Onkyo tx-nr509 (or similar model) with MP (1 Viewer)

mr viggo

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  • March 1, 2008
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    Thinking about getting myself a new amp and the onkyo seems like a good choice. A few things that I wonder thou:

    How is MPs auto refreshrate changer working if hdmi is passing through the avr?
    I suppose that HD audio is not that big a problem in mkvs nowadays? This is the main reason I'm upgrading.
    The onkyo avr is apparently having a feature called hdmi passthrough something, so that even if the avr is turned off, I still have audio and video on the tv. So for you guys that own this or similar model, how does it work with your MP setup?
     

    krikkit

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  • September 25, 2008
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    i have exactly this receiver running since about a month...

    ... i do not use mps auto refreshrate changer (my lcd does not support this :(
    digital sound via hdmi, is a bit tricky to setup, i expecially had problems with DTS... but now works fine... real hd audio (DTS HD and TRUE HD) is not possible with setup, but this does not matter cause DTS and dolby digital is more than i need...
    ...i also do not use hdmi passtrough cause, with this enabled the receiver needs more power in standby, and the speakers of my lcd are not that good, so always have the sound over the receiver... buying a logitech harmony, is good to increase WAF...
     

    xurr

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    I have an Onkyo NR-609, no problem with auto refreshrate changer, nor with HDMI passthrough. HD audio works fine, I had some problem with DTS but in the end I found a configuration of SAF/LAV/ffdshow that does work. Generally speaking, I do recommend this amp!

    Only issue I have is that if I turn on/off only the TV (if I only need to listen to music) MP seems to get confused and audio stops working. The PureAudio plugin fixes this (I just need to stop/re-start the current song), although I'd like to keep the standard setup (to enjoy visualizations, for example)...

    Cheers,
    X
     

    IchBinsShort

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    I have an Onkyo NR-609, no problem with auto refreshrate changer, nor with HDMI passthrough. HD audio works fine, I had some problem with DTS but in the end I found a configuration of SAF/LAV/ffdshow that does work. Generally speaking, I do recommend this amp!

    Only issue I have is that if I turn on/off only the TV (if I only need to listen to music) MP seems to get confused and audio stops working. The PureAudio plugin fixes this (I just need to stop/re-start the current song), although I'd like to keep the standard setup (to enjoy visualizations, for example)...

    Cheers,
    X

    With my Sr-606 I have the same problem with broken audio after turning off my TV. This happens only with the Bass Player and Mediaportal. I don't use the HDMi passthrough because of the same reason like krikkit.
     

    AndrePrins

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    xurr: I also have an Onkyo 609, but I still can't get HD audio from my htpc (with or without MediaPortal) to my Onkyo. It only shows DTS, not DTS-HD or anything like that. Is it possible to share your settings? I'm using SAF/LAV and ffdshow as well. Thanks!
     

    xurr

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    I have the following settings:
    - MediaPortal: ffdshow Audio Decoder (in any audio-related option under Codecs and Renderers) and TX-NR609 as Audio renderer
    - ffdshow Audio Settings: all the codecs enabled (E-AC3, TrueHD set to libavodec, DTS to libdts), in the Output section all the Pass-through options enabled, Connect as PCM first disabled, Connect to DirectSound

    I switched to ffdshow from LAV Audio because LAV (which is the default/suggested option when using SAF) didn't seem to be able to output DTS at all on my system. I have SAF 6.0.5, I think there are newer versions available now but the only issue I have at the moment is that I can't switch audio track/subtitles (which is something I never actually needed to do) so I prefer to keep my current setup rather than risk to break it by installing a newer version :)

    Hope this helps...
     

    AndrePrins

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    Xurr, thanks for the info. I turned out that my video card (ati radeon 2600 pro) couldn't handle dts-hd and truehd). I've replaced it with an asus eah5450 with native hdmi and everything is working fine now. I'm using the LAV audio decoder.
     

    bawheid

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    The audio "getting confused" isn't the fault of MediaPortal or your AVR; it's a fault of the anti-piracy brigade. It's a pretty common HDCP handshake problem (especially common when you put an AVR in the middle of the chain between your TV and PC). I'll break it down as basically as possible for the sake of anyone else reading this thread later:
    Your TV and AVR contain what's called an EDID (Extended display identification data). This contains a bunch of information about your equipment, but most importantly what resolution it's capable of handling, and what type of sound it's capable of decoding (for example, most TV's can't decode DTS-MA or Dolby TrueHD).​
    When you turn on your equipment, it goes through a "handshake" process where it communicates along the chain exactly what everything is capable of doing. Every time you turn your TV on or off, that changes so it has to re-handshake and everything (very annoyingly) cuts out.​

    I know a lot of people have had success spoofing their EDID with a program called PowerStrip, but I could never get it to work with my graphics card. In the end I bought a product called Gefen HDMI detective. It's basically a little box you connect via HDMI in between your AVR and your PC that maintains a constant EDID signal so there's no more handshake issues. I'm more than a little annoyed I had to pay over £100 just to fix something that shouldn't even be a problem in the first place, but it works if anyone else is thinking of buying one.
     

    JBravo

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