Coolsat 8100 Dolby icon.

[jvinccler]

Hi !


I did tested my new Coolsat 8100 and works fine, but I´m curious about the Dolby icon located in the "Info" screen bannner: this Dolby logo doesn´t activate when one Dolby AC-3 audio channel is tuned. The Dolby logo located in the VFD activates when one Dolby AC-3 channel is tuned.

Someone knows what is happening ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FTABman0]

You mean your not hearing sound on AC3 Dolby Channels? The sound comes through the S/PDIF Optical connection on the back your Coolsat. See Attached Picture. It does not pass through the audio RCA connections.

Coolsat 8100 HD Features :
Coolsat8100 hd:- MPEG2 & MPEG4 Support High Definition (ATSC Only)
- Digital Terrestrial (ATSC) & Satellite Set-Top-Box (TS combo)
- Multiple Video Outputs: HDMI, RGB, Y Pb Pr, S-Video & CVBS
- Selectable output formats: 1080i, 720P, 576P and 576i
- Tunes & Decodes all 18 ATSC broadcast formats
- Max 500 GB external USB 2.0 Host Hard Disk Drive support for Recording, Playback and Powerful Trick Mode.
- Premium Grade VFD displaying 12 characters (CH -, CH name & Local Time), Recording mode (Record & Play mode), Status Icons (TV/Radio, Dolby Sound and Left HDD capacity)
- Playback a recorded file at PC
- Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 Channel Surround Sound via optical
- Aspect ratio adjustment 4:3 (16/9 crop), 4:3 (16/9 letterbox), 16:9 (4/3 pillar box)
- Multi-Lingual audio & digital closed caption support
- User friendly OSD and operation.
- Favorite channel selections.
- S/W upgrade via USB 2.0 port or RS-232
- Parental Guide and rating control.
- Picture in Picture support (Aux input/optional)
- Electronic Programming Guide.
- DiSEqC 1.0 or DiSEqC 1.2
- Flash memory 4MB
- DDR RAM 128MB (DDR400 16MX16) X 4ea
- Universal Remote Control
- Smart Card Reader (Optional)

To get the audio to pass through to your regular set up do a forum search in the FTA section about Sonic Voom Headphones. Many of us members has “Modified” them to work with conventional stereo equipment!

Now,
If you are having trouble with the Dolby not working right or not doing what it is supposed to do, and have it set up already through the optical like above, check your firmware version. Might just need the latest FACTORY firmware to fix things. I would do a Reset of the box first to see it that fixes it though; Remember a hard factory reset will make you loose all settings and satellites you have already scanned in.

You will have to put in your Longitude and Latitude settings, setup settings again and scan in all the satellites you want all over again! I do a factory reset every year on all my STB'S to get things working great again. Yes it is a pain to scan in all those birds again but well worth the trouble. My main box was throwing fits this year and it was time! I am glad I did it, she works like new!

Hope that helps!

BTW: To The Satellite Guys!!

B~Man

 

[techno935]

You can also get AC-3 audio without that as well if you use HDMI.

 

[jvinccler]

Yes. I can hear AC-3 audio in my TV´s speakers. My doubt is the icon located in the info banner does not light when Dolby channels are tuned.

 

[FTABman0]

You can also get AC-3 audio without that as well if you use HDMI.

Forgot that, yes it will pass HDMI as well.

Coolsat 8100 HD Features :
- Multiple Video Outputs: HDMI, RGB, Y Pb Pr, S-Video & CVBS
- Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 Channel Surround Sound via optical

Thanks techno for that buzz in, too early in the morning for me this week on first help post! Only had 4 hours sleep in the past two days!!!

jvinccler Yes. I can hear AC-3 audio in my TV´s speakers. My doubt is the icon located in the info banner does not light when Dolby channels are tuned.

Are you sure they are Dolby Channels? Things change all the time in FTA. A good example: Retro Jams on 123.0°W Galaxy 18 Ku (Galaxy 10RK)
was AC3 for years now it is not. Well kind of. Another station affiliate WYNI has it now not AC3. Different than it was and The List shows the AC3 one, easy to confuse. I would think that the box is working fine, if icon in the banner pops in DOLBY AC3 THEN IT IS. The box sees the encoding. If not well you get the picture.

Again What I Would Try:
1. If you absolutely know for a fact that it is AC3 and not working properly, I would try a Factory Reset.
2. Factory Firmware Re-flash.
3. Still no go read the Coolsat 8100 Users Manual to see if you are missing something.
4. Very sure that it is not anything, doing it right to the letter & tried everything, it may be something defective.

Lastly, see if another member has the same box to chime in to see if they are having the same problems and know how to fix it.

B~Man

 

[B.J.]

With the 8100, you even hear sound on AC3 audio channels when you use the regular R/L RCA jacks. The 8100 can decode the AC3, I assume into R/L or perhaps some form of stereo downmix. I think that basically any receiver that does OTA ATSC has to be able to do AC3, at least to give you sound, although to get the actual 5 channel info, yes, then you need the digital connection.

 

[Mr Tony]

yep. The 8000 is the same way
AC-3 through audio/video, digital output and HDMI output

 

[hd fan]

Resurrecting a dead one !!!, lol.

I just saw the DD icon light up again (very rare, maybe I saw it before at the Superbowl feed) on my CS8100 these days since I found the Galavision HD E and W channels on 135W. This BTW are among the first channels I see that have full Dolby Digital 5.1. The rest of the AC3 channels I had found were only DD 2.0 , so I think the DD icon only lights up on the CS8100 if the audio track is DD 5.1. I have always being surprised that the PBS HD stuff at 125W is only DD 2.0 yet the local affiliates I get OTA or via Bell TV are DD 5.1. I guess they re-encode it from 2.0 to 5.1 then eh? The question is , What is the point of distributing those HD channels with only DD 2.0 audio? Save bandwith????. Isn't it required by the HD standards to have full DD 5.1 audio minimum to be called HD?. I have no problem with the SD channels like PBS Create being only DD 2.0 but I would expect the HD signals being full DD 5.1 at least.

 

[mediageek]

if you have a receiver that passes ac3 but not hdmi, you can connect the optical output to a tv with the same connection and it'll play AC3 audio?

 

[Tron]

Mediageek, most of the time, the optical connection on a TV is an output from the tuner, not an input.

 

[B.J.]

Resurrecting a dead one !!!, lol.

I just saw the DD icon light up again (very rare, maybe I saw it before at the Superbowl feed) on my CS8100 these days since I found the Galavision HD E and W channels on 135W. This BTW are among the first channels I see that have full Dolby Digital 5.1. The rest of the AC3 channels I had found were only DD 2.0 , so I think the DD icon only lights up on the CS8100 if the audio track is DD 5.1. I have always being surprised that the PBS HD stuff at 125W is only DD 2.0 yet the local affiliates I get OTA or via Bell TV are DD 5.1. I guess they re-encode it from 2.0 to 5.1 then eh? The question is , What is the point of distributing those HD channels with only DD 2.0 audio? Save bandwith????. Isn't it required by the HD standards to have full DD 5.1 audio minimum to be called HD?. I have no problem with the SD channels like PBS Create being only DD 2.0 but I would expect the HD signals being full DD 5.1 at least.

I don't know what HD standards you're referring to, but they certainly can't require uplinkers to use any type of audio. I'd guess that there is more HD out there that doesn't have full 5.1 or even not even AC3 than there is with full 5.1 . Does your Bell/OTA have PBS in 5 channel mode all the time or just for some content? Ie is it possible that PBS just encodes in AC3, and whether it's 2 channel or 5 channel is just determined by whatever content they are sending at the time? Another possibility is that they don't get their content from the video channels on AMC21. Perhaps they're getting it from IP sources or perhaps they're getting it from the AMC1 feed. That AMC1 feed sometimes has very complicated audio, an mpeg stream with L/R front, a stream with L/R rear a stream with center, and another stream that I'm not sure WHAT was in it. I've seen times when NONE of the audio tracks had all the audio, and it was impossible to listen to a program unless you had some way of re-encoding the various channels into 5 channel, which I don't. Right now, it looks like all the streams just have L/R on them, so it seems like it's dependent on what they are showing. But the Bell/OTA channels you mention might take these mpeg streams and encode them.
I can't remember whether I've seen any of the AMC21 channels ever come up as being 5 channel or not. Right now, like you say, they are just 2 channel. BUt I definately HAVE had occasions when I've had trouble listening to their audio in my 2 channel system, so I've always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that they sometimes had 5 channel audio, depending on the source.

 

[hd fan]

BJ, I can not say if it is 5.1 24/7 either on Bell TV (Boston Affiliate) or OTA Buffalo's WNED but I can say that most of the time it is 5.1 , yet every time I compare with the AMC 21 HD signals those were always DD 2.0. Like I said other than this Galavision test HD signals I do not recall seeing any other DD 5.1 signals FTA. I guess I was mistakenly under the impression that an HD broadcast had to be DD 5.1 minimum. There are a few OTA signals after the digital transition in US that are still DD 2.0.

I will send an email to both TV stations , Boston and Buffalo affiliates and see what they say about it. Sending left and right channels separately on different PIDS makes a lot of sense since it allows the TV station to re- encode them again if they want. I just dont see the point of having the HD East and West feeds on AMC21 with only DD 2.0. Well I do not see the point on having HD and SD as a subschannel OTA either and WNED still have it (FOX 29 discontued the SD subch months ago BTW).

BTW I get No audio on HD West and Create on 125W on the CS8100. I have even tried manually entering the PID's and yet it says No audio. I even power off and reset and nothing. There was a few months until my 6 footer was able to track Ku beyond 99 but I remember getting audio on those 2 HD PBS signals when I had the motorised Ku 90 cm.

A correction. I just checked the Bell TV Boston affiliate and they have the Rick Steves show with only DD 2.0. And now that I think about it I might have seen other PBS programming with only DD 2.0 on Bell TV. I can not check the Buffalo OTA this days but I remember seeing 5.1 on it and only 2.0 on AMC 21 on the same show months ago. I might even have talked about it on this forum before.

 

[B.J.]

...

BTW I get No audio on HD West and Create on 125W on the CS8100. I have even tried manually entering the PID's and yet it says No audio. ....

I don't use my 8100 anymore, but I remember having problems with the PBS channels. You definately can't get audio after manually creating a channel with manual PID entry, as there is no way to specify AC3. I used to have headaches when scanning transponders, in that it often wouldn't scan in all the channels on a transponder. It seemed to need a very good signal to scan channels in properly. However once scanned in, I don't remember not having audio. I assume you've tried deleting the problem channels, and scanning them in again?

 

[hd fan]

Well , Coolsat 8xxx owners are screwed with the PBS Mux on AMC21 @125W until those APID are changed back again then.

I just found out the cause of the problem.

The audio PID's on the PBS HD East and PBS Create channels were changed from a 3 digit number to a 5 digit decimal number. 16436, 16437, 16536 and 16537 respectively since both channels have 2 AC3 tracks each. The problem is the CS8100 menu only allows you to enter only 4 digits in the decimal format in the PID's and therefore it will not recognize the proper PID in the PMT tables even if you enter it manually. I even tried with the hex format (you would have to convert all PID's , inlcuding Video and PCR to enter them in Hex format , Windows scientific calculator comes handy then) but guess what? . Even in the Hex format the freaking son of the freaking you know who!!!!!! setup box only allows you to enter 3 digit Hex numbers so you are stuck with a box that only is able to process PIDs with DEC values up to 9999. even in Hex format the highest number is FFF or 4368 DEC.
Who programmed this boxes then I wonder????.

Oh!!, let me try different firmwares and see what happens then?. I remember when I got the box and had the motorised Ku 90 cm it was working great on those PBS channels. Signal levels are high now as well and you are right sometimes it misses some channels when it scans then , coincidently the ones with very high audio PID's. I just re-scanned with the slaved CS6000 and it found every channel (well not the Montana Legislature one) and thats how I saw the 5 digits Audio PID's.

Good thing I recorded the PBS Memorial Day ceremony with the Bell TV PVR eh?.

 

[hd fan]

Well acctually the highest HEX number seems to be below 3FFF which is a 5 digit decimal. From 3000 to 3FFF is the cut off. I said 3 HEX digits but it is acctually 4 digits but it has to be less than a number in that range I just wrote. Anyhow it odes not solve the issue either.

 

[hd fan]

It was the freaking hackers software the issue!!!. I had problems controlling the VBOX with this CS8100 when I motorized it months ago and as part of trying to find a solution installed the last hack software (3F) so now I just flashed it to the last factory software (25A) and it is working perfectly , it even finds the missing channels by itself on the first scan. But funny thing , it finds 2 AC3 tracks like the CS6000 but it has the APIDS like the ones The List and Lyngsat lists (2 and 3 digit decimal numbers).

Woo Hoo , finally , PBS HD E and Create with Audio , even if it is only DD 2.0 , I am quite happy , lol. It even found the HD and SD feeds on 12140V.

 

[B.J.]

I don't completely understand what you've said in the above 3 messages, but just to make sure...

The biggest PID#s of any type that is possible on any DVB stream is &H1FFF=8191

Those numbers you saw somewhere that were like 16437, etc, were not valid PID#s . The PBS audio PIDs were never 5 digit numbers, they have always been 2 and 3 digit numbers.

I _THINK_ you said that you now understand this, but I'm not sure.

I have had a couple versions of pirate software on my 8100 in the past, back when the factory firmware had some very serious problems, but took it off when the factory firmware was fixed. I never observed what you described with the PID#s, and most of the time, the PBS transponders were the only transponders I had programmed in.

NOW, however, what I _THINK_ those 5 digit PID#s were caused by, is that I think the firmware is using another hex character to tell the receiver that that PID represents AC3 audio. My guess is caused by observations I made with my Diamond-9000 channel editor.

With the Diamond 9000, you can't create manual PID channels with AC3 audio or MPEG4 video via the remote either, however with the channel editor, you can enter AC3 audio at least. But I experimented trying to enter mpeg4 channels manually vs scanning them in, and observed what PIDs were listed in the 9000's channel editor, and found that say, if a channel had a VPID of 32, which is &H0020 in hex, that the Diamond would enter a number of &H4020 if the video happened to be MPEG4. The number &H4020=16416 . If the video was regular mpeg video, it would just use &H0020 = 32 . So I found that even though neither the Diamond firmware nor the channel editor had any option to manually create an MPEG4 channel, I found that I could do it by just adding &H4000 to whatever hex number the video PID was.
I suspect that your Coolsat 8100 is probably doing something similar with the audio PIDs, ie adding a hex character to tell the receiver to use AC3 audio. It's too bad that there isn't any channel editor that works with the 8100, or else we might be able to play similar tricks with it like I did with the Diamond 9000.
BTW, I'm pretty sure that the &H4000 number has no significance, and doesn't exist in the actual sat signal. The actual hex character representing MPEG4 video there, is 1B not 4000. I think it's a number that only has significance to how the receiver stores it's channel data.
Anyway, although you can't really do much with the info, I'm guessing that's where those 5 digit numbers were coming from. Why you're seeing them, I don't know, as I sure don't remember ever seeing them on my 8100, even when I had some pirate software in there when it was the only way to keep my 8100 from freezing and/or rebooting, after a trip back to the dealer wouldn't solve the problem.

 

[hd fan]

No , I saw those 5 digits PID's on the CS6000. Then I tried the HEX equivalent on the 8100. Well, now it works so I am a happy camper. Thanks.