VP30 Audio Issue with Firmware 1.1

Roman

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Has any one else had this audio issue with a VP30 following an upgrade to firmware 1.1? I’m using an Arcam AV9 processor and a Sky HD box with the VP30. I have also used another Freeview STBs with the same results.

Basically, when I switch from one channel broadcasting in PCM to another broadcasting PCM the sound coming though my speakers is suddenly very loud, distorted, and is overlaid with what seems like white noise. Once affected like this I have to turn my AV processor off and back on again. This corrects the problem until I change channels again. This issue does not happen when I switch between Dolby Digital channels.

I have tried switching back to firmware 1.07 and the problem disappears, but returns after reloading 1.1.

I’m not sure if it is relevant, but I have noticed that, when I leave the Info Pane visible as I change between PCM based channels, the sound format reported by the VP30 momentarily changes from PCM to DTS and then back to PCM again. I am wondering if my AV9 processor is attempting to switch between PCM and DTS, as instructed by the VP30, and then staying in DTS mode even though the channel is now outputting PCM, perhaps because it can’t react quickly enough to format changes that sudden.

I have also noticed that if I don’t use the VP30 for audio switching the Info Pane reports that the audio input is DTS even though there is nothing there at all.

At the moment, in order to get round this problem I am routing the sound from the Satellite Receiver directly to my AV9 processor, without any problems. However I would obviously prefer to use the VP30 for audio as well as video switching.

I have reported the issue to both Arcam and DVDO. So far Arcam have been helpful, spending time on the phone talking me through changing settings in the AV9 Engineers menu, unfortunately with no luck. I have had little feedback from DVDO other than they are looking into it.

Any ideas?

Cheers, Roman
 
Do you mean firmware v1.10? ;)

I think DVDO should change their version numbers, it's not like they are ever going to have v2.0 -- something like Lumagen (which is the date it was released) would be smarter I recon.

Anyway, is your sound over HDMI or connected via optical/coax? (Inputs to VP30 and output to Arcam)

StooMonster
 
Hi StooMonster,

Apologies, yes I do mean 1.10. I guess dropping trailing zeroes could be significant when we're talking about version numbers.

I'm using optical input into the VP30 and have tried both optical and coax output from the VP30. Both behave in the same way.

Cheers, Roman
 
Have just loaded v1.10 onto my VP30 and I have exactly the same problem as you! Did you resolve this or has anyone got any suggestions (other than to go back to v1.07). Come on DVDO/Arcam-this dates back to last August!:smashin:
 
Hi StooMonster,

Apologies, yes I do mean 1.10. I guess dropping trailing zeroes could be significant when we're talking about version numbers.

I'm using optical input into the VP30 and have tried both optical and coax output from the VP30. Both behave in the same way.

Cheers, Roman

Just a small thing on this... I'm pretty sure we were the first software company to do a version x.10 product... about 6 years ago ... and it still winds me up to this day :)
 
Have just loaded v1.10 onto my VP30 and I have exactly the same problem as you! Did you resolve this or has anyone got any suggestions (other than to go back to v1.07). Come on DVDO/Arcam-this dates back to last August!:smashin:

Hi,

I never got to the bottom of it and DVDO never responded to my request for assistance, other than to say they would look into it.

In the end I swapped the VP30 for a VP50. Unfortunately I have exactly the same issue with that. So I've given up routing audio from Sky HD through the VP50, sending it directly to my AV9 instead.

Other audio sources still give me problems through the VP50, but mainly sound drop-outs.

To be honest though I am convinced that the Sky HD sound issue I had is one of basic incompatibility between the Arcam AV9 / VP50 and Sky HD box. This was also implied by comments from the support team at Arcam, who did spend a considerable amount of time trying to help out.

Cheers, Roman
 
Roman, I have similar experiences with Sky HD, VP50 and Arcam AV8 -- in that I can get audio drop-outs from Sky HD (over optical) even when plugged directly into AV8 -- which makes it difficult to test VP50.

Are you running the v1.1 software with the new audio block?

StooMonster
 
Hi Stoo,

Yes I am running version 1.1. Interestingly I don't get dropouts from Sky HD when connected directly to the AV9, although I do sometimes get a very short burst of static through the speakers when swithing between DD5.1 channels. But this static is better than the distortion I get if I run PCM audio through the VP50.

Also forgot to mention, the distortion issue isn't present if you use the HDMI audio switching capability of the VP50. The problem here is that Sky don't pass DD5.1 out of the HDMI port.

Arcam did spend some time discussing the issue directly with DVDO, who promised that this issue would be fixed in the VP50. Unfortunately it isn't.

Cheers, Roman
 
Thanks guys!:smashin: I think it's back to v1.07 for me then till March-disappointed!
 

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