Sky HD box audio output level

[Mark V GTD]

I have been using a regular Sky box for two years and was never impressed by the volume level using a Samsung 50" TV. I always put it down to poor TV speakers and was thinking about buying a soundbar. But recently I got a loft aerial fitted and the sound from the TV using terrestrial Freeview is significantly louder than I get via Sky - to the degree that I would not need a soundbar if Sky was at the same level.

Any clues what might be wrong?

[frisbee]

The Sky box lets you choose between normal and dolby digital for the audio output.

I bet yours is set to dolby digital, try it on normal.

[fourstardan]

Just did this as I too get poor sound levels from sky.

Why is normal better?

[frisbee]

fourstardan said:

Just did this as I too get poor sound levels from sky.

Why is normal better?

Not sure. Maybe the normal has a compressed dynamic range i.e. the quiet bits are made louder so you can hear dialog and the loud bits are softened so the tiny speakers in your TV don't explode.

[megaphone]

The SkyHD audio out on HDMI is low compared to other sources and built in Freeview, "they all do that sir".

[Mark V GTD]

Thanks for all the helpful responses. Yes the audio output was set to 'normal' - so I guess "they are all like that"...

In the end I just connected it to an external amplifier via a optical digital lead this morning and that does provide a decent sound level (after setting the delay to 80 so that it syncs with the picture) so thats cured the problem.

[sgrimshaw]

Mine was the same, nothing I tried fixed it.

I realised back in November that I could upgrade to SkyQ for no cost so I switched to that and the sound level is much better.