Why Center Channel only on Pro Logic 2?

Question

I have a Pioneer digital receiver, and have it hooked up to my digital cable box through a fiber optic wire. But some TV channels only come thru the center speaker when PL2 is on. Most channels do this, some come in great in PL2 but some just the center channel. I read on dolbys site that PL2 takes any stereo stream and decodes it to go thru all your speakers. For example the SuperBowl on Fox only comes thru my center channel but i can turn it to MTV and PL2 is blasting thru all my speakers. Any suggestions???

Answer 1

The reason is because some channels don't have stereo sound, they duplicate the sounds on the left channel to sound the same on the right channel. The way Pro Logic 2 works is it takes the stereo effects (sounds that are different on the left and right channels) and divide them amongst the surround speakers and the dialogue and other sounds that are exactly the same on both left and right channels will be sent to the center channel.

Answer 2

Do you have a HD TV? If you are watching(listening to) a genuine Dolby Digital 5.1 signal, there is no need to run it through Dolby Pro-Logic II. Pro-Logic II is for decoding 2 channel sources to sound like surround sound. Remember that fiber optic only carries a digital signal, so you may have to run an analog signal (left & right audio) to your receiver to be decoded TO Pro-Logic II. Sound like fun so far? Good luck!