Question from the past - Extraterrestrial DVB-T receiver and HDMI audio

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lchiu7

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#96961 8-Feb-2012 10:46

There was a pretty active thread a couple of years ago about this receiver since it was one of the lower cost receivers at the time when the choices were pretty slim.

I bought one and used it a bit but then just put it away when I found it really didn't add too much to my setup.

I recently resurrected it and found it still works fine and I have integrated it into my Google TV setup as the TV source. But I have noticed one strange behaviour.

The device is connected to my GTV over HDMI (there is no other choice) and then via HDMI to my AVR. For programmes that have DD 5.1 I am only getting two channel audio and this occurs whether I have the audio set to MPEG or Dolby. It also occurs if I have the audio settings set to PCM or Bypass. i am running the V1.05 firmware.

I think all support for these devices is long gone and there is no link on the site where the firmware was originally hosted.

Just wondering if anybody is still using one of these and if so, do you get 5.1 audio over HDMI?

Thanks

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Jaxson

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#578588 8-Feb-2012 10:49

I believe it was via digital coax/optical outputs only sorry.

And even then it had bad audio dropouts. It was very frustrating as each firmware upgrade fixed something but broke another and they were so close at the end, but no more came.

lchiu7

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#578607 8-Feb-2012 11:22

Thanks. Up till now I had been using my PS3 as the Freeview HD receiver but seemed like a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

The GTV device converts all audio to multichannel PCM even if the source i bit stream Dolby Digital because it can then add its cool sound effects to various actions you take. But it does allow for S/PDIF audio input from the TV so I presume if I connect an optical cable to the GTV from the Extraterrestrial device, I will be feeding it Dolby Digital audio (5.1) and it will be able to process that fine.

Then I guess I will find if there are any audio dropout issues.

As an side I was surprised that the GTV (which has a builtin Harmony remote) was able to find the IR codes for the ET device in its database and is able to control it from the keyboard.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

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#579335 9-Feb-2012 16:15

Bad news. The GTV device only has optical output, not input. So if the device providing the TV signal to GTV can't do 5.1 audio over HDMI then there will be no multichannel audio.

So my options are either to put up with 2.0 audio or to find another DVB-T tuner.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

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#579615 10-Feb-2012 10:38

Well to answer my own post I connected an optical cable from the ET box to my AVR as well as the HDMI to the GTV box. My AVR allows me to select which audio input to use on any input so when I am watching TV from the ET box I just choose optical in and when I am watching Netflix or server based content I choose HDMI.

As an aside I am noticing a delay in video from audio which I had never seen before which results in lip sync issues. It must be due to the additional processing the video undergoes when passing through GTV but that was easily fixed with delay settings on the AVR.

Plus so far I have not experienced any audio dropouts- knock on wood!

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

lchiu7

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#579616 10-Feb-2012 10:38

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.