??Mercury--Extigy--- ?No AC3 ??

[wejones]

OK, I got my MercuryII yesterday, hooked it up, and scanned in AMC3 Ku channels. Of course, since I didn't have an optical cable, I had no audio on the PBS channels.
So this morning, I ran out to Wall Mart to get a cable... no joy. So I went to RS. They had 3 kinds, a 6' for $20 , a 12' for $15, and a 12' dual optical/rca-video for $7 {weird}. So I bought the cheap one.
Got home, plugged in the cable between the Mercury and my Soundblaster Extigy. NO SOUND.?!?!? Switched to my #2 Extigy... NO SOUND.!?!?! I switched sat channels to the Montanna PBS, which has mpeg audio. Audio was fine, through the optical cable (didn't even have RCA cables connected). This showed that the optical cable was OK, and that the Extigy was working. But I don't know WHY the Mercury isn't passing the AC3. I hit the "audio" button on the remote, and it has the PBS channels listed as being AC3, so it's not like it scanned them in as mpeg audio. It also has the multiple audio tracks listed, and I tried each... no joy.

Anyway, is there some trick to getting the AC3 audio to work on this Mercury????

Also, I can't seem to find any window which lists the A/V PIDs in the Mercury. With my other Fortecs, you just hit the INFO button, but the info button on this receiver doesn't tell you anything useful.

I guess I should read the manual, but it's easier to ask questions here.

[rainman]

don't know about your extigy Bill but on my koss i have to set it for optical or digital cable haven't received my mercury yet to see if it will work or not.

[DougRuss]

You have to go into your Menu on the Mercury II to make the change.
Go to "TV SETUP", then Click on "SPDIF Output", change it to "ON" .

[wejones]

Originally Posted by DougRuss

You have to go into your Menu on the Mercury II to make the change.
Go to "TV SETUP", then Click on "SPDIF Output", change it to "ON" .

Thanks. Actually, I just found that page, and it was already set to ON, particularly since I was already getting output through it on the non-AC3 channels. It's strange. It's outputting digital through the optical port for non-AC3, but it's not passing the AC3.

I also found out how to display the PIDs, and they seem to have scanned in OK, so I'm really at a loss for new ideas right now.

I assume that you have this working? If so, what version of firmware does your Mercury have? And what are you using to decode the AC3? I'm tempted to upload the new version of firmware, even though the Fortec webpage says that the only improvement is that it corrects some closed caption problem.

[niknar1900]

i've tried it with a 5.1 receiver and it works.
i've also turned off the spdif setting, and that made ac3 audio into stereo, so i didn't need to use 5.1 receiver.

I would suggest getting the latest firmware if nothing works.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by niknar1900

i've tried it with a 5.1 receiver and it works.
i've also turned off the spdif setting, and that made ac3 audio into stereo, so i didn't need to use 5.1 receiver.
...

I'm confused about what you are saying here. Are you saying that when you turned off the spdif setting that audio then came out the regular R/L rca audio ports? Or do you mean that the audio coming out the optical port wasn't AC3 anymore? Either way, this doesn't sound possible. What AC3 signal were you doing this on? Ie I didn't think that the Mercury had an AC3 decoder, I thought that it just passed AC3 through the digital optical port, so I didn't think there would be any possible way for it to output regular audio whether via the rca ports or the optical port. If it does have an AC3 decoder, then that would be quite a nice feature. I'll have to try that a bit later today.
But it's looking more like I may need to try new firmware, as this sure seems like a firmware issue to me, but I just don't understand how it would work for other people.

I'm curious what SW/HW version people have. When I go into the "Product Information page, my unit says S/W version=V1.06 H/W Version=V1.00 Loader Version=v1.00 . It looks like the S/W version on the Fortec web page is V1.33 .... so much for these things coming with the latest firmware.

I may try doing a factory reset before doing the firmware update.

Thanks for the response.

[Reinhold]

I use it thrue my Bose 321 and it works perfectly.
Reinhold.

[DougRuss]

I upgraded mine with the new Firmware - V1.33.

You'll need a "Null" Modem Cable to do the Upgrade.
and you will need to download the "Uploader" first.........
Just follow the directions at the Fortec Download section for the Merc II.

http://www.fortecstar.com/downloads/index.asp?products=84%2C1

I run mine thru my Harmon Kardon AVR 435 Reciever with no problems(leaving it at the "ON" Position)

[wejones]

Well I'm not having much luck here.

I ran the channel editor program just to insure that my cable was working. It seemed to work fine, although I am confused as to why it seems to want to load in the channels as a .bin file instead of a .chm file that I thought it would use. But it did load in the few channels that I've scanned in from AMC3. (This is a REALLY POOR channel editor compared to the Gtools that the Lifetime receivers use.)

So then I decided to try to download the new version 1.33 of the firmware . I reset to factory defaults like the webpage suggested, turned off the receiver, then told the loader program to download. It asked for the .bin file, which I gave it, and it went in to the "turn on receiver" mode, but then nothing happened, even when I turned on the receiver. It just sat there in turn on receiver mode. I tried this 2 or 3 times, same thing.

When I did it with the channel editor, as soon as I turned on the receiver, the transfer started. Anyway, the transfer didn't work. I guess I'll try another computer, and another cable. The cable I'm using is not really a null modem, but rather a simple 3-wire reversing cable that I made. It works fine for the channel editor, but maybe the loader program needs hardware handshaking to upload the firmware.

I have another question though..... I wanted to test my optical input on the Extigy with some AC3 from another source. Am I right in assuming that if I have a DVD player that has an optical output, that this would be outputting AC3? Ie I seem to remember that the audio on DVDs is AC3. Is that correct? If not, any other likely source of AC3 audio that I could use? How about the audio from a DTV receiver? Also, I have an old DAT recorder, and an old CD changer that feeds it audio via an optical cable (I had forgotten that I had this cable). Is it likely that a 12 year old CD player or DAT recorder would output AC3, or is it just plain digital???

Also..... does anyone know if RS or some other place sells inexpensive optical to RCA converters? I thought it might be easier to bypass the optical thing, even though it seems to be working with the non-AC3 channels.

Anyway, this Mercury is giving me fits, trying to get it set up with PBS.

[wejones]

I'm starting to think I've got a LEMON Mercury with a hardware problem.
I finally got the new 1.33 version of the firmware loaded, but it didn't help. I re-scanned the channels, and it still gives audio with Montanna PBS, which isn't AC3, but it gives no audio on the AC3 PBS channels. I've tried it with the SPDIF set to both ON and OFF, and also with and without regular RCA audio cables attached. Tried it with 2 different optical cables and tried it with 2 different Extigy decoders. The Mercury just doesn't seem to be passing AC3. :-(

[wejones]

Sorry for splitting discussion of this topic in 2 different threads, but it seems like different people read different sub forums.

I did some additional experiments on this AC3 thing.

To test whether there was anything at all coming out of the Mercury, I hooked the optical cable up to a 14 year OLD Sony DAT recorder, which has an optical input.
RESULT= On Montanna PBS, it gave good audio. On PBS AC3, it gave a loud clicking sound. This at least showed that something is coming out of the Mercury, but doesn't say much about where the problem is, because the DAT recorder was pre-AC3.

I then tried to test my Extigy with some "known" AC3, but I wasn't sure of where to find a source of AC3.
First, I hooked the Extigy up to the optical output of one of my DTV receivers. The port is labeled as being Dolby Digital, but I don't know if it is always dolby digital or just on some programming. I had the DTV on CNN, and the audio went through the Extigy fine.

Then, I hooked up the Extigy to the optical output of one of my DVD players, and again, the port was labeled as Dolby Digital. I played back a music DVD, and again the Extigy played it fine. However, again, I'm not sure whether the actual DVD was in AC3 format or not. I THINK that I can play back .mpg files with this player, and I have some files that I KNOW are in AC3, so I'll have to check that out later.

But anyway, so far, it seems like the Mercury IS outputting data of some kind, but it seems to be corrupted to the extent that I can't decode it. But I'm still experimenting.



EDIT: I just did a google, and I came up with a professional review of the Soundblaster Extigy, which says that on the OUTPUT side, that the SPDIF and Optical outputs are different, because only the coaxial SPDIF supports AC3!?!?! This is weird. There was no mention about whether this was true for the inputs as well, but I'm getting more hopeful. If so, then the Optical-->Coaxial converter I just ordered should solve the problem.
However, the google also brought up suggestions that output from DVDs is generally AC3, and I was able to play that through the Extigy, so I'm still confused.

EDIT-2: I just found an update for the Extigy firmware that mentions some issues with AC3. I'm downloading it now.

EDIT-3: :-( Upgraded computer drivers, but it said that I had the most up-2-date firmware already. Tried again on PBS AC3, and it still doesn't work. :-(

[boroda1]

Not sure, will it help to get "pure" AC3, but I remember, some DVD Players are having option to "down-convert" multi-channel to Stereo to be turned off, and some DVD discs have an option to choose between 5.1 and 2 - channel audio tracks. I think, if you choose 5.1 track, and turn off "down-convert" feature, then you may have "pure" multi - channel sound.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by boroda1

Not sure, will it help to get "pure" AC3, but I remember, some DVD Players are having option to "down-convert" multi-channel to Stereo to be turned off, and some DVD discs have an option to choose between 5.1 and 2 - channel audio tracks. I think, if you choose 5.1 track, and turn off "down-convert" feature, then you may have "pure" multi - channel sound.

Thanks. That may have helped. :-)

I tried the setup with the DVD I had been using, and it had an option for Dolby Digital. I chose that, and sent it through my Extigy, and it worked, as before. However I decided to look at a second DVD. THis one had TWO options, one for Dolby Digital, and another for DTS Digital. The Dolby Digital worked through the Extigy, however when I chose the DTS Digital, it did NOT work through the Extigy. When you chose that option, it had a page that popped up, which mentioned that it was up to 5.1 Dolby, which I think AC3 is part of.

So I'm thinking that maybe when you run a DVD as just Dolby Digital, that it isn't AC3, but when you run it as DTS Digital, that maybe you DO get AC3. Anyway, that's what I'm hoping. I have no idea of why the Extigy could do AC3 through the coaxial input and not through the optical input, but that's what I'm hoping. However I'll have to wait until Wednesday for my Optical--->coaxial converter to come.

Anyway, thanks for the idea. That at least gives me some hope that I can get this thing working.