Hi guys,
I am having some brain constipation trying to connect up my TV to my surround sound amplifier.
I guess I should list what I have first.
Dish Network ViP211k satellite tuner
MicroHD FTA satellite tuner
LG BD570 Blu-ray player
Samsung UN46EH5300 TV
Sony STR-K650P surround sound amplifier. (garage sale find)
The satellite tuners and Blu-ray are connected directly to the TV by HDMI cables.
I have those little fiber optic laser cables.
The amplifier only has one optical input though.
The TV however has both an input and an output.
I plugged one of the optical cables into the Dish network tuner and then into amplifier.
It sounds magnificent! Last night Game of Thrones sounded soon great, I couldn't have asked for better.
But there are problems with this. It only gives me Dish (and OTA via Dish) content through the amplifier.
The other devices have to go through the TV speakers which are woefully inadequate.
I tried connecting the optical output of the TV to the amplifier but then it seems to strip out all of the surround sound and only plays like it's 1972 stereo. All the little 5.1 indicators on the amp go dark and it just shows two speakers and says "stereo"..
As far as I can figure out I can only have either the Dish tuner or the Blu-ray play as 5.1 surround and only by directly connecting them to the amplifier. As best as I can figure out the TV doesn't do anything but stereo, period and it won't simply pass the surround signal through to the amplifier, that it strips any audio that passes through it down to simple 2 channel stereo.
As it is now, when I watch Dish I have to juggle multiple remotes to deal with that. I have to go into the TV and turn off it's speakers otherwise there is an intolerable echo delay. To watch anything else I have to turn off the amplifier then go back in and re-enable the TV speakers.
I can't set up the Dish remote to control the amplifier because it has to control the TV volume for when I'm watching a different source than the Dish tuner.
I just want to have one bloody remote that operates the Dish tuner and controls the volume.
Having to go through the TV menus to turn the speakers on and off is a pain and I'm annoyed by that.
Is there any way to make the TV pass the full surround sound through? I can't understand the reasoning behind it being strictly stereo only and why it would strip the audio going through it down to simple stereo. That's just stupid. Is this some sort of hollywood stupidity, some copy protection nonsense?
Or is it that I have some settings in the TV set wrong? There is this PCM thing which I don't fully understand but I ~think~ that it's supposed to be the better quality option, yes?
Another question I have is concerning settings in the Dish tuner.
I have two identical vip211k tuners. One is in my computer room and one is shared between my living room and my bedroom. I have an HDMI 1x4 splitter. The tuner is in my living room and feeds into the splitter then one cable connects to the TV. Another 50' HDMI cable runs through the floor to my bedroom upstairs. I have one of those little Next Gen remote extenders so I can operate the tuner downstairs. It works quite well. But I've found that if I enable the options that are supposed to make it sound better on the surround sound system down stairs then the volume on the TV upstairs is really low. I sleep with the TV on but I like to turn it up just enough to hear it without it being really loud. I think the volume leveling option was really helpful with that. But then I hooked up the surround sound system on Sunday for Game of Thrones and I changed the settings and the volume upstairs got very poor and hard to hear, I had to turn it up loud to hear people talking but then other things would get really, really loud. Is there some middle ground setting or am I going to have to change the settings every morning and every evening?
Also, one last thing, the TV in my bedroom is a Vizio VW32LHDTV30A and I can not figure out how to connect external speakers to it. I would like to have better sound but it doesn't appear to have any way at all to connect any to it. Again I am lost as to why they would make it like that. It's very annoying. Is there some secret way to get audio out of the TV? I bought one of those stupid TV sound bars from Walmart but I can't connect it to the TV at all so it's useless as a TV sound system. I guess I'll keep it for the radio it has in it.
So far this has been a remote control nightmare. I have a dozen remote controls and have to use at least three of them at the same time to do anything.
There must be an easier way to do this.
Thanks.
I am having some brain constipation trying to connect up my TV to my surround sound amplifier.
I guess I should list what I have first.
Dish Network ViP211k satellite tuner
MicroHD FTA satellite tuner
LG BD570 Blu-ray player
Samsung UN46EH5300 TV
Sony STR-K650P surround sound amplifier. (garage sale find)
The satellite tuners and Blu-ray are connected directly to the TV by HDMI cables.
I have those little fiber optic laser cables.
The amplifier only has one optical input though.
The TV however has both an input and an output.
I plugged one of the optical cables into the Dish network tuner and then into amplifier.
It sounds magnificent! Last night Game of Thrones sounded soon great, I couldn't have asked for better.
But there are problems with this. It only gives me Dish (and OTA via Dish) content through the amplifier.
The other devices have to go through the TV speakers which are woefully inadequate.
I tried connecting the optical output of the TV to the amplifier but then it seems to strip out all of the surround sound and only plays like it's 1972 stereo. All the little 5.1 indicators on the amp go dark and it just shows two speakers and says "stereo"..
As far as I can figure out I can only have either the Dish tuner or the Blu-ray play as 5.1 surround and only by directly connecting them to the amplifier. As best as I can figure out the TV doesn't do anything but stereo, period and it won't simply pass the surround signal through to the amplifier, that it strips any audio that passes through it down to simple 2 channel stereo.
As it is now, when I watch Dish I have to juggle multiple remotes to deal with that. I have to go into the TV and turn off it's speakers otherwise there is an intolerable echo delay. To watch anything else I have to turn off the amplifier then go back in and re-enable the TV speakers.
I can't set up the Dish remote to control the amplifier because it has to control the TV volume for when I'm watching a different source than the Dish tuner.
I just want to have one bloody remote that operates the Dish tuner and controls the volume.
Having to go through the TV menus to turn the speakers on and off is a pain and I'm annoyed by that.
Is there any way to make the TV pass the full surround sound through? I can't understand the reasoning behind it being strictly stereo only and why it would strip the audio going through it down to simple stereo. That's just stupid. Is this some sort of hollywood stupidity, some copy protection nonsense?
Or is it that I have some settings in the TV set wrong? There is this PCM thing which I don't fully understand but I ~think~ that it's supposed to be the better quality option, yes?
Another question I have is concerning settings in the Dish tuner.
I have two identical vip211k tuners. One is in my computer room and one is shared between my living room and my bedroom. I have an HDMI 1x4 splitter. The tuner is in my living room and feeds into the splitter then one cable connects to the TV. Another 50' HDMI cable runs through the floor to my bedroom upstairs. I have one of those little Next Gen remote extenders so I can operate the tuner downstairs. It works quite well. But I've found that if I enable the options that are supposed to make it sound better on the surround sound system down stairs then the volume on the TV upstairs is really low. I sleep with the TV on but I like to turn it up just enough to hear it without it being really loud. I think the volume leveling option was really helpful with that. But then I hooked up the surround sound system on Sunday for Game of Thrones and I changed the settings and the volume upstairs got very poor and hard to hear, I had to turn it up loud to hear people talking but then other things would get really, really loud. Is there some middle ground setting or am I going to have to change the settings every morning and every evening?
Also, one last thing, the TV in my bedroom is a Vizio VW32LHDTV30A and I can not figure out how to connect external speakers to it. I would like to have better sound but it doesn't appear to have any way at all to connect any to it. Again I am lost as to why they would make it like that. It's very annoying. Is there some secret way to get audio out of the TV? I bought one of those stupid TV sound bars from Walmart but I can't connect it to the TV at all so it's useless as a TV sound system. I guess I'll keep it for the radio it has in it.
So far this has been a remote control nightmare. I have a dozen remote controls and have to use at least three of them at the same time to do anything.
There must be an easier way to do this.
Thanks.
