No sound on PBS channels?

[Charlie Baker]

On AMC 3, of all the channels I get there are only a few that have sound, and most of them are foreign language. I really miss the News Hour, and I have been able to see the program, but not hear it. I went into channel edit, and put the video and audio id's in, but it made no difference. Is sound available for the PBS channels? If so, what do I have to do to get it?

[pmb1010]

The "Search" feature here is your friend.
Lots of previous questions, and suggestions on how to get AC-3 audio on the PBS channels have been asked and answered.

Bottom line - you need to pipe the audio out of the box to a decoder of some kind. The box wont decode it natively.

[MrBillM]

My problem, too. Virtually all of the PBS feeds are broadcast ONLY in AC3. I've found, so far, that the most economical commercial solution is probably the Sound Blaster Extigy. It is an external USB sound card that can also be operated as a standalone unit. Out of Production, there are a few advertised at any given time on Ebay. So far, I haven't successfully bid on one. They usually go for around 60 bucks (used). There was one with a "Buy it Now" price of $54.95 + shipping. They probably won't get any cheaper. The replacement from Sound Blaster (Audigy NX) is MUCH more expensive.

Good Luck.

[Charlie Baker]

Thanks for the info. My stereo receiver is not a true decoder, I don't have optical, so I will either have to get a new receiver, or the headphone solution. Again, thanks, the help here at the forum is invaluable, and I appreciate it.

[wejones]

THis has been mentioned several times, but Soundblaster Extigy doesn't seem to work with the optical AC3 coming from the Mercury receiver, even though it works perfectly with the coaxial output that the Fortec Lifetime and Lifetime Ultra puts out. Fortec claims that neither receiver alters the AC3 signal, but obviously there is something changed. The Extigy is a nice unit, I have two of them, but the Sonic Voom headset solution is much cheaper, and seems to work with both optical and coaxial.

An interesting (to me) side topic. A few days ago, I ran across an ABC feed with a really neat test pattern. I forget where it was, but it was somewhere around G16 or AMC4 area. In addition to being a neat test pattern, it also had audio tests which seemed to be Dolby 7.1 or whatever it's called. The test went through Right, Left, center, subwoofer,right surround, left surround, right rear, left rear. Interesting that the Sonic Voom, which is only Dolby 5.1, not 7.1, didn't pick up anything for the subwoofer or the 2 rear channels, but did get the center, and 2 surround channels fine.
I've been meaning to try that through one of my Extigys, as I'm not sure if they do only 5.1 or not.

[MrBillM]

Thanks to the referral info, I've ordered two of the Cyberhome converter/headsets off of Ebay. Can't beat the price. $1.25 + shipping for one of the "reconditioned" sets listed and $11.95 + shipping for one listed as "NEW" from a different vendor. I'm eagerly awaiting receipt to see if this will solve the PBS AC-3 Audio problem.

[wejones]

One of my two pairs of these headphones, had headphones that didn't work (you don't need the headphones for the AC3 decoding, only the decoder module). Well I had discovered that the wire going to the headphones had been cut, and since I was also interested in trying to extract only the surround channels (to get crowd noise without commentary out of NFL game feeds), I decided to try to strip the cable, and try to find the wires for the individual channels. Found about 4 groups of extremely fine wires (each group had about a dozen fine wires spiraled together. I thought that these must be the shield for a center conductor, but when I un-curled the wires, there WAS NO center conductor, just the fine wires. Plus, these wires didn't seem to be insulated in any way, unless they had painted on insulation like magnet wire. I looked at the ends of the cut wires under magnification, and one of the fine wires did look like it MIGHT have a core of a different material, but I can't beleive a wire this fine can be the main conductor. So the only thing I can figure is that the fine wires must all be coated magnet wire, and one of the groups must be a common ground. I've never been very good at getting the coating off magnet wire, so I decided to try opening up the plastic bump in the wires that came after the plug that goes into the decoder module. Turns out that this thing was a circuit board surrounded by moulding plastic. I was able to peal off the plastic to get into the circuit board, and it revealed what looked like about 6 surface mount resistors that seemed to feed the wires, so I'm guessing my best bet would be to tap into those resistors to look for the individual channels.
Anyway, for anyone wanting to tap into the various channels of these things, I recommend going into the plastic bump on the wires, because it was pretty easy to peal the plastic off the circuit board by poking a knife in from the side.

[MrBillM]

Well, before heading back to Baja, I received ONE of the two Cyberhome AC3 converters and headphones. The one advertised as new. All was in original packaging. The problem I encountered was that the Toslink end on the optical cable will not fit into the converter's optical input jack which has two spring-loaded doors. I had ordered a couple of additional cables for spares from another supplier and I found that they are sized the same, or perhaps a tiny amount larger, than the one contained in the Cyberhome kit. I am unwilling at this time to attempt to force the connector in. Has anyone else run into this situation ?

[wejones]

Originally Posted by MrBillM

Well, before heading back to Baja, I received ONE of the two Cyberhome AC3 converters and headphones. The one advertised as new. All was in original packaging. The problem I encountered was that the Toslink end on the optical cable will not fit into the converter's optical input jack which has two spring-loaded doors. I had ordered a couple of additional cables for spares from another supplier and I found that they are sized the same, or perhaps a tiny amount larger, than the one contained in the Cyberhome kit. I am unwilling at this time to attempt to force the connector in. Has anyone else run into this situation ?

No, mine fit when used with several different cables.
One question though.... did you take the little plastic protector thing off the cables? I know that had me confused at first.

[rainman]

Originally Posted by wejones

No, mine fit when used with several different cables.
One question though.... did you take the little plastic protector thing off the cables? I know that had me confused at first.

the plastic protector got me also Bill.LOL once removed it fit just fine.

[jimneycricket]

The Fortec Star Platinum claims it will pass AC3,,does it mean it will do it or will I have to plug something in the back where the little gates are?

[Sadoun]

AC3 Pass-through means you will need to connect it to a A/V amplifier/receiver with digital audio input.

[MrBillM]

No, unfortunately, there is not a protector on the Toslink connector. I wish there were. A little embarassment would be easy to handle.

The connector end fits perfectly into the SPdif pass-through on the Mercury II, but neither end will go into the Cyberhome input. Odd. I'm considering removing the vertically-hinged "doors" on the Cyberhome unit.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by MrBillM

No, unfortunately, there is not a protector on the Toslink connector. I wish there were. A little embarassment would be easy to handle.

The connector end fits perfectly into the SPdif pass-through on the Mercury II, but neither end will go into the Cyberhome input. Odd. I'm considering removing the vertically-hinged "doors" on the Cyberhome unit.

That is really strange. When I first read this post, I was confused by the "vertically-hinged" doors thing, because my doors swing in from the sides, but then I decided that that was what you meant, ie the hinge points at top and bottom. Ie they're like a bar-room door in an old cowboy movie.
But anyway, what you describe is really strange, because I have 4 or 5 different cables, two of which came from Radio Shack, and all fit fine in any of the 9 different Toslink type devices I have, including 2 Cyberhome units, 2 Soundblaster Extigys, an RCA home theater audio system, the Mercury II receiver, an old DAT recorder, an optical to RCA SPDIF converter box, and my HDTV. All of these devices seem to use the same type cables, so I'm really confused as to why the cable won't fit in your Cyberhome module.
I assume that you've tried the cable all 4 directions, because there are little tabs to the side that seem to make it fit only one way?

[MrBillM]

Attempting to look inside that input is like doing micro-surgery (for me, anyway). I tried holding the flaps open with a jewelers Needle-Nose pliers, but I don't see any obvious defect. Not having another unit to compare, I can only assume there is something (top or bottom) causing a tighter than normal fit.

Since I had two additional spare cables, I used an Exacto blade to shave a small amount of plastic from the bottom of the connector. With a small amount of force, I was able to push the connector all the way in and it WORKS. Whatever channels are on the 3.5mm stereo jack are fine for my purposes. The Headphone sound is great, though. Right now, I'm feeding the Line output into a pair of powered computer speakers. Last night, for the first time, we watched the PBS feeds for a couple of hours. Now, if I could just find schedules somewhere so that I would know what's coming on ahead of time.

Thanks for the responses.

[jimneycricket]

Check here for PBS schedules;

PBS Schedules

[wejones]

You'll only be able to find schedules for a couple of the PBS channels, and partial schedules for a couple more. The PBS site itself {above} has now become next to useless since it now links you to your local PBS station's schedule. They used to have a way to get the PBS-X schedule, but that doesn't seem to be possible anymore.
THe best bet for PBS schedules is via TITAN-TV. You can customize the TITAN TV display to list schedules for several of the PBS channels.
On the 12180/30000 mux, channel 11 is PBS-X, east feed. The schedule for this is on TitanTV. Channel 17 is the west coast feed, and you can just subtract 3 hours from the east coast schedule for that, although I think Titan also has this west coast schedule as well. Channel 19 is Create, and Titan has the schedule for this. Most of the other channels on this mux are less predictable, except for the spanish channel, which I don't listen to. Channels 12 and 13 are often either the same as channel 11 or sometimes a 1 hour delay of what's on channel 11, but you can't seem to predict this. Titan also has a schedule for the PBS HD channel.
Re the 3 SCPC stations 12156, 12163, 12170 (or whatever they are, ie the sched 511, 512, 513 channels with 4444 SRs), these channels are feeds, and nearly a year ago, I tried to create a schedule of what was on them { http://www.megalink.net/~wejones/pbs-scpc2b.htm }, but it was not complete, and a few things have changed, so if anyone is interested in trying to make this more up to date, I'd be happy to help. I did post about finding a link for the APT channels on schedule 511. If you go to American Public Television there are links there to pdf files with a monthly schedule of programs. Most of these come over the Hartford feed, ie the schedule 511 channel on 12163, but not all.
Also, not pure PBS, but also on AMC3, the Montanna PBS channel's schedule can be found on Titan-TV too. Also, if you have a DCII receiver, the GPTV and LaPTV channels' schedules are also on Titan TV. Also, the schedules for the Oklahoma and NEbraska PBS channels on other satellites, as well as another PBS channel which I won't name here that is sometimes available.