Only certain Movies work all speakers?

Re: Only certain Movies work all speakers?

1) Re: the thread title, "Yes", certain movies only work some speakers. Not all films had DD 5.1 or 7.1 soundtracks in the theater, and not all DVDs of such films have DD 5.1 or 7.1 remixes as options on the disc.

2) Some discs default to Dolby Pro Logic (matrixed analog) surround or to the film's original mix (which can be anything from 7.1 to mono) and you have to select any other soundtrack from the disc menu.

3) You shouldn't have to change settings on the receiver to listen to DVDs. It should be set to whatever the "automatic detection" mode is called on that model and left there. That way it will just adjust to whatever signal it is getting from the DVD player.

4) I assume you are using digital optical or coax cable, or HDMI, for the digital audio singal. If you are using the former, make sure you have that input on the receiver associated with the right video input. On many receivers these are no pre-assigned and must be manually paired with a video input. ONLY digital audio inputs are going to provide actual discrete multichannel sound. If you're using analog audio connections (the red & white RCA jacks) all you're getting is an analog downmix of the track.

5) Go into the DVD player's setup menu and make sure the digital output is turned on and is the default output. That is not the case with all players, some require that you manually activate digital audio.

6) You mention one setting where the music overwhelms the dialogue. This may, in fact, be the correct setting. You may just need to goose the speaker level of the center channel speaker so that you can hear the dialogue clearly.

It would also help if you indicated the make and model of your DVD player, which connections you're using and the titles (plus the UPC barcode number, since many films have had multiple releases) of any films you've had problems with.

Regards,

Joe