freeview audio question

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jimmy29

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#34144 19-May-2009 14:43

i just got freeview with my new tv and i notice that when i change from tv 2 to tv 3 the audio level is significantly different. Most if not all of the channels besides tv3 say audio AAC or something but tv3 says dolby digital audio. U can change it in tv3 but it reverts back to dolby digital next time. Its really annoying since the difference is sound levels causes my speakers to bass overload when i turn back to channel 2. does any1 know why or if this is something i have accidentaly done or if tv3 is always broadcast as such

thanks

Marmion

59 posts

Master Geek

#216044 19-May-2009 19:16

TV3 is broadcasted in Dolby Digital by default, as opposed to TVNZ's AAC. There is an AAC feed for TV3 but DD is superior in that some shows broadcasted by TV3 are in DD 5.1.
Without knowing your TV I don't know whether you can make it default to AAC. I know for sony it is one button press to change to AAC.

Dingbatt

6754 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#216051 19-May-2009 19:29

If it's a Panasonic press the I/II button (second language). The default is DD and in fact when I got my TV TV3 defaulted to AAC which I found annoying (because I run audio through an HT Amp) until a firmware update set it to DD by default.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

jonathan18

7413 posts

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#216170 20-May-2009 08:43

Marmion: DD is superior in that some shows broadcasted by TV3 are in DD 5.1..

... but also causes problems for those of us who use a HT setup to listen to the audio, because the programmes that aren't in 5.1 are broadcast as 2.0 so the decoder sends audio only to the front two channels. Unless one is sitting dead centre this is no use, so it's actually better to listen to the AAC signal in these situations (as it will employ the centre speaker).

That said, when a programme is broadcast in 5.1, the results are certainly superior.

The OP's question has made me wonder: do TVs with Freeview built in have a digital out to enable external decoding of DD soundtracks? If not, (and I assume they don't have 5.1 analgoue audio outs) that's a big downside to having built-in Freeview.