I have an issue with my SMP audio. About 20 mins into a movie (seems pretty consistent) the audio will start to crack and eventually be just a loud buzzing. This has happened on ISO, M2TS, and MKV containers, and both DTS and Dolby Digital audio tracks. My player is connected via HDMI to a Denon reciever. When the issue occurrs, the reciever will go from displaying Dolby Digital or DTS to displaying Pro Logic II. So, it just seems to lose audio sync.
If I pause and play the movie and/or manually switch the reciever back to the proper surround setting, than the rest of the movie plays fine. Is this a known issue with the SMP? Anyone else have this issue? At first I thought it was an issue with my Blu-Ray rips but since it happened on a DVD ISO (so just a straight copy of the disc) I think that’s ruled out.
For comparison, try plugging in the Optical cable or Stereo cable (and make the appropriate adjustments in the setup screens) and see if the audio is normal there.
If it is normal there, then there may be an HDMI failure somewhere (could be the Denon, the WD, the cable…) but if the audio is also corrupt in the other modes (especially stereo mode) then it’s most likely either a hardware failure of the WD, or bad encodes / rips somehow.
I also have had an intermitent problem with audio from the SMP breaking up. I decode the digital audio signal on the HDMI output in a surround sound reciever and it usually works fine, but occasionally the audio is so distorted that it’s unlistenable. It seems like the signal is too faint and it needs too much gain from the amplifier in the reciever. This starts as soon as a program is begun, but I always leave it powered on but idle between uses. When this happens I power off the SMP and restart it to fix the problem (for a couple of weeks.)
