Sony STR-DA3600, 4600, 5600ES Receiver Thread

No more info on these then?

I'm still looking at a 5600, seen at leat one favourble review but what's going on with the UK pricing again.

The last few Sony receivers came in roughly equal or even a little below the direct US dollar to UK sterling conversion but the 5600 is already only $1,500-1,600 in the USA so approx £1,000 in the USA but it's UK RRP is £2,000 :eek::(:mad::confused:

Ok it can be had for as little as £1,750 maybe less if you shop around but a 75-100% markup on the US price, ouch, I'm not paying that. You could import a US model pay the full import duty and VAT and still save money! Too bad the US versions probably don't handle 50Hz feeds or 240V.


I have an str 5300 and was going to upgrade to 5600 for 3d pass through, but because they have doubled the price i am now considering the denon avr 3311.
The denon avr 4311 is around £1800 and seems far superior to the sony str 5600.
 
If you want to get rid of your 5300, put it on the classifieds or ebay etc, I would be willing to make an offer to buy it I think instead of the new models at the prices Sony are asking for.

I don't need 3D yet and am tempted just to get a cheap second hand 5300 to replace my 5200 to get the few extra features my 5200 is missing and keep waiting. I'm still irritated by the fact you can't assign HDMI audio on the 5600 so the BD button is useless for actually selecting your BD player if you use HDMI audio.

It was bad enough I swallowed paying the EU mark up on a BDP-CX7000ES, it was only $1,899 on it's US release and yet when we finally saw an EU model nearly a year later it was €2,000, yes EURO (so ~$2,700 so +50% on it's opening price and over +100% on it's actual current price) while in the US it had comes down to $1,000-1,200, it hasn't had a UK release for some reason.
 
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Hi,


I have a Sony STR-DA5600. I'm looking for the iPhone app to control the unit over IP although the " AV Receiver Remote" by sony is a free app and isn't available on the UK. Sucks!!!

I've read if someone from USA/or has a USA itunes account downloads the app and checks the iTunes folder under mobille application, and forward's me the AV Receiver Remote.ipa. File will allow me to install.

Pls contact me If your willing to help pls PM me.

The app looks really cool and would suit me until my RTI XP3 next year, ... Once forwarded you can delete the app from your phone/PC.

Pls help,

Many thanks.

I have now been able to download the AV Receiver Remote app on the US store from the UK, however the App does not find my receiver !

To get the app - do this, I had to have a fresh email account which has not been linked to an Apple Store ID. (I used a gmail account)
Open iTunes and logout of which ever account you have open.
Goto the bottom of iTunes and change to the US store
Goto the store and search for the AV Receiver Remote.
When click to download it, it will iTunes will ask you to login or create an account.
Create an account using your email address which has not been linked to an iTunes account.
On the payment method screen - select 'none'
Fill the address with a US address.

This process caused an email to be sent which will verify the account and you are able to activate the account.

Using this account - I was able to download the app.
However, I have loaded it onto both my 3GS and my mk1 iTouch and neither are able to find my receiver (and there is no manual way to enter the ip address of the receiver).

I am thinking that the US and EU version of the 5600es perhaps have different versions of firmware.
I have version 1.021. Could someone in the US tell me which version of firmware they have ?

After a little more investigation, I can see that the Apple app does query the network for uPnP devices (it send out a request to 239.255.255.250)
My receiver is constantly broadcasting its availability and the various services which are on offer (there are quite a few), but I guess my receiver is not what the app is looking for.
uPnp Wireshark decodes are a little beyond my knowledge.
Since I am able to run the app in only demo mode - I can see that the US app has provision for both Rhapsody and Sirius. Since these are not services offered on the UK model - I'm thinking that this is down to the firmware of UK models being incompatible with the US app.
 
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Have you enabled IP control on the receiver?

If it's anything like the IP controlled BDP player there is an option somewhere I forget where under installer or something that has the settings off, RS232 or IP. That needs to be set to IP, default is off I think.
 
Hi Andy, I know about the 'enable controller' part of the config on the receiver and it is set to auto. I do have IP connectivity to the receiver as I can get the Windows Setup appliaction to discover and communicate with it. I can also get to the DNLA server on the receiver from a PC.
I have attached a Wireshark capture of what the 5600 sends out in terms of service advertising as well as what the iPhone app sends out 'looking' for the receiver to control.
The receiver advertises (via SSDP) urn:schemas-sony-com.services:X_CIS:1\r\n
which is what the iPhone app appears to look for, but I am guessing there is something in this advertisment which the app doesnt like, although quite what its likely to be, as there is not much in the advertisment is beyond me.
This is what is in the advertising of this service :-

5600es 239.255.255.250 SSDP NOTIFY * HTTP/1.1
-LOCATION: http://192.168.0.150:8888/CIS_DeviceDescription.xml\r\n
-NT: urn:schemas-sony-com:service:X_CIS:1\r\n
-HOST: 239.255.255.250:1900\r\n
-CACHE-CONTROL: max-age=1801\r\n
-LOCATION: http://192.168.0.150:8888/CIS_DeviceDescription.xml\r\n
-HOST: 239.255.255.250:1900\r\n
-CACHE-CONTROL: max-age=1801\r\n
-LOCATION: http://192.168.0.150:8888/CIS_DeviceDescription.xml\r\n
-NT: urn:schemas-sony-com:service:X_CIS:1\r\n
-NTS: ssdp:alive\r\n
-SERVER: Trimedia pSOS+/NDK4.3 UPnP/1.0 MediabolicUPnP/-20100507.174739\r\n
-USN: uuid:3f906b0a-9e96-4754-aca1-544249b4ffef::urn:schemas-sony-com:service:X_CIS:1\r\n
-X-AV-Server-Info: av=5.0; hn=""; cn="Sony Corporation"; mn="AV Receiver"; mv="1.0";\r\n

I have compared this with how the PC Setup program communicates with the receiver. This uses the upnp:rootdevice\r\n service to locate the receiver, so doesnt work in quite the same way as the AV Receiver app.

If I goto the url described in the LOCATION field, I get this :-

<root>
&#8722;<specVersion>
<major>1</major>
<minor>0</minor>
</specVersion>
&#8722;<device>
<deviceType>urn:schemas-upnp-org:device:Basic:1</deviceType>
<friendlyName>STR_CISIP</friendlyName>
<manufacturer>Sony Corporation</manufacturer>
<manufacturerURL>http://www.sony.net/</manufacturerURL>
<modelDescription>IPSTR2</modelDescription>
<modelName>STR-DA5600ES</modelName>
<modelNumber/>
<modelURL>http://www.sony.net/</modelURL>
<UDN>uuid:3f906b0a-9e96-4754-aca1-544249b4ffef</UDN>
&#8722;<serviceList>
&#8722;<service>
<serviceType>urn:schemas-sony-com:service:X_CIS:1</serviceType>
<serviceId>urn:schemas-sony-com:serviceId:X_CIS</serviceId>
<controlURL>/upnp/control/CIS</controlURL>
<eventSubURL>/upnp/event/CIS</eventSubURL>
<SCPDURL>CIS_ServiceDescription.xml</SCPDURL>
</service>
</serviceList>
<presentationURL/>
</device>
</root>

This XML does contain IPSTR2 as a value (could be a version number, country code type of thing), but since this information is not included in any service advertising, and the iPhone doesnt make a reference to this XML data, I do not think the app has dicovered this, so dont think it can act on it.

What a pain, cos the remote app looks awsome!
 

Attachments

  • 5600es&iPhone.rar
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I don't know the 5600 or the iphone app but I would definitely suggest manually setting the control option to IP. The control option is a completely seperate system to the the network streaming etc (at least it is on the IP controllable Blu-ray changer as it was originally set to off but the network stuff all still worked). I actually have mine set to RS232 as I use that for mymovies to select discs in the BD changer.

One thing though is the receiver does not communicate directly with the iphone does it. Everything actually goes through your wireless router I assume.

The receiver is connected by cable to the wireless router and the iphone then talks wirelessly with the router by wifi which has to pass on the communication back and forth so presumably your iphone needs to be setup to communicate with your router wirelessly and the router needs to be set so it and the receiver are discoverable by the iphone on the network? Sorry I'm guessing here don't really know but thought the suggestion might be useful. Afterall if your wireless network is secured you have to set things up so a computer can connect and is discoverable etc so presumably there needs to be something similar for the iphone and router so it can talk to the receiver, or have you done all this already? Sorry if that's no help.
 
Hi Andy, thanks for the suggestions.
You are right that the IP control mechaninism is seperate to streaming capabilities - and to enable this IP Control mechanism on the 5600, there is an option in 'Setup/Controllers' to enable 'Auto Permissions'. This I am assuming will 'automatically' authorize an IP controller if one is found. It is only a tick box, and there is no way to manually add a controller to the 5600, although along with the checkbox, there is a list of what I assume would be authorized controllers.
Regarding conectivity - the iPhone obviously has to connect via a Wifi bridge - and in this case, I am using an Apple Airport Express, I have tried both plugging this into one of the switched ports on the back of the 5600, as well as a port on the other network switch I have.
However, the Wireshark traces I took from my PC were with my PC only being connected to the Apple Airport - so all the decoded were taken from that - so I know both devices 'saw' the packet which I mentioned in my previous 'Capture'.
The only thing I havent swapped out is to replace the Apple Wifi box with another one. Unfortunately, I only have an Apple Airport Extreme, but will configure that with 2.4Ghz and see if it makes a difference.
It really is clutching at straws, as I have not had any problems with the Airport Express.

Whats interesting about Sony's IP controllable Bluray players is that the BD Remote app is available on the UK Apple Store (along with a UK version of Network Audio Remote), so I would expect those both to work with UK models, but there is not a version of AV Receiver Remote on the UK Apple Store.

I am not familiar with Sony's Bluray players, and am wondering if there are any UK specific services on the UK models compared with their US equivalents, and if so, if the BD remote appliaction aware of them ?

As the US 5600 model has connectivity with Rhapsody and Sirius, and the AV Remote application has control of thoses features, this is probably the reason why the US app is not 'allowed' to work with the UK model.
Rich
 
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On the BDP-CX7000ES the option to enable IP control is under system settings and there is an option 'Custom Installation Control' with the options RS232C/Network/Off but of course looking at the manual it seems the 5600 is completely different.

Have a look at page 168 (UK Manual) there's a trouble shooting guide for 'Cannot access the reveiver from the network controller'.
 
Hi Andy, good call on the p168, unfortunatlly the setting it talks about were already set, and a 'reboot' of the machine didn't make any difference.
However, it made me think that I may be able to bat this back to Sony support, cos basically, it is not allowing a controller to connect to it. Now Sony may say that a controller connection problem would be down to the company who makes the controller, but since the controller software is Sony as well, and the software only states it is compatible with 3600, 4600 & 5600 models, then I think I will give Sony a call tomorrow - perhaps its a problem with my unit.
 
Oh well worth a try but I'm out of ideas, unless as you say the US software simply doesn't work with the UK receiver.
 
Hey guys,

I too have downloaded the US app via setting up an US account with a gift card.
I couldn't get the recevier talking to the App, presume this is not suited due to the differnce in Rhapsody and Sirius etc.
My only hope is a new range of receivers at some point next year would have support for this years IP range models:blush::blush: (Fat chance!!)

I was wondering if it's possiable to take an iphone app and pull it apart and re-code the app to suit?? Sorry really not familiar with iphone app rules etc.

I was going to investigate the wireshark route, however a recevier this price should just have these functions that other countries have..... spoken to Sony and the muppets at support were useless. One guy didn't even understand what an iphone was???
 
I have a Belkin Readynas, on which I have stored my tunes in mp3 format & my videos in high quality mkv format. Can anyone please tell me if the Sony STR-DA3600 supports streaming these formats over DLNA? The user manual is unforthcoming on the matter. Many thanks in advance.
 
The 5600 will not decode MKV files - you are also limited to max of 720 resolution for the containers it is able to decode.

It will stream MP3 via DNLA, however, this appears to be vary dependent on the 5600 being 'compatible' with your DNLA server software.

I have tried a few and gave up streaming directly to this unit.
Get a Boxee Box to stream video.
Get a Squeezebox to stream audio.
 
Many thanks for the response. I have a Western Digital TV Live, a non-network AV and a HDMI switcher - I was hoping to replace all three with the one unit. It's so annoying that a device as expensive as this proclaims itself fully DLNA-certified, then can't do the job a £100 WDTV Live can do.

Audo/video manufacturers should have provided fully compliant DLNA devices 5 years ago - they should now be widespread and affordable. The future of home entertainment lies with networked all-in-one devices. MKV has to be one of the key file formats as it allows such great compression. Excellent if you have a huge video collection, but don't have the space to have your DVDs on show and can't afford 20tb NAS devices and the same again in backup. By the time they catch up it will be too late - consumers will go to traditional pc accessory manufacturers like Netgear and WD for their products, who appear to be light-years ahead.
 
I totally agree with you regarding AV manufacturers’ inability to create decent network aware equipment. I, like you, pinned my hopes that this 'expensive' receiver having all the bells and whistles and coming from Sony, you would hope they would get it right.

The one thing the 5600 does well is decode audio seamlessly and its up scaling is probably ok, although most of my content is HD to begin with - it does just about everything else really badly.

Upscaling – I wonder how many people find this useful?
Do people really have VHS tapes they want to upscale? Especially those who are looking to purchase such a receiver. I suppose if you run a satellite/cable box then it’s useful, I guess in my situation – my cable box is fed to MCE and the 360 upscales.
If you play a lot of DVD's then it could be useful, but an up scaling DVD player is peanuts now, and PS3/Xbox's upscale these sources anyway.

I just noticed yesterday that the UK/EU modes doesn’t come with the 'video' over CAT5 port on the back.

That, and its inability to work with the iPhone app - I really wish I had saved a lot of money and got a Denon or Yam.

It is supposed to be a system integrator receiver, yet they have crippled it by the lack of these features in the UK.

It does have a DNLA server, a little unique, yet - it can only repeat analog inputs. It cannot do anything with the ARC channel from the TV. It cannot do anything with an optical audio stream from the Squeezebox - so, if you want to use that functionality, then you have to double cable everything.
I haven't yet setup a 2nd video zone - but I am half expecting it to only repeat analog inputs - hopefully I am wrong about this. Although I have to now buy a set of CAT 5 / Component balums.

It does have a pretty good set of IR repeater functionality and coupled with the iPhone app, it could be pretty useful.

The 10/100 switch on the back also saves a little cabling, but not a reason to buy this box.

As I have it linked to a Bravia TV via HDMI (ARC works) - I was hoping for perfect integration - however, I still can not work out how to get the 5600's remote to tell the TV to change its input to watch the TV tuner rather than its HDMI1 input. You can select the TV input menu from the 5600's remote and change the input using up/down (4 clicks), but I just want to press the TV button on the remote. I mean, what else should the TV button do? It appears to just leave the HDMI input on whatever it was before you pressed the button. Since the audio from the TV is delivered to the receiver via ARC there is no sound either. There is nothing you can change for the TV input button (ie HDMI/audio source). The TV remote (from an HX903) just doesn’t have a clue about the AMP - no sound field change buttons etc.

Another problem - If I am listening to an audio input on the receiver (MD) and turn the TV off with the remote - it turns off the receiver as well. Sony - expose this functionality so the user can define how the AMP should react. ie. what inputs should Bravia Link On/Off function.

It does leave me wondering which manufacture out there is doing the best job at making a good usable versatile network capable receiver. If I compare a few hundred pound non network aware receiver - you really don't get that much more usable stuff on this almost £2K box.
 
Panasonic DMP-BDT110EB 3D Blu-Ray Disc Player Skype VIERA Cast

I was hoping the new range of Panny blu-ray players would get me at least part way to AV integration, but it seems they won't stream mkv files, either. The mid-range model, above, is £150, but even the top range model won't do the job. Very disappointing.

Whilst there are other streamers similar to the WDTV Live, none are remarkably better (maybe around the same level, if anything), so I guess I'm stuck for another 14 months or so.
 
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I've just bought an STR-DA5500ES and I've been able to invoke some of the command listed here 5500ES Commands by using an freeware tool (found via the intel upnp dev area) called upnp device spy Developer Tools - Open Software Projects.

This really powerful tool will show you all your upnp devices which includes these sony reciviers.

DeviceSpy.png


The screen shot is from the website but basically there is an option to scan your network. Do this then select your reciver (STR_CISIF in my case) it will display all the available web services. Under this node in the tree you will see a method called X_CIS_Command. The tool allows you to call the method and pass one of the commands as a parameter from the first url I've included. The trick is that the commands listed are base64 encoded so they need converting using something like this site Base 64 Decoder.

So if you pass 0204a0420021f9 converted from MDIwNGEwNDIwMDIxZjk= from the list of commands:

" <string>hdmi1</string>
<string>POST</string>
<string>/upnp/control/CIS</string>
- <dict>
<key>Soapaction</key>
<string>"urn:schemas-sony-com:service:X_CIS:1#X_CIS_Command"</string>
</dict>
<string>text/xml</string>
<string>utf-8</string>
<true />
<data>MDIwNGEwNDIwMDIxZjk=</data>
"

into the invoke command dialog as the CISData parameter the recivier will switch to HDMI 1 !

Hope this is helpful - the upnp device spy and others within the tool kit are very very handy ! With this I should be able to write a simple web app that could control my amplifier (the toolkit contains a c# wrapper too!).
 
I don't think its in direct response to your query, this is a general thread about the listed models in the title and presumably he's just posting it to help anyone who might be interested in writing a web remote for the 5500es and possibly the 5600es.
 
My apologies. Deleted initial response as obviously incorrect.
 
hi I recently bought str-da3600es and I seem to have a problem with it, when digital format is feed to the ampli. the sound output drops significantly comparing to the same source only outputed through lpcm, for example using my cable tv provider's tuner I can choose whether I want to listen through analog or dolby digital and in my previous amplituner onkyo 606 after picking dolby digital sound got louder and in this one it is significantly quieter, is this aflaw or these models just do that? I must add that I run autocalibration, turned off night mode and dynamic range so everything should be fine
 
Has any one reversed engineered this app to function on UK models yet, surely it's a coding issues. I've been playing with wireshark too only i'm not sure quite what i'm doing:confused:

Could a app not be designed from the ground up?
 
I've been reading through this thread hoping to resolve a problem with getting Setup Manager 1.0 to communicate with my STR-DA5600ES, but despite checking and trying a number of ideas, I've albut given up on getting this application to work. My receiver is not a US/Canadian model as it has no Sirius port. Installed firmware is V1.029 which AFAIK is the latest version for Australia.

My set up is XP Pro SP3 (32 bit) on the PC. STR-DA5600ES connected by Ethernet via my Siemens Speedstream 6520 ADSL router. No port filtering is enabled in the router and nothing filtered on the PC (effectively have the firewall disabled.)

A Zenmap scan gets the following results -
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan at 21:59
Scanning 192.168.254.7 [1000 ports]
Discovered open port 8888/tcp on 192.168.254.7
Discovered open port 9666/tcp on 192.168.254.7
Discovered open port 6001/tcp on 192.168.254.7


When I try running Setup Manager it detects the receiver on the network but when I select it the program fails with the following error - "unknown error 0x80040301"

Anyone have any suggestions of what might be wrong? I initially though it might be a PC specific issue so I installed the software on two other XP machines but it still fails with the same error code. Thinking it may be an OS issue so I borrowed a laptop with Windows 7 and did the same. The program fails with the same error code.

Unfortunately Sony Australia have absolutely no clue as to what the problem is. The receiver is brand new so it might be hardware ralated but all other network facilites seem to work okay (e.g. SHOUTcast) and other devices like my Sony BR player and the PS3 work though the receiver's network hub.

Any suggestions or help would be most appreciated. :lease:
Thanks.
 
I've been reading through this thread hoping to resolve a problem with getting Setup Manager 1.0 to communicate with my STR-DA5600ES, but despite checking and trying a number of ideas, I've albut given up on getting this application to work. My receiver is not a US/Canadian model as it has no Sirius port. Installed firmware is V1.029 which AFAIK is the latest version for Australia.

My set up is XP Pro SP3 (32 bit) on the PC. STR-DA5600ES connected by Ethernet via my Siemens Speedstream 6520 ADSL router. No port filtering is enabled in the router and nothing filtered on the PC (effectively have the firewall disabled.)

A Zenmap scan gets the following results -
Initiating SYN Stealth Scan at 21:59
Scanning 192.168.254.7 [1000 ports]
Discovered open port 8888/tcp on 192.168.254.7
Discovered open port 9666/tcp on 192.168.254.7
Discovered open port 6001/tcp on 192.168.254.7

When I try running Setup Manager it detects the receiver on the network but when I select it the program fails with the following error - "unknown error 0x80040301"

Anyone have any suggestions of what might be wrong? I initially though it might be a PC specific issue so I installed the software on two other XP machines but it still fails with the same error code. Thinking it may be an OS issue so I borrowed a laptop with Windows 7 and did the same. The program fails with the same error code.

Unfortunately Sony Australia have absolutely no clue as to what the problem is. The receiver is brand new so it might be hardware ralated but all other network facilites seem to work okay (e.g. SHOUTcast) and other devices like my Sony BR player and the PS3 work though the receiver's network hub.

Any suggestions or help would be most appreciated. :lease:
Thanks.
I know thats it's been close to a year since this post, but was your problem ever resolved (or does anyone know how to resolve it)? I am having the same problem and can't figure it out:
  • I open the Setup Manager. It show's my receiver, I select it, but when it says "Now reading from AV receiver", that's when I get "unknown error 0x80040301".
  • I have been able to use the Setup Manager in the past. I'm not sure what's changed that is now giving me the error.
  • I have full internet access with my receiver (SHOUTcast, etc.).
  • I can communicate TO my receiver/AVR via my laptop. (I can play music directly from my computer to the AVR.)
  • I can communicate FROM my AVR to my laptop. (I can search music via the GUI and play music residing on my laptop/Server.)
  • Since I can communicate TO and FROM, it doesn't seem to be a router or firewall issue.
  • I have loaded the Setup Manager on another laptop (both running Win7), and I get the same problem.
So it's a total mystery to me. PLEASE HELP!! Thank you all.
 
Hi Bmr Snr,

No, I'm still not able to access the interface. Sony here in Australia are clueless and singularly unhelpful hence the reason for posting on the forum. Unlike your situation, I've never got mine to work at all, despite all the other functions, e.g. ShoutCast etc all working just fine. :facepalm: I've even tried other computers and other OS just in an attempt to eliminate any possibility these might have been contributing factors, but alas to no avail. :(

Cheers,
Alan
 

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