Magnovox home theater system and 5.1 vs 2.1 surround sound issues

by Clint Lane
(Texas)

I recently purchased a Magnovox MRD410b/F7 Home theater system/Blue ray player. I have got it hooked up via a HDMI to my HDTV. Problem is when I play DVDs, sometimes I get 5.1 surround and sometimes it down mixes them to 2.1. Here's where it gets interesting, all the movies I've played says they support 5.1 surround sound.

Some of the DVDs only play the menus in 5.1 surround sound then when you play the feature film it down mixes to 2.1. Other DVDs that should be in 5.1 surround sound only play in 2.1 menus and all. While others play 5.1 surround to perfection. I've been troubleshooting this for sometime now and cant seem to narrow down the problem. Any suggestions?

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Hi

Could it be that you aren't selecting the correct soundtrack to play? Most new DVDs/Blu-rays will automatically select the best soundtrack for the hardware that you have connected. However, I do remember that a few years ago you would always have to make sure you selected the soundtrack you wanted to play.

This was usually in the audio setup menu, or was sometimes in a menu for selecting the language. Here you should see a list of the soundtracks available on the disk.

For a DVD there would be an English stereo track, a DD 5.1 tack, and sometimes a DTS 5.1 track. There may also be soundtracks on other languages.

Maybe the disks you are having a problem with are old DVDs which require you to go in and select the soundtrack you want before you play the movie?

Hope that helps.

Paul (Site Editor)

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