High Pitched Whistle from Speakers with DVDs

[Eddy5]

I've got an odd problem I can't understand. Basically I'm getting a very high pitched whistle or whine when watching films. I think it's just DVDs and HD-DVDs, but I'm still trying to 100% confirm this.

Basically the noise appears mainly during dialogue or during quite periods. It used to happen on my old setup too, but is happening on my new setup. And it will happen at any point during the film and just come and go, but it is defintely the same point in the film when it occurs as I can rreplay the same scene with the same issues. Also when I pause the film, the noise stops.

OLD
Toshiba 220 DVD player -> Coax -> Yamaha DSP-E800 -> Quad 33/303 Pre/PowerAmp -> Mordaunt Short MS905 Centre, TDL RTL2 fronts, Eltax BiPolar surround

NEW
XBox 360 or PS3 -> HDMI -> Yamaha RX-V1800 -> Mordaunt Short MS905 Centre, TDL RTL2 fronts, Eltax BiPolar surround speakers

I've defintely had it on
HD-DVD - Serenity - XBox 360
DVD - Exhiled - PS3

And it didn't appear on
Blu-Ray - 3:10 to Yuma - PS3

While it was occuring on Exhiled I played with the audio settings trying bistream, PCM, Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 and none of this made a difference.
It appeared to be coming from all 3 front speakers.

The only thing that hasn't changed really is my speakers now, but I can't believe those are the issue.

I've searched around and can find nothing else on this.

Has anyone else experienced this?
Or is it just me with my canine like hearing?
Or could it be something with the Dolby encoding (I find this very very hard to believe).

[avanzato]

If you mute the amp does the whine disappear?

[Eddy5]

Good idea, I will try that when I next get it.

Watched Donnie Darko DVD on the PS3 last night (DD 5.1) and no issues apart from my mind being twisted

[Eddy5]

I've watched a few more films with no issues (Black Rain on HD-DVD, Eastern Promises on Blu-Ray).
I've also been playing some WMVs from BBC iPlayer. One was fine through the PS3 and then one had the whistling sound. I then tried the WMV through my 360 and that had the same issue so I'm pretty sure it's a source encoding issue. Pretty poor for the DVD and HD-DVD which showed the issue really). Not much I can do about that then.

[Jasiel]

Eddy,

Did you end up figuring out what the problem was with any certainty?

I seem to have the same problem. My setup is as follows:

- Toshiba P200 laptop with HD-DVD player, Windows Media Center, SPDIF out
- older JVC THA-25 home theater setup (dvd/amp with surround speakers - dvd player broken) with optical audio in.
- even older CRT TV (I'm upgrading a bit at a time)

About 2 weeks ago I bought an optical cable to suit my needs, and have since watched the remastered Stargate movie (original), and about 5 or 6 of the Stargate Sg-1 episodes from the 10-season pack. All of these dvd's I have bought in the last 3 weeks.

The movie played without any problems, however 3 or 4 of the episodes I have watched have had that high-pitched whistle that you described. It stops if you pause it, it gets louder/quieter if you change volume up/down on the jvc, and it does it at the same point every time.

I have also found that it does not do it through the headphone to RCA stereo cable that I used to use.

At this point, I have been unable to test it with any other equipment. As soon as I am able, I will try to do some tests. However, I am starting to lean the same way as you were - it may well be an encoding issue, which is pretty bad on a brand-new set of DVD's.

Jasiel