Home theater system only plays Pro logic, no digital or DTS

Well, one thing to check is that the particular DVDs you are playing contain Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding. Many DVDs only contain the older Pro Logic soundtracks, but most recent releases have the DD 5.1. I have encountered DVDs with both Pro Logic and DD formats and sometimes you need to go into the setup menu on the DVD player to select the DD 5.1 version. I think most receivers equipped for DD playback automatically switch to that format when incoming DD 5.1 is detected.

Are you connecting the two pieces togeather using a digital cable? Digital out(DVD) Digital In (Reciever)?. Have you gone into the menu of the movie(Audio set up/Languages)? Clicked on 5.1 or dts.

1) be sure to go into audio set-up on the dvd's menu and select the 5.1 soundtrack
2) try disconnecting your DVD analog out cables and just use digital until you can lock in on the 5.1
3) try to find a way to display the output going from your DVD player (for example, on my player I can choose bitstream output, two-channel PCM, or analog out -- you should select bitstream)
4) go into your receiver's set-up and designate the type of digital input you are using (toslink or coax). Once you select the type of digital input, you may need to specify which of the multiple toslink or coax inputs you are using, as many receivers have multiple coax and toslink inputs
5) when playing DVD's, select "digital" input rather than "analog" on your DVD player

This should solve things -- I can't think of any other potential problems other than a defect w/ your gear.

CAUTION- *DON'T* select DTS on the disc unless your receiver can decode DTS. From what I hear that can be a very loud and unpleasant experience (for both you and your speakers! :); evidently it comes through as *extremely* loud noise.

Glen makes a good suggestion- be sure you either have an onboard DD/DTS decoder in the DVD player (in which case you can run from the 5.1 analog outputs on the DVD to the 5.1 analog inputs on the receiver), or run a digital cable to either an outboard decoder, or directly into the digital input of your receiver.

Good luck!

Hi,

Thanks a lot for your help. I appreciate it all of your quick responses.

I put the DVD player in "digital out" mode, put in a regular music CD, unhooked the analog interconnects, connected the digital cable from "digital out" on my DVD player to "digital in" on my receiver and got no sound....frustrating silence. The PCM light did not light up on my reciever. I'm not getting a digital signal.

I am using a regular analog interconnect for a digital cable. I understand that it would work fine the only difference being digital is 75 ohm and analog is 50 ohm, the digital sounding better, I might be wrong.

What kills me is that there is an obvious solution(there has to be) and it's going to be very embarrassing when brought to my attention. (<:

Pete