Wheres my digital audio? Blu-ray/DIRECTV box into TV, optical digital out to receiver

[salcosta]

My setup:

TV: Sony Bravia KDL-46S2000
Receiver: Denon S-301
Blu-Ray Player: LG BD570
Cable Box: Digital DirecTV
HDMI Switcher: Rocketfish RF-HDMI4

My TV and receiver have only one HDMI port each, so I purchased an HDMI switcher and have my cable box and blu-ray player connected to it, with the TV connected to its Output port. I’m running an Optical Fiber Cable from the receiver’s Optical Digital In port (AUX 3) to the TV’s Optical Out port. I turn everything on, but no audio. So I connect cables from the receiver’s Audio In ports (AUX 1) to the TV’s Audio out ports. I now have sound, but it’s not of digital quality.

Question: How do I capture the digital signal using the Optical Cable? I’ve cycled through the settings on the receiver, but can only hear sound through the AUX 1 setting.

Thanks in advance,

Sal

[MrBoylan]

My setup:

TV: Sony Bravia KDL-46S2000
Receiver: Denon S-301
Blu-Ray Player: LG BD570
Cable Box: Digital DirecTV
HDMI Switcher: Rocketfish RF-HDMI4

My TV and receiver have only one HDMI port each, so I purchased an HDMI switcher and have my cable box and blu-ray player connected to it, with the TV connected to its Output port. I’m running an Optical Fiber Cable from the receiver’s Optical Digital In port (AUX 3) to the TV’s Optical Out port. I turn everything on, but no audio. So I connect cables from the receiver’s Audio In ports (AUX 1) to the TV’s Audio out ports. I now have sound, but it’s not of digital quality.

Question: How do I capture the digital signal using the Optical Cable? I’ve cycled through the settings on the receiver, but can only hear sound through the AUX 1 setting.

Thanks in advance,

Sal

Hi, Sal,

The TV's fiberoptic output is really only for providing digital sound from the TV's built-in ATSC/QAM tuner. In fact, this output is a requirement from the CEA in order to allow the set to be called an HDTV. But it's not designed to pass through other sources digitally. At best you will get a 2-channel digital PCM signal from the TV output when watching a connected digital device.

Your best bet, since your receiver has no HDMI inputs or HDMI audio/video switching, is to connect the DIRECTV set-top box to the S301 receiver via its fiberoptic output -- fiberoptic output from DIRECTV box to the "Aux 3" fiberoptic input on the receiver -- and connect the BD570's coax digital output to the S301's coax digital input (Aux 1 or Aux 2). Leave the HDMI switcher in place with the HDMI cables connected there and then into the TV.

You're lucky you got the BD570 actually, because many Blu-ray players do not have a coax digital output but this one does. And your receiver has only one fiberoptic input which will be used by the DIRECTV box. BTW, you're not going to be able to take full advantage of the new lossless codecs on Blu-ray with this connection (DTS-HD, Dolby TrueHD) but they will come through as standard Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 to your receiver so they will still sound at least as good as standard DVDs.

Try it out this way and let us know if that works out for you.

-CB

[salcosta]

Thanks CB! This will work just fine until I buy a new receiver with HDMI inputs.

Thanks again!

Sal