Hi all,
I have just brought the Sony BDV-N5200w home entertainment system and am not sure if I have it set up correctly,,I have my TiVo box and Xbox going into blu ray and the hdmi going from blu ray to tv,, when I watch normal TV channel it says LPCM 2.0 48khz with the sound coming out of all the speakers,,,but shouldn't this be 5.1 not 2.0,,,,when I go onto hd channel some say Dolby digital 5.1ch 48khs and some say Dolby digital 2.0ch,,the Xbox play LPCM 5.1... Not sure what LPCM is I thought the system would play all in 5.1 Dolby,,,any help would be greatly appreciated thanks Ray

It is showing you the sound source that is feeding it. Normal TV channels may only be 2 channel, whereas HDTV and the Xbox are 5.1. The Sony can probably create a pseudo 5.1 type sound from a stereo input though.

Cheers Stig,,when it says 2.0ch it does still play out of all the speakers it's just LPCM and not Dolby,,,it changes it self depending on what channel I'm watching,,,so it looks like I have it setup right ??

SD TV channels are usually two channel although they may be encoded with Surround information that a Dolby ProLogic decoder in the Sony system can use. The Sony system can also generate a pseudo surround signal from plain stereo using the same ProLogic decoder. That could easily explain why you get sound from all speakers.

Dolby Digital is a family of formats with several channel combinations, not just 5.1. HD TV channels can carry a surround sound audio track if the programme has been made with one. But even then you do get a number of programmes with plain stereo audio tracks.

LPCM stands for Linear Pulse Code Modulation, or in simple terms plain digital, closely related to the WAV audio file format you may be familiar with. More often than not it is used to describe a stereo source but there is no reason why it could not be used for multiple channels. It is quite possible the XBox is decoding any surround format it plays into the appropriate number of channels rather than throw the raw encoded signal at the Sony and let it handle the decoding. Ultimately it might make little difference which of the two does the decoding,

The TiVo and TV will likely output stereo audio tracks from broadcasts as LPCM stereo rather than the compressed format used by the broadcaster.

Thanks Chris for ur info

Hi all,,,,,,my system seems to be working great except when it displays Dolby digital 5.1 then it only plays out of the front speakers,,after looking at manual it says if my tv does not have hdmi arc then I need to use optical,,,my TV does not have arc so I've got optical cable plugged in but this seems to make no difference at all,,I can unplug optical and still get the sound??? So not sure what's going on here

Are you actually listening to the TV audio out? What source have you got selected on the Sony system? If you have one of the HDMI ins that you have the TiVo or XBox plugged into then you could chuck the telly out of the window and still get sound as the TV is playing no part whatsoever in that process.

You only need an audio feed from the TV if you either have everything connected to the TV or if you want to listen to audio from it's built in tuner.

I have my Xbox and TiVo going into the blu ray with hdmi then hdmi coming from blu ray to my tv with this I get pic and sound but when display from blu ray says Dolby digital 2.0ch it plays from all speakers yet when it says 5.1 it only plays from front speakers,,,I have TV speakers turned off ,,digital audio out set to auto not pcm....on virgin setting you have 2 options Dolby digital or Dolby digital to pcm I have mine set to Dolby digital,,.if I change this to PCs I then get sound from all speakers but I understand that this is stereo and not Dolby,,,my optical cable seems to make no difference what so ever to sound plugged in or unplugged,,,,sorry if I'm frustrating just new to this

That makes absolutely no sense at all, if that is you are describing what is happening correctly.

Having 2.0 come out of the front speakers only is perfectly understandable as is 5.1 coming out of all six speakers. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for it to be the other way round. Unless you have seriously mucked about with the sound settings. But from reading the manual I can't see any way to make it do what you claim it is doing. The only explanation that makes any sense is that you are misreading the display.

Neither Dolby Digital nor PCM are only stereo or only surround. They can be either. Though it is more common for DD to be used to describe surround and PCM to describe stereo neither is exclusively one or the other.

If the Sony system is set to HDMI 1 or HDMI 2 it will make not one jot of difference to what you hear out of the speakers if you even have a TV connected to it or not. The Sony is getting all the audio from the HDMI 1 or 2 connection, the TV has nothing to do with that. The TV audio connection only applies to it's built in tuner and any devices that are plugged into the TV only. It makes no difference at all to devices connected direct to the Sony.

Thanks Chris for ur input and patients,,,not sure what I've done but got it working