Hi @isleofmull.

Welcome to the Sonos community and thanks for reaching out to us. Allow me to share with you some information to help out.

The Sonos Beam would need to be connected to the HDMI ARC as the ARC stands for Audio Return Channel and does not transport/communicate video codec. Which is perfect for your TV since your TV does not have the option for an Optical Port which is the alternative way of connecting the Sonos Beam to a TV. I would recommend connecting the Sonos Beam via the HDMI ARC and feel free to contact Philips’ customer service or the user’s manual to know what HDMI would best fit your Virgin media Box and how to configure to make it work. Please feel free to test by following the recommendations below.

• Connect your Beam to the HDMI ARC port on your TV.
• Open the Sonos App, go to settings » system » (Beam) » TV set up and follow the prompts.
• It is best before going through the TV setup, let us make sure that there is a video being displayed on your TV, may it be regular cable, satellite, TV in-apps (Netflix, Youtube, etc).

I hope this helps.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. I’ll be here to help you out.

Thanks,

Hi Paul

Many thanks for getting back to me.

My TV does have an optical port but it just doesn’t work with the supplied Sonos adapter.

i’m hoping that i can find an adapter to do this. Do you know what this is called?

Im also going to try and use an alternative HDMI port for my virgin box

Hi @isleofmull.

Thanks for the update and immediate response. 

Let us try my recommendation first, before we proceed to purchase any adaptors as we do not recommend any other adaptors except the one provided that came with the package. Try connecting the Sonos Beam first via HDMI ARC, use other sources of video as provided above, then let us see how it goes. If it works, then we can then reach out to the TV tech support for assistance on getting your Virgin media box working with other HDMI port. Our main target is to make your Sonos Beam work with the TV so we can avoid buying any unsupported adaptor that may have the tendency of working or not working with your set up.

I hope this helps.

Please let me know how it goes and keep me posted.

Thanks,

1. Swap the Virgin box to a non-ARC HDMI port as suggested, freeing up the HDMI-ARC port for the Beam.
   If that’s simply not possible then:
2. Get a coax-optical converter. They’re inexpensive. The output on the TV is digital coax, not optical. 

Just to clarify: the "DIGITAL AUDIO OUT” shown in your picture is a coaxial audio out, not an optical audio out, whence ratty's suggestion under 2.

I would try to follow the suggestion under 1 first: settop boxes in general do not need HDMI-ARC, so the Virgin box should be able to play through another (non-ARC) HDMI port.

I find it implausible that the Virgin box cannot use any other HDMI port. When you put it in another HDMI port are you selecting that port as the AV input on your TV settings?

Failing that, If the Virgin box is the source of all your viewing then if the box has optical out you could connect to that instead of the TV. 

If not, a coaxial to optical adapter, as suggested by @ratty , is a cheap and easy solution. 

Many thanks for all your replies.

Ill crack on with the options and let you know how i get on!