Question about Sony DAV-s300, 5.1, & Digital Cable...
 

I recently had digital cable installed in my new house and hooked up to my Sony Dvd player/receiver with an optical cable. But using the sound field "auto format decode", everything comes in as 2 channel. Are there any tv programs that broadcast in 5.1, or movie channels, or am I doing something wrong?

Re: Question about Sony DAV-s300, 5.1, & Digital Cable...
 

I have that same system and digital cable, but I'm not sure about anything being broadcast in 5.1. I thought only channels on dishes could, but I may be wrong. When I've run the the TV thru it before, it always came thru as 2 channel, but if you switch to ProLogic it decodes the center and surrounds pretty well if you ask me. I think the autoformat decode really only works for DVDs. My VHS and LDs always come thru as 2 channel, but I can decode them into ProLogic.

Now that I think about it, I remember that HBO's Band of Brothers was broadcast in 5.1 (where available). So there must be other broadcast contenet in 5.1. I switched to Pro logic, and yes, it does sound real good. I also like the cinema studio c setting, too. But I really want to hear my digital cable in 5.1.
By the way, I only got the cable set up a few days ago (I live on Long Island NY so I have Cablevision's IO service) but so far I'm damn impressed! They have the "On Demand" service, which lets you specially order content from networks that have it available. I watched the pilot episode of Fox's "The Shield" today, which I had never seen. The digital quality is fantastic! And you can pause, rewind, etc. Fox offers their on demand service for free, and they presently have all the episodes of "The Shield" and "24" but HBO charges five dollars a month. Still, that seems a decent price, I may have to order that. I was hesitant about Digital cable at first, but so far, I like it.

I'm not super impressed with the Chicago suburb's offering of digital cable. I can see too many digital artifacts. I watched part of Jurassic Park /// a few weeks ago and there was a foggy scene that looked like garbage with all the compression.

All those channels, and it's still on Cartoon Network 2/3s of the time.

Re: Question about Sony DAV-s300, 5.1, & Digital Cable...
 

No not really...... Sometimes HBO has a movie or 2...

I've got Time Warner digital cable in NYC and have been very impressed with the sound. It uses the Scientific Atlanta explorer 2100 and requires that you hook up both the optical cable and standard red/black.

Most of the newer movies on the premium stations are broadcast in Dolby Digital and my Yamaha picks it up well. The only problem I'm running into is how to route the sound to my VCR without having the reciever on.

Maybe I need to hook up the red/white cables also then? I'll try that tonight.

Greetings ! :D

JF2000-you only need to use the digital coax or optical out from the back of your Sony IO box to the receiver-then use the receivers functions or modes to get the different sound fields (stereo/pro logic etc.) as the IO box is Dolby Digital capable.

If you have the box hooked up to your monitor via S video as opposed to coax(which carries audio as well as video) you would then need to run the red/white rca cables from the box to the monitor to get stereo sound,if you ever wanted to just listen to broadcast channels thru the monitors speakers and not the home theatre speakers.

I for one do not like to listen to News 12 L.I. thru my Polks :D

The toshiba's speaks works just fine for that!
Hope this helps.

CHEERS! jefff

Thanks, guys, I found out for myself this weekend that there is a decent amount of stuff (as far as movies go) that is presented in 5.1. Driven and Dude, Where's My Car to name a few. I also found a list Dolby puts on their website of all broadcast material that is presented in 5.1. Even ABC supposedly utilizes it on some of their prime time shows, but I am not home at night to check it out. Once again, I must say I love digital cable! The sound is great, and the picture is fantastic. I have seen virtually no artifacting!