but I have sound dropouts that vary in length. Its not the EX flag problem because Ive switched to 6.1 and it still happens. Ive contacted Time warner and Im on my third cable box so they think its in the receiver.they really dont know what it I think. If I use the stereo outputs the sound is all right but its only in pro-logic. Does anyone elses 1050 do this?? Do you think the cable company is sending out a bum signal?

I have DirecTV with DD5.1 toslink output. I never have any intermittent drop out problems.

What does occasionally happen though is the station is completely mute through a movie or program. My 1050 either does not recognize the flag, or the signal is not correctly sent. In that event, if I really want to watch the show I use the analog input. Come to think of it, this hasn't happened in quite some time.

E-Dogg, I am having the same problem with Time Warner and the SA 3100hd cable box and I really don't think it is in the digital cable box. In my business I see techs for TW on a daily basis and they have checked out my signal and I have also switched out the box. Personally, I feel the cable companies just transmit a lousy signal using as little bandwith as possible for each channel. I have very little if no problem with the HBOhd channels and so forth, which use up a lot of the digital bandwith. It's only when watching regular HBO and such that this happens. Starz is 100%(almost) 5.1DD and I notice very few dropouts if any there. So I think it is channel specific with TW. Anyway, I hope this helps, Mark

The reason I suspect the box is I recently switched to thier DVR box with TiVo like service on it. The recording is great but until I switched boxes I had no dropouts in 5.1 You would think if this is happening enough they would adjust thier equipment. It must not be everyone.

Regarding sound drop outs, I have that issue to, except my source is DVD! For the last year or so, I have encountered multiple DVD movies where the sound cuts out for a few seconds and comes back on for a few (5.1 only). When I switch the DVD to 2 channel output only, no problems. For the longest time, I blamed my DVD player, but last night, I watched Return Of The King (LOTR) on a new DVD player, IT HAPPENED AGAIN! I had to watch it in 2.0 instead of 5.1! Has anyone had any luck finding out how to work around this issue? Why does it happen on some disks and not on others???

You may be experiencing the dreaded "EX" flag problem with those dropouts. Even if you don't have a sixth channel speaker set up, enable the 6.1 processing on your 1050 before starting the movie. See if that stops your dropouts...

There are many, many threads about this elsewhere in this forum. Look up Dolby Digital EX or sound dropouts to find info...

Don't forget to set the rear center speaker to on in the speaker setup configuration, otherwise the 6.1 mode will not activate.

I had a friend with this exact same problem (not an outlaw owner though). He couldn't for the life of him figure out why he had sound drop outs during DVD playback. He ended up buying a nice surge suppressor (Adcom ACE-315 i think) and the problem is gone. Could this be caused by dirty power. That's what my friend ended up tracing the problem to.

What brand of receiver what he using? While it is possible that there was a heat build-up or similar problem causing the dropouts (which may or may not have been resolved by the power conditioner), it is also possible that he has a receiver (like the 1050 and a few Onkyos released around 2000) that uses a proprietary Dolby EX decoding scheme, which will run into problems with some EX-flagged discs produced recently, and he hasn't happened across any of those discs since he added the Adcom.

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He's got an older model Pioneer. It's definitely not a Dolby EX receiver though, jsut too old. Anyway, he was having that problem on all of his dvd's, so I don't think it was a flag problem. Who knows.