I've been successfully using my 990 with my Tivo Series 3 since Gonk helped me with this back in February. Maybe I'm missing something in your thread but I had the same problem your describing when I had my Tivo output as Dolby Digital. Once you change the output setting from Dolby Digital on the Tivo3 to PCM it eliminated ALL audio dropouts from the Now Playing menu.

Palmer you state in your second paragraph that your Tivo3 is set to Dolby Digital, this is what needs to be changed to PCM. I bet once you correct this feature you'll be good to go. Hope that helps.

Hi Cisco,

This is not a solution for me as I record and watch a ton of material encoded in DD. Unless I am mistaken, if I select PCM, everything gets downmixed and I get no more Dolby Digital soundtracks. I'd much rather have th 990 decode as it is supposed to.

I'm not home right now to double check my 990 with my Series 3 but if I'm not mistaken I have my Outlaw set on Neo:6 Cinema Surround Sound and everthing I have recorded comes through nicely in surround sound-filling the whole listening area with high fidelity sound like when I watch a DVD. I have this year's Grammy's recorded on it and I play it when I want to demo my system. I couldn't imagine it sounding any better. Let me know how you make out changing your surround sound settings on your Outlaw so you have the Outlaw process the signal rather than forcing Dolby which causes the audio dropouts. Maybe Gonk could explain this better than me but I couldn't be happier with my Series 3 / 990 combination in PCM format.

I hear you, and I understand what you are saying.

Here's my dilemma:

Let's say I've recorded the Sopranos in HD, which is broadcast with a DD 5.1 soundtrack. What is the material difference between:

a) Having the TiVo output the DD 5.1 soundtrack and having the 990 apply PLIIx-M processing.

b) Having the Tivo output PCM and having the Outlaw apply PL-IIx-M processing to the PCM stream.

Here's what I think the answer is:

Dolby Digital has discrete channels of information and provides a separate signal for each speaker depending on the Dolby Digital mode (Most commonly seen as 2.0 and 5.1 in cable broadcasts).

PCM from the TiVo provides a matrixed signal. In this scenario, the TiVo is either processing the DD 5.1 signal and downmixing to stereo OR simply taking the PCM soundtrack from the broadcaster and passing it to the 990 instead of the DD signal. This requires the processor to create the surround channels using a scheme like Neo:6 or PLIIx.

I know that Neo:6 and PL-IIx can both do a very good job creating a 5.1 or 7.1 surround field from two channel input but I really do want my 990 to be able to work as my 970 did and lock on to signals and decode them properly regardless of the format.

Thanks for your input and I will be taking a listen to some soundtracks output by the TiVo in both DD and PCM to see what difference I can discern (if any).

I'll post my impressions here in case anyone's interested.

I'm interested in your listening observations after performing your tests; I never tried experimenting with both because of the inherent dropouts in DD. Let me know how you make out.

I tested my 990 today with multiple recorded shows. If I set the TiVo to PCM, everything is output as PCM, even the shows broadcast in Dolby Digital.

The 990 has no problem locking on to these two- channel signals and applying Dolby processing to them.

I selected "Planet Earth" for my DD test as it is broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1 and has some really stunning surround effects. I left the 990 set to PL-IIx-Movie and played the same sequences with the TiVo alternately set to Dolby Digital and PCM mode.

When I set the Tivo to output in PCM, surround detail was greatly diminished. Most of the localized, individual sounds that were distinct and directional in Dolby Digital were lost in the general soundfield.

Shows broadcast in PCM (or DD 2.0) showed no difference in quality or surround effects with the Tivo set to DD or PCM. This is as I expected as the 990 is applying processing to the same two channel signal.

While the 990 had no problem outputting sound for ANY recording while the TiVo was set to PCM, this is not a solution for me. A large percentage of my recordings are of shows with DD 5.1 soundtracks and I definitely prefer to hear those soundtracks when they are being decoded directly by the 990.

As I said, I don't think this is an issue with the TiVo as I was not able to duplicate the problem with a 970 or a Denon Surround receiver.

TP

Same issue here for last year+. I got my series 3 in October of 2006 and saw this issue in the beginning. I am wondering if anyone found a fix.

I have had a ticket open with Outlaw for some time now but have not heard anything in a while. I'll ping and see where they are.

I'll post the resolution in this thread once I get a final answer from Outlaw.

Tony.

Hi all,

Just a brief resurrection of this thread as it appears that the issue may be resolved.

It appears my problem is resolved but TWO things have changed since my last test so I am not sure which is responsible.

1) The Tivo was updated with new software. The new version is: 9.1-01.2.648.

2) I changed my service from Astound to Comcast and Comcast installed two new cable cards (same make and model as the RCN cable cards).

I am inclined to believe that the Tivo update is responsible because programs recorded BEFORE the update (which exhibited the problem) play fine now with the Tivo set to Dolby Digital mode.

What's really puzzling to me is how my 970 had no problem with the previous version of Tivo software set to output in DD.

I suppose I'll have to chalk that up to different processor platforms having different responses to signal streams.

Okay, so here's my question: Is anyone who was experiencing this issue (Sfox7076, scofow or Cisco) willing to test this out and tell me if the Dolby Digital issue is resolved for you with the new Tivo code? I'm just curious...


Again, the rev on my S3 is: 9.1-01.2.648