Xi6-T 4k - Incorrect audio

Deleting unnecessary post. Picture above is now showing.

After further troubleshooting I now believe this to be an issue with the service rather than the hardware. On a whim I loaded up On Demand and selected Aquaman. This played in correct 5.1 surround. I tried a 2nd On Demand movie Glass...also correct 5.1 surround there. I went back into the guide and selected Starz Encore HD. Only stereo. I then switched to FXHD showing a movie in HD, and only stereo on that channel as well...despite the input/output on my receiver showing as Dolby Digital Plus. I checked the same channels on the DVR in the other room and it's playing correct 5.1 surround audio.

At a loss here. Support is sending me 2 new boxes, which I wasn't expecting to fix my problem to begin with.

But it's still unique to the Xi6-T.

Just plugged in my previous cable box (XiD-P) to confirm my tests so far, since I hadn't returned the old ones yet. No changes in settings, everything stayed the same. Turned to channel 267 with Guardians of the Galaxy playing. Full surround sound as expected. Plug the Xi6-T in...stereo only, despite it showing Dolby Digital 5.1.

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@slizzap wrote:

Just plugged in my previous cable box (XiD-P) to confirm my tests so far, since I hadn't returned the old ones yet. No changes in settings, everything stayed the same. Turned to channel 267 with Guardians of the Galaxy playing. Full surround sound as expected. Plug the Xi6-T in...stereo only, despite it showing Dolby Digital 5.1.

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try an experiment. select a 5.1 channel and press record on the xi6. after it is recording, select the recording in progress on the xi6 and start playing it. after menu fades away press the OK button. on bottom left does it say 'DVR' or has a cloud icon in front of 'DVR'? if cloud, go to the dvr itself and play the same recording. is it showing cloud DVR or just DVR?

I tried your suggestions and added in a few of my own that you triggered:

1. Powered on the Xi6-T. Went to Starz Encore HD (263) and recorded "The Happening". Waited a minute and then replayed it from the beginning. It showed a cloud icon next to DVR. Confirmed it was only playing in stereo, both live stream and recorded.
2. Went to On Demand and played a movie, only played stereo. Checked the Audio configuration and it was set to "Auto Detect (Dolby Digital Plus)". I switched that to "Expert" and it was playing in proper 5.1 surround. I switched back to the live guide, and The Happening was only playing in stereo. I switched to the recording, still only playing in stereo.
3. Went to the DVR and played the recording of The Happening. It said "DVR" without a cloud icon. It plays in proper 5.1 surround on the DVR, both the live stream and the recording.

Side note: Every time I power on the Xi6-T I get a message saying "XRE-10007". I have to switch channels for that to go away and for it to start playing a live stream. Aside from that, and the stereo issue, it plays fine after that.

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@slizzap wrote:

I tried your suggestions and added in a few of my own that you triggered:

1. Powered on the Xi6-T. Went to Starz Encore HD (263) and recorded "The Happening". Waited a minute and then replayed it from the beginning. It showed a cloud icon next to DVR. Confirmed it was only playing in stereo, both live stream and recorded.
2. Went to On Demand and played a movie, only played stereo. Checked the Audio configuration and it was set to "Auto Detect (Dolby Digital Plus)". I switched that to "Expert" and it was playing in proper 5.1 surround. I switched back to the live guide, and The Happening was only playing in stereo. I switched to the recording, still only playing in stereo.
3. Went to the DVR and played the recording of The Happening. It said "DVR" without a cloud icon. It plays in proper 5.1 surround on the DVR, both the live stream and the recording.

Side note: Every time I power on the Xi6-T I get a message saying "XRE-10007". I have to switch channels for that to go away and for it to start playing a live stream. Aside from that, and the stereo issue, it plays fine after that.

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that confirms that the xi6 can't communicate with the DVR via the moca bridge in the router. is the router is bypass mode (not using its own wifi)? are there extra barrel connectos on any of the modem or DVR coax connectors (should not be but may have the POE -point of entry - filter on a device where it should not be. was the home coax network previously used with satellite without changing the splitters (amp) to 0 to at least 1002mhz frequency?

Recordings from the cloud are always in stereo.  When you start playing a recording you should see DVR or a cloud symbol on the screen.   What do you get if you play back your recording from the dvr box itself?

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@Rustyben wrote:

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that confirms that the xi6 can't communicate with the DVR via the moca bridge in the router. is the router is bypass mode (not using its own wifi)? are there extra barrel connectos on any of the modem or DVR coax connectors (should not be but may have the POE -point of entry - filter on a device where it should not be. was the home coax network previously used with satellite without changing the splitters (amp) to 0 to at least 1002mhz frequency?

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I can understand that being an explanation as to why the Xi6 is pulling the recordings from the cloud and not the local DVR, which IMO isn't really a problem, but I can't see that explaining why I'm getting stereo instead of proper surround for all channels. Again, I'd like to point out that I "can" get surround sound when doing On Demand movies.

Let's set that aside for now. The Xi6-T is wired, not wireless. My Xfinity router is an ARRIS TG1682G, which is in bridge mode with MoCA and Wi-Fi both disabled. I have this connected to my own personal firewall/router with wireless controller. All my devices are wired and I have not needed MoCA, at least not up until now (potentially). I'm willing to reconfigure the ARRIS by taking it out of bridge mode and enabling MoCA and removing my firewall from the equation just for testing purposes. Before I go through that hassle, I'd like an explanation for how and why MoCA would be required for this new box and how that factors in with the details I have provided so far. Again, I think we're now troubleshooting a different problem, so I'm just looking for details.

The splitter in use is the one provided by the Comcast technician during install, so there should not be any issues there.

Thanks.

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@lesmikesell wrote:

Recordings from the cloud are always in stereo.  When you start playing a recording you should see DVR or a cloud symbol on the screen.   What do you get if you play back your recording from the dvr box itself?

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Based on my testing, the DVR always plays properly. The issue only happens on the Xi6.

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@CCAndrew wrote:
That Xi6 box communicates to the gateway, but the gateway also needs to communicate with the dvr via moca. With the moca off, the Xi6’s recordings are from the cloud not from the dvr. On Demand is a different source. Turn your moca on

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This is confirmed, and extremely disappointing. I disconnected my firewall and reconfigured the Xfinity gateway, disabled WiFi and enabled MoCA. With the Xi6 plugged directly into the Xfinity gateway it played all live streams in proper surround.

I spent the entire evening trying varous combinations with my firewall to see if there was any possible way I could work around this, but there does not appear to be a way. I ended up reconfiguring my firewall so now it's basically doing double NAT behind the Xfinity gateway, which is no longer in bridge mode. My basement Xi6 is wired directly to the gatway, bypassing my firewall. The other location where I was looking to place an Xi6 is in the bedroom, which is 2 floors up and the opposite side of the house where it's not picking up the WiFi good, and I can't simply just patch in that jack to the gateway as I have a switch there with other internal devices wired. I'm just going to have to return that Xi6 box and keep the original non-4K box that uses COAX as there does not appear to be a way for me to get proper working 4K *and* surround sound with it in my situation.

It's very ironic to me that this configuration forces you to use MoCA, which was designed to work around the problem of houses not having ethernet cabling by using existing COAX, which in turn completely prevents actual ethernet cabling from working. Would be nice if this gets properly ironed out before 4K content really starts rolling out. Looks like I may be slightly jumping the gun here anyways given the current state of 4K availability.

Thanks for your assistance.

If I wanted to get additional 4K in the future and this was still an issue, I'm curious if Xfinity would allow me to use multiple DVRs in the house since they use COAX and not the built-in Ethernet port...without the additional charge of a DVR, that is.