Harman Kardon AVR 635 Owner's Manual page 36

OPERATION
(e.g.,a DolbyDigital o r DTS5.1 source withLogic
7/7 or DolbyProLogicIIxpost-processing) areallow
able,others(e.g. A DolbyDigital 5 .1 source withDTS
Nee:6) a re not,If youwishto addsurround back
channels t o a 2,0 or 5,1 source werecommend t hat
youexperiment withthevarious options to seewhich
maybeavailable andwhicharebestsuitedto your
tasteandlistening environment.
Itis always a goodideato checkthe readout f orthe
channel datato makecertain thatit matches t he audio
logoinformation s hownonthe backof a DVDpack
age.Insomecases, y ouwill seean indication t ot
"2/0/0" evenwhenthedisccontains a full5,1, or
3/2/.1, signal. Whenthishappens, checktheaudio
outputsettings f or yourDVDplayer or theaudiomenu
selections f orthe specific discbeingplayed to make
ce_lain thatthe player issending the correct s ignal
tothe AVR,
PCMPlayback
PCMisthe abbreviation forPulseCodeModulation,
thedigitalsignal f ormat u sedforstandard CDplay
back,andothernon-Delby D igital a ndnon-DTS digital
sources suchas MiniDisc, W hena P CII signal i s
detected, t heLower DisplayLine [] will briefly
showa message w iththe letters PCM,inaddition to a
readout of thesampling frequency of thedigital s ignal.
Inmostcases, t hiswill be P C11q 4.1,k Hz or
PC 11q &k Hz, thoughinthe caseof specially
mastered, highresolution a udiodiscs, y ouwillseea
P(] 11'=1 b k Hz indication. Notethatthe sampling
ratedisplayed i s thatof the incoming digitalsignal, a nd
netthe upsampled r atethatmaybeapplied to PCM
sources whenDolbyProLogicor PmLogicIIpro
cessing is applied, a sshownonpage22.
DuringPCM playback y ou mayselect a nysurround
modeexcept o neof the DolbyDigital o r DTS/DTS ES
modes. H owever, whena CDwithHDCD encoding is
beingplayedyoumustselect t he Surround Off(stereo)
modeto takeadvantage o f the HDCD process.
NDCDPlayback
HighDefinition C ompatible D igital, '_or HDCD, discsare
recoTded u singa special p rocess thatuses20 bit
encoding andotherproprietary p rocessing t o provide
theultimate inCDlistening, WhenanHDCD encoded
discis playing andthe CDplayer i s connected usinga
coaxial or optical d igitalconnection, theAVR635 will
automatically recognize t he HDCD encoding andacti-
vatethe circuits required for properplayback, provided
thattheSurround Offmodeis selected. An H 1)C 1)
message willappear i nthe Lower DisplayLine []
to confirm the HDCD playback. H DCD playback is
limited to 1wechannel stereoonly.
Speaker/Channel I ndicators
Inaddition to the bitstream indicators, theAVR635
features a setof unique channel i nputindicators t hat
tellyouhewmanychannels o f digitalinformation a re
beingreceived and/orwhether t hedigitalsignal i s
interrupted (Figure 21),
r-----1 r-----]
[] EIT1][]
[iS <>
I------1 I------1
[ ]
F_gue 2 1
Theletters inside the boxes tellyouwhichchannels
arereceiving a n inputsignal, S inceconventional aria
logaudiois only1we channels, the "U' a nd"R"letters
will light w ithanyanalog source. W hen a digitalsource
is inuseyouwillsee letters displayed t hatcorrespond
to the number o f channels i n the incoming data
stream, w hichmaybejustthe LandR fortwothan
nelPCMor 2,0 DolbyDigital m aterial. Whena 5,1
signal i s beingreceived the L/C/R/SL/SR indicators
will light, w iththe LFEindication a lsobeingshown
whenan LFE signalis present A ll sevenindicators,
including the SBL/SBR letters willlightfor a 7.I sig-
nal,anda horizontal lineis shown to connect t he
SBL/SBR indicators w hena 6,1 source is inuse.
It is important to notethatalthough DolbyDigital, for
example, is referred to asa "5.1" system, n ot allDolby
Digital D VDs or programs a reencoded for 5,1.Thus,it
is sometimes n ormal f or a DVD witha DolbyDigital
soundtrack t o trigger onlythe"U'and"R"indicators.
NOTE: M anyDVD discsare recorded withboth"5.1"
and"2.0"versions of thesamesoundtrack. When
playing a DVD, a lways becertain to checkthetypeof
material o nthe disc.Mostdiscsshowthisinformation
inthe formof a listingor iconon the backof the disc
jacket,Whena discdoesoffermultiple seundtrack
choices, you mayhaveto makesomeadjustments to
yourDVD player(usually w iththe "Audio Select" b utton
or ina menuscreen on thedisc)to senda full5,1
feedto the AVR635, It isalsopossible forthe typeof
signal f eedto change duringthecourseof a DVD's
playback. I nsomecases, the previews o f special
material will onlybe recorded in 2,0 audio, w hilethe
mainfeature is available in5,1 audio. T heAVR635
willautomatically sense changes to the bitstream and
channel countandreflect t hemintheseindicators.
Thelettes usedby theSpeaker/Channel I nput
Indicators[] willflashto indicate whena bitstream
hasbeeninterrupted. Thiswillhappen whena digital
inputsource is selected before the playback s tarts, o r
whena digitalsource suchas a DVD is paused, The
flashi%indicators r emind youthattheplayback has
stoppeddueto the absence of a digital s ignalandnot
through anyfaultofthe AVR 635, Thisis normal, a nd
the digital p layback willresume oncethe playback is
started again.
Theboxesaround the channel indication l etters are
usedto showwhichspeakers a reconfigured inyour
system. A smallboxaroundthelefferindicates t hata
"Small" s peaker h asbeenassigned t o thatposition,
whilea large_, doubleboxindicates a "Large" s peaker
assignment.
Notethatinsomecases, s uchasan analog stereoor
2,0 digital s ource youwillseeemptyspeaker p osition
boxes, w hichindicates t hatthe speaker i s active and
will receiver s ound,butthatthereis no discrete signal
forthatchannel. Inothercases you mayseeletters
withnospeaker b oxes. T hisindicates t hatthen isa
discrete signal f orthatchannel, butdueto the mode
inuse(e.g.Delby VSwitha 5.1 source) t hereis no
signalbeingsentto the channel.
NightMode
A special f ealure of DolbyDigital i s theNightmode,
whichenables specially e ncoded DolbyDigital i nput
sources to be playedbackwithfulldigital i ntelligibility
whilereducing theminimum peaklevelby1/4 to 1/3.
Thisprevents a bruptly loudtransitions f romdisturbing
others, w ithoutreducing the impact o f the digital
source. T heNightmodeisavailable onlywhenDolby
Digital signals withspecial d ataare beingplayed.
TheNightmodemaybe engaged whena Dolby
Digital D VD is playing by pressing the Night Mode
Button _ on the remote. Next,pressthe A/V
NavigationButton _ to select e itherthe middle
rangeor fullcompression versions o f the Night
mode. T oturnthe Night m odeoff,pressthe A/V
NavigationButton _ untilthe message inthe
lower t hirdof thevideodisplay andinthe Lower
DisplayLine [] readsD - RANGE OFF.
TheNightmodemayalsobe selected to always be on
at eitherlevel o f compression u singtheoptions inthe
]) 0 L BY S UR R menu. S eepage22 for informa
tion onusingthe menus to setthisoption.
MP3Audio Playback
TheAVR635 is oneof the fewreceivers e quipped for
onboard decoding tot the MP3audioformatusedby
computers a ndportable audiodevices. B yoffering
MP3decoding, theAVR635 isableto deliver p mdse
conversion o f thedigitalsignals to ananalogoutput,
alongwiththe benefits of listening to the MP3audio
through the AVR 635's high current a mplifier a ndthe
speakers f rom yoursurround system, r ather t hanthe
smaller speakers a ndlow powered amplifiers t ypically
usedwithcomputers.