problems recording optically from dvd to sony r500

[Guest Anonymous]

hi, after owning my minidisc for a couple of years i finally decided to buy an optical cable to record digitally to see if it sounds better or not. Anyways I tried hooking it up to my hitachi dvd player which has an optical out. When i plugged the cable in to the dvd, I can see the red laser coming through to the other side of the cable so I thought things would be fine. But when i try to record on my r500, it says no signal. I have no idea what's wrong with my setup. Anybody know?

thanks

[Guest Anonymous]

Make sure the digital/optical output of your DVD player is set to PCM. This is the standard format for two channel digital audio. If the DVD player is set for a Dolby Digital output the Sony won't recognize the signal. Somewhere in the DVD players on screen menu you should be able to find an option to reset the ouput. Hope this helps.

[Guest Anonymous]

thanks for the reply. I wasn't sure to use pcm or bitstream. I'll also try to find if there is an option for dolby digital output. Also, there is a option to turn DTS on or off...what should it be?

thank you

[Guest Anonymous]

The DTS should definitely be off when you're trying to record. What model number DVD player do you have?

[Guest Anonymous]

it's a hitachi dvp-315. There's no option to turn off the dolby digital output. I've also tried turning pcm on and DTS off but still no luck :x

[Guest Anonymous]

I checked the owners manual for your model. Under the Audio Options menu there should be a way to switch between PCM and Bitstream. There should also be options to turn DTS off and Dynamic Compression off. Once its set to PCM, with DTS and Compression off, you should get a digital signal you can record. If the MD won't record, is it giving you any kind of message? The DVD player will output a 48khz/16 bit PCM signal. Do you know if the Sony will accept a 48khz signal? I thought most, if not all, portable MD's would resample a digital signal to 44.1khz.

Something else you might be able to try is to run the PCM signal into your reciever, and then send it out to the MD, if your reciever has a digital output.

Sorry none of this has worked yet. I know how frustrating it can be to do the simplest things with audio signal when you just want to make a recording. I've had to spend a few hundred dollars on equipment just to make recordings for my own use.