ONKYO amplifier (mine is TX-NR515) - PS3 - HDMI 'hybrid standby' - NO AUDIO - EXPLANATION (tested on latest firmware)

Hi there,

this is my first post in the group and I hope you find it useful since I think it's a quite common issue asked in internet forums and I never read a solution. I believe I found the "problem", it's just a configuration error of PS3.

The situation: PS3 hooked to Onkyo receiver through HDMI and the another HDMI cable goes from Onkyo amplifier to the TV. When the amplifier is off, in 'hybrid standby mode' (so you want to hear from TV speaker after having enable HDMI pass through in amplifier configuration) you can't hear any audio or some audio is missing.

The issue is this: after having connected the PS3 to Onkyo I enabled in PS3 configuration the output through HDMI of Dolby Digital TrueHD, LPCM 7.1 Ch., etc (go to Settings -> Sound Settings -> Audio Output Settings -> HDMI) in order to enjoy full blu-ray sound experience. And in fact everything works fine when the Onkyo amplifier is on. But the problem is that is we turn off the amplifier (going into stand by mode) and the HDMI pass through is enabled all the audio encoded data is passed directly to the TV and here two things might happen:

- If the TV does not have an integrated audio decoder for the incoming audio stream the tv can't decode the HDMI audio data hence no sound is outputted
- If the TV does have an integrated audio decoder for the audio stream passed but it does not support all channels (that was my case since my TV only supported decoding up to 5.1) some sounds are missing (I believe they are the missing channels, I realized this while playing a AC3 game in my PS3).

Whenever this occurs you can try to connect directly the PS3 to the TV through HDMI (bypassing the amplifier) and you will see that the same behaviour applies, hence I believe that the Onkyo amplifier HDMI pass through is not the problem.

How can you resolve this ? Well you can't since PS3 HDMI audio configuration is done only once and it is saved into system (and I think that this should also apply to other appliances such as blu-ray players and other amplifiers). The only workaround I found is to go back to PS3 audio settings and enable only PCM 2 channels output (or supported audio decoding of your TV) thorugh HDMI. At this point you will hear audio when the amplifier is in 'hybrid standby'.
A fine solution would be to enable in Onkyo amplifier firmware the possibility to choose the HDMI output sound encoding when receiver is in stand by (pass through, PCM, etc.), but this is up to Onkyo (maybe a new feature ?).

HI,

I will pass this information to our Marketing and Product Development team. They will research this and possibly come out with a firmware in the near future.

Thanks,
Forum Modarator

Ok thank you please let me know their feedback, if any.
Summing up what I wanted to say is that if a device (PS3, blu-ray player, satellite receiver) is connected through HDMI to an audio amplifier supporting high-end codecs (Dolby TrueHd, DTS MA, etc.) like Onkyos, it can send all the encoding format; instead, when the amplifier is bypassed in stand by mode, (and so the device is like directly hooked to the television) it must send only the encoding format compatible with the TV, otherwise the TV can't decode the audio stream and therefore no audio can't be heared. I think this is the reason for which most people have audio issues when amplifier is in stand by mode.