Need advice on connections

[debv1947]

Hello and first let me apologize for my ignorance. I have a question about my new equipment and how it was connected. There is no problem but I don't know if it is connected in the best way and Sony tech support was noncommittal.

I have a Sony KDL-46XBR8 TV, a Sony Blue Ray BDP-S550 and a Sony Home Theater HT-SS2300. My TV source is a High-Definition DVR from Comcast (Motorola DCH3416) This is a once in a lifetime purchase for me so I had it installed by a professional installer. The young man seemed very knowledgable and assured me that he was connecting the system in the way that would provide optimal video and audio.

Here is how it is connected. He connected the DVR to the audio receiver via BOTH HDMI and optical digital cable. He connected the Blue Ray to the audio receiver also with BOTH HDMI and optical digital cable. He then connected the receiver to the TV with HDMI cable. I am fine with getting all of my audio through the receiver.

I am reading in these forums though, that maybe I would get better audio if there was only an HDMI connection. There seems to be great controversy on this topic. The installer insisted that I would get better quality audio by having both connections.

I welcome any advice, suggestions or feedback. I've only had the system for a week and haven't really tested it fully but I am confused about the connection. Thank anyone who can help.

[MrBoylan]

Hello and first let me apologize for my ignorance. I have a question about my new equipment and how it was connected. There is no problem but I don't know if it is connected in the best way and Sony tech support was noncommittal.

I have a Sony KDL-46XBR8 TV, a Sony Blue Ray BDP-S550 and a Sony Home Theater HT-SS2300. My TV source is a High-Definition DVR from Comcast (Motorola DCH3416) This is a once in a lifetime purchase for me so I had it installed by a professional installer. The young man seemed very knowledgable and assured me that he was connecting the system in the way that would provide optimal video and audio.

Here is how it is connected. He connected the DVR to the audio receiver via BOTH HDMI and optical digital cable. He connected the Blue Ray to the audio receiver also with BOTH HDMI and optical digital cable. He then connected the receiver to the TV with HDMI cable. I am fine with getting all of my audio through the receiver.

I am reading in these forums though, that maybe I would get better audio if there was only an HDMI connection. There seems to be great controversy on this topic. The installer insisted that I would get better quality audio by having both connections.

I welcome any advice, suggestions or feedback. I've only had the system for a week and haven't really tested it fully but I am confused about the connection. Thank anyone who can help.

Hi, and welcome to the forum,

When you connect a Blu-ray Disc player and HD cable box to your home theater system via HDMI, it carries both the audio and video signals digitally. The extra optical cable is not necessary, nor does it help anything. The good news is that it doesn't hurt anything either, as long as you have your audio inputs in their default "AUTO" mode. This gives preference to HDMI, then fiberoptic, then analog. You can disconnect the optical cables and take them out of the system with no ill effects.

While your home theater system does not decode the latest surround sound formats (DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD), your player does decode these to PCM and it sends the multi-channel PCM signals to your home theater system for decoding to analog sound to play over your speakers. So you're not really missing out on anything by not having DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD decoding in the receiver.

And I believe the Sony BD player recognizes the capabilities of your receiver automatically, so it will convert DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD to PCM format automatically, so you don't need to do any special set-up in the player or the receiver in order to get the best sound quality.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

-Chris

[debv1947]

Thank you very much - that helps a lot. I guess it makes sense to just disconnect the optical cables.

[brubet]

Hi, and welcome to the forum,

When you connect a Blu-ray Disc player and HD cable box to your home theater system via HDMI, it carries both the audio and video signals digitally. The extra optical cable is not necessary, nor does it help anything. The good news is that it doesn't hurt anything either, as long as you have your audio inputs in their default "AUTO" mode. This gives preference to HDMI, then fiberoptic, then analog. You can disconnect the optical cables and take them out of the system with no ill effects.

While your home theater system does not decode the latest surround sound formats (DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD), your player does decode these to PCM and it sends the multi-channel PCM signals to your home theater system for decoding to analog sound to play over your speakers. So you're not really missing out on anything by not having DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD decoding in the receiver.

And I believe the Sony BD player recognizes the capabilities of your receiver automatically, so it will convert DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD to PCM format automatically, so you don't need to do any special set-up in the player or the receiver in order to get the best sound quality.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

-Chris

Chris,
I, too, am new to this A/V & Blu-ray thing. Enjoy it, but don't usderstand much of what I read. And, in reading Peter O'Connell's article on how to setup a Blu-ray player (BDP-S550 and RX-V3000 Yamaha receiver which does not have HDMI), he says to use 5.1 or 7,1 (six or 8 cables). That confused me. I'm under the impression that one step down from HDMI would be optical digital rather than the 5.1 or 7.1 analog cables. Should I do the 5.1 or 7.1 method and forego the optical digital connection?
Thanks,
Brubet

[MrBoylan]

Chris,
I, too, am new to this A/V & Blu-ray thing. Enjoy it, but don't usderstand much of what I read. And, in reading Peter O'Connell's article on how to setup a Blu-ray player (BDP-S550 and RX-V3000 Yamaha receiver which does not have HDMI), he says to use 5.1 or 7,1 (six or 8 cables). That confused me. I'm under the impression that one step down from HDMI would be optical digital rather than the 5.1 or 7.1 analog cables. Should I do the 5.1 or 7.1 method and forego the optical digital connection?
Thanks,
Brubet

Peter is on the forum here too ("BIslander"), but in case he doesn't see your question, I'll reply on his behalf. Normally you would assume that digital connections are "better" than analog, but it's simply not true. All sound in nature is analog in format. Sound is an analog wave of pressure travelling in a medium (normally air). When these pressure waves meet your eardrums, they cause a vibration which you perceive as sound.

When you record sound digitally, you are effectively "sampling" this wave many times per second in order to capture the sound into a digital format. At playback time, you need to reverse this process by converting the digital samples back into an analog wave - this is called "Digital to Analog (D/A) conversion" and the device that does this is the DAC (Digital Audio Converter). This wave is then amplified by a receiver or amplifier and sent to headphones or loudspeakers in order to vibrate those eardrums, thereby reproducing the original sound.

What does all this mumbo jumbo have to do with the price of tea in China? Or the quality of analog vs. digital sound? Well, the D/A process has to occur somewhere in order to get sound. Usually (as with DVD) the D/A process occurs in the receiver or preamp processor. Your receiver has fiberoptic and coaxial digital inputs (also called "S/PDIF" for Sony/Philips Digital Interchange Format) that can turn 2-channel PCM sound, as well as multi-channel Dolby Digital and DTS sound into an analog waveform to be amplified and reproduced by your speakers. All is well and good in the world.

But then Blu-ray came along. And in addition to that awesome 1080p picture quality, Blu-ray offers a slew of new audio formats, which are higher in quality than anything ever available on DVD. These include multi-channel PCM, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio. These offer higher bit-depth and higher sampling rates than we ever saw on DVD as well as more efficient compression techniques. This means they do a better job of capturing analog sound as digital. And three of these (Multi-channel PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio) can actually capture the original multi-channel studio recording with absolutely *no loss* in quality - they are bit-perfect copies of the engineer's original movie studio mix.

So where's the problem? Well, the problem is that these new formats *cannot* be sent over standard digital (S/PDIF) connections - they're simply too data intensive, and fiber and coax connections lack the necessary bandwidth. So, ideally you want to use an HDMI connection (which *does* support these higher bandwidth audio signals) and connect this to a receiver that decodes them and turns them into a multi-channel analog signal.

But, as you say, your receiver, like many others, does not support HDMI audio. So what's a poor audiophile to do? Well, if you use the DAC (the Digital to Analog Converter) in the PLAYER instead of the receiver (in the case of the BD55), then you can do the work of decoding and converting these next generation surround sound codecs to multi-channel analog sound. And all your receiver will need to do is amplify the sound and send it out to your 6 or 8 loudspeakers.

So, basically, with the BD55 player, your first and best choice is to carry the sound digitally (over HDMI) to a receiver or preamp/processor that decodes all of the available codecs to analog. But if your receiver lacks HDMI audio support, then a multi-channel audio connection from player to receiver will allow you to still take advantage of the great quality of these new surround codecs, including the "lossless" codecs (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio), which you cannot do over the older style fiber or coax digital connections.

Now this doesn't mean the fiber and coax connections will sound "bad" - they just won't represent the best that Blu-ray is capable of.

Hope that helps clarify things without twisting your brain too much.

-CB

[Hubert]

Thanks to share, really good ah

[mereco]

i just purchased a panasonic bluray dmpbd60 i have a pioneer vsx-1014tx and a hewlett packard pl5060 ,please dont laugh,my first born is due the 27th ,ok heres how i got my connections ,hdmi cable from bluray to tv and a optical cable from blu ray to reciever......im going crazy with all the remotes!!!! cant get the freakin thing to learn !!!......for whateva reason the volumne is not so high ....any suggestions on how to install it properly?

[Daylightdon]

The Pioneer VSX-1014tx has HDMI inputs and outputs. Try connecting the Blu-Ray player directly to the Pioneer and connect an HDMI cable from the HDMI output of the Pioneer to the TV. The Pioneer will decode the Dolby or DTS soundtracks.
Hope this helps.

God Bless on the Newborn!
I'm about to become a GREAT Grandpa!

[mereco]

im gonna have to look at the back of the pioneer......cause i didnt see no hdmi inputs or outputs....thanks for the reply grandpa

[Daylightdon]

Sorry, my error. One site I researched said it had HDMI and another said it did not. Further research shows zero HDMI.