Having a somewhat weird problem with sound: A while back the Directv DVRs (hr 21 and hr 22) seemed to begin to act up, there would be no sound during commercials on certain channels, and no sound for certain programmatic material (e.g., 101 and similar Directv content channels). I thought it was a Directv issue, called tech support and they suggested it might be the HDMI cable, one reason this doesn't seem to make sense is that I have sub channel content, just not the rest of the audio, and of course because only certain programmatic material was affected; this didn't seem to fit with a faulty HDMI cable, much less 2 or 3 faulty cables (see below for additional sound problems).

Now I've noticed that there is also no sound (i.e., sub only) on bluray Coming Attractions (Shutter Island, Girl With the Dragon Tatoo) even though blu ray program material itself is present with full sound (blu ray is Sony s350), so I'm wondering of the receiver (Denon 3808CI) is the problem?

Another example would be Directv Channel 5, which in Dallas is NBC (or one of the 3 major networks), commercials have no sound and you can watch TV shows via live feed, however if you record a program to DVR, there is no sound upon playback.

Any ideas would be much appreciated, not sure where to begin to identify the culprit.

PS Decided to upgrade the firmware on the 3808, perhaps something has changed with the audio processing standards because it appears to be newer program material/blu ray discs that are not being processed correctly, will post back if anything gets solved after the firmware update.

Updated the firmware on both the Denon receiver and the Sony blu ray player, no improvement.

I suppose the audio could also be lost somewhere between the preamp output stage of the 3808 and input to the A1400-8, since the ep800 is still getting a signal. Does the A1400-8 have some kind of protect circuit that shuts the amp down if it doesn't like the signal it's getting?

Do you have audio for any input working?

Not sure I understand your question, everything works perfectly over 99% of the time, but audio is missing from only certain material, e.g., only television commercials within an otherwise intact audio stream. I don't care much about the commercials of course but at times we are unable to watch specific shows, e.g., each of 4 different channels playing Pillars of the Earth had no sound, although the sound was present during the two episode combined reruns of the same material.

Yesterday the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo bluray disc had no sound on the previews and no sound on the Main Menu; the Green Zone bluray disc did have sound on the Main Menu; both videos had apparently perfect sound for the actual movie.

At first I suspected a Directv automatic DVR software upgrade since sometimes those cause problems, but given that the problem is also happening with bluray it seems to me that it might be initiated at the 3808 or downstream.

Since with the bluray example so far it seems to be cropping up with the newer discs and the older discs seem unaffected (although I haven't gone through my whole collection of older discs to confirm that the pattern holds) I began to wonder if a change in audio processing standards was somehow involved, although that is sheer speculation on my part.

Finally, given the intermittent pattern affecting highly specific content in a highly regular manner it does not appear to involve anything mechanical like cabling, or could older HDMI cables (circa 2008) actually have issues with newer material?

Sometimes audio is lost when the codec changes from one to another (like stereo to 5.1 or other). Generally, simply swapping inputs back and forth will resolve this. Sometimes turning the 3808 will fix it. I'd try that first and see what happens. If the problem persists, then it's likely a setting in the 3808. If you have the LFE channel, but missing the others is perplexing and I’m not sure right now what could be causing that.

One of the wonderful things about HDMI is a thing referred to as "handshaking". This really means that there is copyright information embedded in the data stream. The devises pass information back and forth to make sure the digital content isn't pirated. Once they are happy it isn't, then the data is allowed to pass. Switching inputs or cycling power makes the devices shake hands once again. I had all kinds of audio issues using HDMI with my DVR. I gave up and ran a coax cable for audio.

Interesting, Directv tech support thought that HDMI cables might be the culprit, although the four existing HDMI cables have worked perfectly for nearly 2 years.

I wonder if upgrading to HDMI 1.4 cables would magically solve the problem?

Sorry, what did you mean by "swapping inputs back and forth"?

You should not need new HDMI cables.

Swapping inputs on the 3808; IE: HDMI 1 to HDMI 2 with the remote. This will make the 3808 and DVR shake hands again and re-sync.

OK I'll give that a try. BTW, watched the end of Green Zone today (which I do not recommend: BORING, what a nonstory (no WMDs in IRAQ, OK it may be politically interesting but doesn't make for good drama, think Dubya crawling around under the table and saying "No WMDs here"!, probably about just as much fun) but I had to wonder, where did all the SNOW come from? Other than living here in Dallas which makes the presence of snow seem unusual, my primary religion (science) doesn't support the belief that bluray players will generate massive amounts of snow.

Given that I've never seen snow on this tv setup prior to the aforementioned firmware upgrades, I ordered a 3 pack of hdmi 1.4 cables from Amazon for 20 bucks with 3 day delivery, couldn't resist a simple experiment . . .

Put in "Knowing," an old blu ray disc and once again the video image is spectacular, makes it seem fun to watch even if the movie itself is subpar . . .

Swapping inputs and powercycling yielded Nada. Attempted to "listen" to Rhapsody via 3808 tonite with nearly zero results. Got to hear one song in my library or via Search function followed by "File format error" or "Server disconnected" error.

What will it take to stream my own music, don't want no internet radio, have tons of CDs but I like to listen to individual songs, including some for which I don't want to buy the whole CD, is that so much to ask via subscription service? Apparently so, so far.

I know Rhapsody is (software) trash, is Denon trash two (squared)?

Feeling low tonight what with a vp180 in the works, all dressed up with no (systematic) music on the horizon . . .

Is it possible that the input mode got switched to digital and it's looking for a digital signal all the time? IE. when a digital sound format is present it plays but it can't process an analog signal. The format should generally be set to auto so it decodes whatever type of signal (digital or analog) it receives.

See: Step 3 in the Batpig Denon guide
BatPig

Sat, here is a very rough overview to stream music to the 3808:

You simply need to have your 3808 connected to your network and music stored in a format the 3808 will recognize, FLAC, MP#, WMA, AAC etc. on something connected to your and part of your network, a PC, NAS (network attached storage) etc. Then allow sharing from that device and the 3808 should be able to see and paly all your music.