widescreenforever

My first mono audio 1080I DVD why the 5.1 output?

I have a Toshiba A3 HDD player, and have a very small library of HDD discs all with 5.1 and one HDD disk with 1.0 DD audio ( the Searchers '56) ..
My regular DVD library consists of well over 500 titles and range from DD1.0 to DD5.1 DTS and Dolby Digital audio . My audio output on this player is threefold., One is HDMI to my Sony 46E2000E series projection HD TV.
The audio for the TV is a built in speakers which has settings for Dolby surround in the remote for playback for the TV speakers built in. My digital JVC receiver has no inputs for HDMI but does have an optical and digital coaxial jacks. Since the Toshiba player only has (HDMI / optical / and RCA (white/red/yellow jacks ) out., I have opted for the optical out for my 5.1 audio which works fine for all my DVD's , but have noticed a situation with my HDD discs which is why I am posting here for a solution to my problem.

The HDD optical (out) all register as 5.1 to my JVC. I use the 'digital in' button and this activates the 5.1 lights. and if I throw on a Dolby mono DVD it goes to 2 lights (left/right) and if I throw in a DTS DVD it activates DTS, and if I throw on a '5.1 Dolby Digital surround EX' discs ( i.e. star wars),
I get the extra 'red light' for audio to show that I have the capability of 6.1 surround.
BUT if I play an HDD DVD I always get the 5.1 even if the Disk is Mono !
and cannot find in the disk menu of the HDD playback to only have Dolby surround or MONO or 5.1 etc .
I just spent the better part of this evening trying to figure out how to play The Searchers in MONO. The menu audio settings are: two only- Bitstream and PCM stereo . By selecting Bitstream I get 5.1 lights on my JVC., and by selecting PCM I get two channel sound. So when I select another DVD with 5.1 output the receiver gives me true 5.1 sound using my optical wire in and my receiver set to Digital IN . I can then pick the receivers settings for turning off certain areas of speakers like surround or stereo or subwoofer.

I can't figure out why it is with the HDD discs with their built in sub menu for audio. For the Searchers it gives nothing at all and I get 5.1 lights but only my center speaker works , which is correct because it is 1.0 DD audio .
But what's with the lights? If I turn off Bitstream and go for PCM I then get the two lights for stereo and again my center speaker only is playing back.

PLUS on top of all of this- When I hit the button STOP, then PLAY again. the movie goes back to the first opening frame of the disc ( the FBI warning). Yet all my other DVD's (500+) if I hit stop and then play it goes back to the same scene it just played.
This has nothing to do with Firmware as the player not only has the latest firmware in place., but don't forget it plays back the regular Dvds (upconverting) fine and the audio is what I would expect to play back to my JVC receiver. It is the HDD disks I can't seem to figure out.

Are these quirks I have reasonable??

brap

Re: My first mono audio 1080I DVD why the 5.1 output?

It's standard for a HD player to convert the signal to DTS or dolby 5.1 (depending on the player) when it is playing non-dvd standard soundtrack through optical or coax. Meaning any track that's not Dolby digital, DTS, or PCM will be converted. You can still play mono, just the center speaker will be used. For mono and stereo, I suggest you use pcm without any dolby prologic turned on and you will not lose any fidelty.

As for the resume issue: yeah, it's a real pain. They say it is the complexity of the software on the discs that messes with resume. Use the bookmarks if the disc has them. Blu-ray is worse. I have the Samsung 1400. The java based menus take a long time to load. I paused it last night because of a phone call and the player stops after short amount of time. I had to wait to reload it all again and choose from the scene selections.