Optical out from receiver

[TheOne]

i all, I have just purchased the Samsung JS8500 but having a bit of difficulty with my av set up.

previously I had all my equipment (sky, xbox one and PS3) running through the receiver which then connected to the tv. As I don't have a 4k receiver or one with ARC (Sony STR-DG820), I was recommended to connect everything to the tv to allow the TV to upscale the picture and then to connect the receiver to the TV via optical out.

unfortunately I am only able to get 2.1 sound and not 5.1. I've played with all the settings on TV, receiver and equipment to no avail! *cray2*

any my help or advice would be much appreciated! Or for someone to tell me I need a new receiver!!

i did have my eye on the RXV677 but wanted to know whether I could achieve what I wanted with existing equipment!

thanks in advance!

 

[spiny norman]

Check the Sony's HDMI menu, and see whether the 'Audio Out' option says 'TV+AMP'. If it does, this will limit the amp to whatever the TV can deliver soundwise, which is likely to be stereo plus sub.

Set this selection to 'AMP' and you should be back to multichannel through the speakers.

 

[simonlewis]

You don't need a 4K reciever, i would connect everything up the way you had before to the amp and then one HDMI to the tv, you may need an optical from tv to amp for sound if you haven'y got ARC.

I have a 4K samsung tv and currently using a old onkyo 606 amp from 2008.

 

[spiny norman]

Agreed with simonlewis: I'd connect everything through the receiver to the TV via HDMI, and make sure the setting I mentioned above is correct. Using the optical output from the TV is no-no unless you have to for the reason simonlewis mentions, as the TV will almost inevitably downconvert incoming HDMI audio to suit its own speaker set-up, rather than passing through multichannel from HDMI to optical digital output.

 

[TheOne]

Thanks for the suggestion simonlewis. Would doing this result in the video signal not being upscaled by the TV? I tried it this was and thought there was a loss in PQ But that may have been my mind playing tricks on me!

ill give it another try tonight and let you know how I get on.

thanks!

 

[simonlewis]

The only reason you will need a 4K reciever is if you have a 4K source, a 4K blu-ray player for example which is not even released yet.

A 1080p blu-ray player going through your reciever will be pefectly acceptable.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Would doing this result in the video signal not being upscaled by the TV? I tried it this was and thought there was a loss in PQ But that may have been my mind playing tricks on me!

For a start, set your Sky Box HD resoluton output to automatic. Now, I don't have a Sony receiver, so I'm not sure exactly how it works on your receiver, but on my Yamaha, I have a choice of Direct or Processing for the picture output, so you should set your equivalent to Direct. Then, the tv will receive what the Sky Box has outputted, so it will then do the upscaling.

Repeat for all your other devices.

 

[TheOne]

Thanks SimonLewis, think it's all sorted now. I think I was maybe trying to be a bit too clever!

I've put everything back the way I had it with the previous TV (equipment to receiver, with Sky via optical). After a bit of playing with the settings, everything is playing in 5.1 . I think the pic is still upscaling, it does look great.

I did encounter one issue with the sound on the native apps on the TV (which the receiver was still outputting the Sky sound) but managed to sort this through the TV menus.

So all working perfectly as before, and I think it's being upscaled to my untrained eye!

As an aside, my blu rays look fantastic and in some cases, better than the Netflix 4K programmes!

 

[simonlewis]

*good*