Yamaha RX-V675 Setup Help?!

[Dietzaleh]

I purchased a RX-V675 a couple of weeks ago. I'm a pretty technical/handy guy, however I'm admittedly an AV novice. There are several things I can't figure out and its driving me completely nuts. The manual seems practically useless. I've poured over the entire thing to no avail. I was hoping you all could help me out. I have all of my components connected straight into the unit (DirecTV Geni, Sony Blueray, Roku and a Yamaha bluetooth receiver). The unit is connected to a Samsung LCD TV that is about 5 years old via a HDMI 25' redmere cable. DirecTV is connected via HDMI and optical cables. I have the unit connected to a 5.1 speaker setup.

1. I can only get the audio to come out of all 5 speakers when the unit is set to 7ch stereo. Shouldn't it output to all 5 speakers when set to "straight", "sports", "drama" etc? What am I doing wrong? I'm worried that I'm not getting actual surround using the 7ch stereo setting and would like to utilize some of the other sound programs.

2. I'm trying to keep things simple for my wife and kids by utilizing HDMI control and the DirecTV remote. I think my TV is too old to have ARC but it does have Samsung Anynet. I can get the unit to turn off when I hit power off on the DirecTV remote, but it will not power back on. I know I could get a Logitech Harmony or equivalent, however the DirecTV RF remote is in my opinion very easy to use for my family.

3. Audio works just fine without the optical cable from the DirecTV geni. Do I actually need the optical cable? The unit keeps reverting back to audio from HDMI instead of AV4 and I can't get it to stop. So if I don't actually need the optical cable that would be good to understand.

 

[americanaudiophile]

1. Most programs will not have continuous sound from all the speakers. The only speaker that is active almost all the time is the center channel. So long as you have gone through the receiver setup to get all the speakers balanced you should be OK. If you did this with a mic that came with the receiver you might want to check the levels from the receiver speaker set up menu. Sometimes the mic gets it wrong. When you get the pink noise to come out of each of the five speakers the volume from your chair should be the same. Check the distances too.
For each source there will be a different default surround mode that will be best. For the DTV Genie leave it on Dolby (that way if the program is stereo you will still get Prologic surround sound). For the Blueray it should be in Auto (you select the surround output from the disc menu. For the Roku either Dolby or Auto (probably depends on the channel). For the Bluetooth you would select the music surround mode you like best (or 7channel stereo if you like all the speakers to play). The receiver should indicate what channels the signal feeding it has. It will remember the default setting for each source once you set it.
2. A Harmony remote will ensure better control but each household is different. If your TV has CEC you might try to turn it on or off to see if the DTV remote works better that way.
3. The optical cable is not needed. HDMI has both audio and video.