I have a new HD set-top box from my cable company, with HDMI out. My HDTV has HDMI in, but of course I want to run sound thru my receiver / surround sound setup (which does NOT have HDMI capability).
My receiver does have all other inputs (optical, etc) and my Cable box has optical OR digital audio out. What is the best setup to use here? If I send HDMI to the TV, can I also do audio out to the reciver? If so, what is the best type of connection? Thanks!!
I guess I really just want to make sure I can use BOTH safely at the same time - HDMI to the TV, and optical audio to the receiver to get surround.
Gvenk
Unregistered guest
Posted on
There is no issue of safety here in that you will not hurt anything.
A problem may be if the set top box disables digital audio out when using HDMI out. All you have to do is to connect it and see and check if there are any menu settings needed to enable it. Nothing to lose or hurt.
The other potential problem is synchronization between audio and video. Depending on the processing between the components involved that set up may have the audio slightly out of synch with the video which may be tolerable or very annoying. If your receiver has a synch control that allows introducing delay (typically audio processing paths are faster than video processing paths), then you will have no problems.
If the sync becomes a problem in that set up and your TV has a digital audio out, then you can try connecting that to the receivers digital audio in. Many TVs provide that digital audio out from the digital audio input or tuned in within the TV without going to analog stage and sampling back so there is no loss of fidelity in going that way. Synch may or may not be problem even in that route.
The biggest problem you might find of course is dealing with turning/switching off/on multiple things to watch something in that kind of a set up. The second solution above may reduce the number of things you have to change/set. When a/v receivers start getting HDMI interfaces than all this will become moot.
Thanks Gvenk, that was very informative. I guess I'm just going to have to try a few different setups and see. It seems silly that using HDMI rules out surround sound in cases where there is no HDMI on the receiver or dig out is disabled by the HDMI.
Looks like there will be a lot of experimentation...but the Set Top box should be a new Scientific Atlanta (time warner cable) and the TV is a new Sony GWega RPLCD, so let's hope for the best. Any idea what will happen if using those models?