I've had this TV for abou 3 years now, and haven't really had any problems. My wife bought me a BluRay Home Theater in a box system and as I was putting everything together I decided I wanted to try out the Optical Audio Out.
I should also say that because my surround sound comes from a media player instead of an actual reciever, I run all my devices through my TV and then run the out to the media device (used RCA with my old setup).
I've read the manuals for both the TV and the home theater (which is a Panasonic SC-BT300) and I couldn't find anything that could possibly make using the optical cable a difficult process.
I actually went out and bought a second optical cable, and then I had the bright idea of trying to hook up my cable box to the BluRay receiver. Sure enough, I got sound right away.
The first optical cable I bought actually had clear tips so you can see the red light when you plug the cable into the out device. As soon as I plugged it into my cable box, I saw the red light. When I plug the same cable into my TV port, I don't get any lights. I've been through the manuals 100 times, and I can't find anything that would turn that optical port on or off.
Anyone have any ideas before I have to spend a lifetime on the phone with technical support?
Josh, I'm not sure I understand why you need to use the optical port on the TV. You've got sound with Blu-ray/DVD and sound from the cable box by going directly into the receiver, so why use the optical port on the TV for anything?
The actual capabilities of the optical outputs on the various brands of TVs are not consistent. They first started to appear around the time of your TV was made. Back then, these outputs worked only with incoming digital signals the internal tuner picked up via over the air digital signals from an antenna. Later models would output audio picked up on digital basic cable channels via a QAM tuner, provided the TV had such a tuner built in. Still later models would output sound on the optical when digital audio was input on one of the TV's HDMI inputs. The point is that what these optical outputs will do varies with the manufacturer and specific model. And to add to the confusion, user manuals are unforgivably vague on the subject.
I don't know if your TV has a QAM tuner (and even then this would be relevant only if you were using cable with no box), but more than likely the only time you will get a signal on the JVC's optical out is with OTA signals coming in on its antenna input.
Thanks for the response. I was trying to use the optical out on the TV because I use my 1 and only HDMI input for either my XBOX 360 or my Laptop (Which also has a Blu-Ray player). I was essentially using my TV as my reciever.
I figure it's not really that much of a difference, so I'm just going to keep the optical connection with the cable box, and using the RCA TV out (into the Blu-Ray Home Theater) as my round about. That at least allows me to have surround sound with my XBOX and Laptop.
Alright Josh, sometimes we have to make do the best we can.
Any drawback to using your laptop as a Blu-ray player? Load time, responsiveness, or any other differences between the Panasonic and the computer as Blu-ray players?