I have a sonos 5.1 setup (plabar, 2x play 1 and sub) in the TV room and it sounds amazing. I got the sub last week and can't believe how good it is!
I have an appleTV 4K connected via HDMI to my LG TV (42LM620T-ZE) then to the to the playbar via optical. This works fine (I have selected dolby 5.1 as the appleTV output, and on the TV have selected the "sound output" as AUTO rather than PCM to ensure the TV passes through the DD 5.1 signal).
My old blu ray player (Toshiba BDX4350KB) will output dolby 5.1 when there is a dolby soundtrack on the blu ray or DVD, and again this plays fine with my setup. I can see on the app that the playbar is receiving DD 5.1. The problem occurs when the blu ray or DVD has a DTS soundtrack, in which case the blu ray player outputs a stereo signal instead. I realise that this is because the playbar cannot decode DTS.
So I purchased a new blu ray player (2nd hand, £30 from eBay) Samsung BD-H5500 as, after researching it, I was led to believe that this player could convert DTS to dolby 5.1. However when I connect this up to my TV (blu ray -> TV via HDMI -> playbar via optical) it doesn't give me 5.1 to the playbar. Even if the DVD or blu ray does have a DD 5.1 soundtrack, I still only get stereo to the playbar. Similarly if the soundtrack is DTS I also get stereo to the playbar. I have tried changing the sound output setting on the blu ray player (the options are PCM, bitstream, bitstream dolby recode, bitstream DTS recode) but this makes no difference, I still only get stereo to the playbar.
Does anyone else have this blu ray player, or a similar one, who could help me to set this up correctly?
Many thanks in advance.
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Figured it out - the BD-H5500 will output 5.1 over coaxial digital but not HDMI. HDMI is stereo only. I got a coaxial -> toslink optical converter and it works like a dream. Everything is now DD 5.1
However I now I need a (cheap) optical switch, ideally one I can control from my harmony remote. Any recommendations? Would ideally like to spend under £30.
Thanks!
However I now I need a (cheap) optical switch, ideally one I can control from my harmony remote. Any recommendations? Would ideally like to spend under £30.
Thanks!
The optical switch arrived today. I bought a generic 3-way switch from amazon.
It works fine with the optical output from tv ( TV -> switch -> playbar) but when I try the BD-H5500 ( Blu-ray player -> coax to optical converter -> optical switch -> playbar ) I just get silence.
Could it be that the optical switch can’t handle an optical signal that has been converted from coaxial?
It works fine with the optical output from tv ( TV -> switch -> playbar) but when I try the BD-H5500 ( Blu-ray player -> coax to optical converter -> optical switch -> playbar ) I just get silence.
Could it be that the optical switch can’t handle an optical signal that has been converted from coaxial?
Turns out it was a problem with the optical cables.
Apparently you can’t have a wide calibre cable as the input to the switch, passing signal to a narrow calibre cable as the output to the switch (too much light signal lost at the point at which they connect to each other).
Works fine with the cables the other way round though.
Anyone else come across this before?
Apparently you can’t have a wide calibre cable as the input to the switch, passing signal to a narrow calibre cable as the output to the switch (too much light signal lost at the point at which they connect to each other).
Works fine with the cables the other way round though.
Anyone else come across this before?
I'll admit to my ignorance. I was completely unaware that there were wide caliber versus narrow caliber optical cables. Now I need to go do some research.
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