TiVo : Sound Effects

[OLDGOLD]

I keep losing my badoop!

I've not switched the sound effects off, and they work when I first start using TiVo each day, but quite often now when I watch a programme the 30 second skip forward button doesn't make the badoop noise. It also then disappears from some of the menu screens, but not all of them.

It seems quite random, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Anybody else noticed this?

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by OLDGOLD

I keep losing my badoop!

I've not switched the sound effects off, and they work when I first start using TiVo each day, but quite often now when I watch a programme the 30 second skip forward button doesn't make the badoop noise. It also then disappears from some of the menu screens, but not all of them.

It seems quite random, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Anybody else noticed this?

It won't work if 5.1 sound on HD channels is being decoded.

[OLDGOLD]

Originally Posted by Digital Fanatic

It won't work if 5.1 sound on HD channels is being decoded.

I can't remember everything I have been watching when it has happened. But this afternoon when I noticed it, I was watching Chicago Code on Sky1HD and my Amp was displaying a Dolby Digital output, so that certainly accounts for this afternoon. And, come to think of it the mini TV on the menu pages was on BBCHD, but I think it was on the preview broadcast, so would possibly have been mixed audio, explaining why sometimes it worked.

Thanks DF! Do you know if this is something that will be corrected?

I'll report back if I find it happening on SD broadcasts at all.

[spiderplant]

I suspect may not be possible to fix. The problem is when on a Dolby channel, the Dolby data stream is simply passed straight through the STB without being modified in any way. So the STB doesn't have opportunity to mix in the badoop sound effects. To do so, it would have to decode the Dolby, mix in the effects, the re-encode it back into Dolby. Not simple, and may degrade the audio quality.

[OLDGOLD]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

I suspect may not be possible to fix. The problem is when on a Dolby channel, the Dolby data stream is simply passed straight through the STB without being modified in any way. So the STB doesn't have opportunity to mix in the badoop sound effects. To do so, it would have to decode the Dolby, mix in the effects, the re-encode it back into Dolby. Not simple, and may degrade the audio quality.

Thanks Spiderplant.

How does it work with non-Dolby data stream? Doesn't it just pass those straight through anyway? Presumably there would be no decoding/re-encoding required. So how does the badoop get added to those?

[spiderplant]

MPEG audio streams are decoded by the STB into stereo PCM audio, at which point mixing in sound effects is easy. The mixed PCM data is then made available on the optical and HDMI, and also sent to a DAC to convert to analogue audio for the SCART.