Having Trouble With VCR Audio (1 Viewer)

[Andrew_Sch]

Okay, as those of you who frequent my Star Wars widescreen thread know, we've recently purchased a new VCR for the purpose of watching those movies. Here's the problem: our old VCR used to put out all of its audio in Dolby Prologic (at least I think that's the term for audio with sub, all front channels, and one rear channel). I know my receiver is certainly capable of doing so, and would simulate DPL when the old VCR played taped cassetes, regular TV or sattelite. With the new one (Toshiba W-522) all we get is left and right speaker channels. No sub, no center, no rear. We've tried fiddling around with the audio options of the VCR to no avail. What do we need to do to get DPL?

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Andrew,
Your old VCR is an oddity- I have never seen a VCR with built in DPL that actually passed L/R/C/Sub/Surr out on dedicated outputs. Interesting item!
In your current situation, DPL would be a processing function of the receiver, not the VCR (this is the way the normal world does this). A receiver with DPL function will take a 2 channel signal (like that provided from a VCR) and apply a digital signal process (like DPL, or any other you have available) to create a surround output.
You feed the 2 channel audio from the VCR (or from any stereo device for that matter) into your receiver, and then turn on the DPL or DPL2 function on the receiver.
The receiver will process the stereo signal into surround, and you should then get L/R/C/S output from the receiver to the appropriate speakers in your system!
-V

 

[John Garcia]

It would probably help if you mentioned what receiver you are using.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I'm not sure if receiver type would matter- as the advice I posted above would be pretty much identical for any receiver on the market.

-Vince

 

[John Garcia]

True, even if it is only a DPL reciever. But it may be a specific option or issue with respect to the receiver in question, though any DSP or DPL/DPL II should give some type of surround.

It's also a 4 head hi-fi vcr, so it must be something not selected on the receiver.

 

[Ted Lee]

this definitely sounds like an issue with the receiver. i've never seen a vcr where you have to tell it that it's playing back a dolby-encoded stereo signal (if that's the right terminology to use...)

my guess is that something changed in your receiver. you should run the audio-out from the vcr to whatever input on your receiver. then switch your receiver to dolby pro-logic and you should be golden....

 

[Andrew_Sch]

Okay, that was what I thought, I'll have to try fiddling with the receiver tonight. And Vince, I'm pretty sure that the DPL with my old VCR was also a product of the receiver, I just must have worded it wrong. Thanks for the help.