If the source material coming into the BV8 is 5.1 does it automatically mix that down to 2-channel stereo?

When I play 5.1 videos I have to increase the volume much higher than the normal which makes me think the BV8's speakers are playing the left and right front sounds but not the center speaker. Could that be correct?

I have a PS3 hooked up to the Beovision 8 via HDMI.

You are correct: That is what your BV 8 is doing.

I run our BV 8 through a BS 3200 as a Home Theatre unit, using BL 4000 speakers. The sound of the BV 8 is excellent alone, but I prefer the Home Theatre unit addition when we are listening to N.RADIO + N.MUSIC, and not watching television. This unit is also connected to a Beoport and ML linked through the house to other BL 2000 speakers.

We notice the same sound change on all of our speakers in the system.

The increase in volume is required as DVDs are typically recorded with a much greater dynamic. Meaning, you should be able to understand the dialogue and when you have an explosion that should be significant louder.

To achieve that range, they record overall a bit lower compared to a normal Pop CD.

If you would not hear the center channel, your sound would really be horrible.

What setting do you listen too?  can check on mine to compare.

cheers

JK 

Swiss, thanks for the reply; seems like a nice setup. Does it mean that you don't use the BV8's speakers at all or you use them as the center speaker? By the way, is there a technical document that shows what the BV8 does to different sorts of incoming signal? I've looked around with no luck.

JK, good tip. Indeed I need to test the same DVD on a 5.1 setup to eliminate the fact that it could simply be dynamic range.

Rico, do you have the PS3 set to output audio in 2 channels or 5.1? I have it set to 2 channels in my set-up so the BV8 does not need to do any reprocessing to the signal.

Leo

Ah, indeed; good point. Yes, I have it set to 2 channels (the PS3 auto detected a couple of 2-channel settings).

A related question: what piece of B&O hardware could I acquire to give me myself a 5.1 system? Is the BeoCenter 2 the way to go? I tried looking at the specs on B&O's website and I didn't find anything related to which outputs it has.

You'll require a different BeoVision or a BeoSystem 3, the BeoVision 8 can't do surround sound unfortunately!

Not until the BV8-40 at least. Rumor has it that the 40" version, due to come on the market in April, will have surround sound module as an option. Hopefully it will arrive in the States! I plan to be first in line to upgrade. :-)

 Leo

Happy New Year Rico !

To answer your question, after tinkering with the system, the BL 4000 serve as main speakers, with emphasis on bass. About 1 M off the floor adjacent to the screen, canted back on the BL4000 black stands at 15 degrees. The BV speakers were dialed in as center speaker source as you correctly determined, with an emphasis on treble.

During our experimentation we tried four BL 4000 in a surround sound system with the BV: Too grunge, head-bangingly loud, even on low settings.