I thought I’d use the new design to re-visit an old topic.
When watching live TV (on a suitable HD channel and programme), the sound is transmitted correctly in Dolby Digital. However, when using replay or playing a recording, this is stripped out and a PCM (stereo) signal is sent instead.
A few months ago, a fix was made to the UPC TV boxes so that the signal was correctly identified as DD or PCM stereo to any connected AVR. This was an improvement as previously the box told the AVR it was DD even when it wasn’t, which stopped the AVR from being able to upmix to surround itself. So it’s better than it was, but having an AVR guess and make up the surround channels is nowhere near as good as having the correct DD surround signal sent from the actual programme.
This is really noticeable when watching a film, but even modern documentaries (such as The Perfect Planet on BBC1) can sound a mess on replay/record compared to live TV.
Are there any plans to fix this? The issue has existed since the UPC TV box’s inception. Despite all its faults the Horizon box did this better.