Samsung is a nice unit for display. Sounds like an audio menu setting issue.on the monitor. Somewhere there should be a choice as to how the audio gets sent out from the display unit...
I looked thru the settings on the Samsung and dont see anything to specify Digital Audio. Should the digital audio go from the cable box to the Bose instead of Bose to the Samsung?
If you see a red light on your optical cable (don't look directly at it it will be very obvious) when it is connected to the TV (the TV turned on with some programming displayed) then there is likely to be a setting on your Bose unit to tell it to look for a digital input signal. If there is no red light from the TV, and that seems to me to be very unlikely but then there must be a setting to tell it to output digital audio unless the cable is damaged.
OK, so you're trying to get the sound from the TV to the Bose as I thought.
As Jim pointed out; you should verify the TV optical output then look for settings on the Bose. Somewhere within your settings something is not being told what to look for where. Can you tell us what model Samsung?