optical cable quality?

[admin_exported]

hi, was just wanting to know how to set up my optical cable. i am wanting to run sky hd, x box 360 and blu ray player through my home cinema system which has a optical port. as it has only one i cant connect all of them at once so was wondering if i connected them all to my tv via hdmi and then just one optical cable from tv to surround if the sound quality would be the same as just connecting say my blu ray player straight to the surround with the optical cable? or is there any other way?

cheers, jon

 

[Anonymous]

any got any advice?

 

[VoodooDoctor]

Have a look for an optical audio switcher box. They're relatively inexpensive and I think a better solution to your problem.

 

[Anonymous]

yeah i will do. its not much of a problem as all my equipment is set up to my tv via hdmi so would be easier to run one optical cable to my surround rather than having three optical cables direct to my surround, but wanted to know if doing it the first way if id lose any auido quality or would it be the best.

cheers

 

[Anonymous]

anyone know waht the qaulity would be like if i connected all my equipment via hdmi to my tv then ran an optical to surround?

cheers

 

[professorhat]

On most TVs, the optical out either only carries sound from the TV's built in freeview tuner, or will only output stereo for any external sources. It's worth making sure the TV's optical out can actually pass through the full Dolby Digital / DTS signals coming from your external sources before you look into this (should be in the manual somewhere).

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for that will take a look, would i be prob better getting an optical splitter then to connect them all directly to the surround, wouldnt have thought id lose any sound quality through this.

 

[professorhat]

I would guess that would probably be your best option. My friend uses one and there was no loss of quality that I could detect.

 

[Anonymous]

oh right cheers. do you know if the sound produced through hdmi, say to a av reciever is better than that through an optical cable. also can you get home cinema sytems that you can connect to blu ray via hdmi for sound if its better than that of optical?

cheers

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="jonny1_2005"]do you know if the sound produced through hdmi, say to a av reciever is better than that through an optical cable[/quote]

Well, firstly you need an AV receiver which is able to accept audio over HDMI. For your Blu-Ray player, this may well produce a better sound as you might then be able to take advantage of the HD audio soundtracks on Blu-Rays discs, though this is entirely dependent on which AV receiver and which Blu-Ray player you have. I wouldn't have thought it would make any difference for your Xbox and Sky HD needs to run through the optical cable to get 5.1 sound, so the HDMI sound would actually be worse.

[quote user="jonny1_2005"]can you get home cinema sytems that you can connect to blu ray via hdmi for sound if its better than that of optical?[/quote]

Absolutely - as I say, it depends on what Blu-Ray player you have as to what kind of AV receiver you would need.