Yamaha YAS101 soundbar downsample?

[cutter74]

Hi all,

I'm interested in the Yamaha YAS101 soundbar since it's a decent, slim and elegant solution for my second TV room. I am currently passing video and audio from my AVR (located in the living room) through an HDMI cable running inwall to my second TV in the bedroom. Problem is, I don't have (or need) a second set of 5.1 speakers for the bedroom TV and I rely on the TV speakers to stream audio. The problem is that my TV does not handle DTS streams, so I can see the picture through the AVR HDMI but have no sound coming off the TV speakers on files that don't offer more conventional audio streams.

The Yamaha YAS101 soundbar seems a good solution to my problem. No external subwoofer, slim, cheap, I can just connect an optical cable from my TV to the soundbar and problem solved. However, I notice that even the Yamaha does not handle DTS HD MA, or DD TrueHD signals. So, my question is finally this: Can the Yamaha downsample such streams to plain DTS or DD and give me sound, or will I be left with no sound coming from the soundbar in this case?

Sorry for the long post and thanks for your time.

 

[cutter74]

Guys, anyone?

 

[axman]

Never mind the yamaha, Can the tv really pass thru the signals?

can optical cables handle those signals?

 

[axman]

just some additional thoughts. That yamaha does not take HDMI cables.

Optical cables will not even carry those signals (only plain DTS and DD only) anyway. So it is not really a question of whether the YAmaha will downsample - it won't even receive those signals anyway.

I am not sure, but I believe that your TV optical out will only send plain DTS and DD signal only. It depends on the TV then...

Worse case scenario is to have another optical cable connected to from from your Receiver directly to the yamaha.

 

[cutter74]

My TV is the Sony W905A and searching through several forums, I wasn't able to get a definitive answer on whether the TV will passthough DTS and DTS MA signals. Asking my local Sony Centre was of no help since they also had no idea and were looking at the product manuals trying to find an aswer dor me. If I had to guess, I'd say that the W905A does not support DTS passthrough to the optical out because when I try to play a DTS file, I get an "unsupported audio signal" message on the TV screen or something to that effect. If the TV knew what it was it would also play it. I believe that Sony chose not to license the TV for DTS and therefore completely ignores the DTS streams. This probably means that it will not passthrough the DTS MA or the core DTS signal to the Yamaha at all.

The fact the I have to go through an optical cable instead of HDMI surely won't help either. Connecting a second cable from my receiver to the yamaha is unfortunately not an option for me since they are in different rooms and all cabling is in-wall.

It looks like what I'm trying to do is simply not going to work... If anyone has an idea that doesn't include running new cables through walls, I'd surely appreciate it.

 

[axman]

You should see if higher spec yamaha soundbars would take and pass through HDMI.