OTA 5.1 Question

[Slick]

How can I be actually getting 5.1 Dolby digital to my home theater when there is no 5.1 hook ups on the back of the voom box? I have only one set of 5.1 hooks ups on my reciver and that is hooked up to my dvd player.. By what I understand is that the optical cable can handle DTS but not Dolby digital 5.1 because there is not the six cable hook up coming out the back of the Voom box?

If any one might have some insight on this let me know hould you please.. Thanks Slick

 

[easysport]

If you take the stero outputs and connect them to a 5.1 capable home theater stereo inpu t it should decode it that is how I do it I feed my audio out from TV to my Magnovox 5.1 DVD system and it works just fine when I want 5.1 I just turn it on when I dont need it I listen to the TV.

 

[Ominous1]

" By what I understand is that the optical cable can handle DTS but not Dolby digital 5.1 because there is not the six cable hook up coming out the back of the Voom box?"

sounds wrong to me.

 

[Westbender]

Your home theatre receiver should have both optical and coaxial digital inputs in addition to the 5.1 discreet analog inputs. That is unless it's something really old or really strange. The fact that it has 5.1 discreet analog inputs is a good sign. That particular input is used to feed your receiver analog audio signals that have already been decoded from a digital source. If you hooked up your DVD player via the six cable 5.1 inputs, then your DVD player is doing the decoding of the digital signal. The 5.1 inputs are really six distinct analog input channels. If I were you I would use the decoder in your theatre receiver. It's probably a lot better than the DVD player's decoder.

You can easily see what decoders your home theatre receiver has by either looking in the manual or taking a look at the face plate to see if it has the DTS and/or Dolby Digital logos. If you see the Dolby Digital logo, then just connect your VOOM box to your receiver using either an optical or coaxial digital cable. By connecting this way, you're sending the digital signal to your home theatre receiver which will decode it and distribute it to the six different channels internally. You'll see some indicator as to which decoder is active on the display. Read your manual.

You'll have to make sure your VOOM receiver is set to output Dolby Digital also.


easysport,

If you're referring to left and right analog audio, you're NOT going to get 5.1 out of it. You may get Dolby Surround or Dolby Surround II (if the encoding is there), but not 5.1. 5.1 can only come from a digital source (unless it was already decoded into the six analog channels as stated above). You may want to move to a digital connection (optical/coaxial) from your VOOM box to your audio system if you want the best sound quality. If you're happy with just Dolby Surround, then no need to do anything. It would be a shame not to use your 5.1 capability though.

 

[CraziFuzzy]

Just general info for slick (or anyone else with similar questions)

Stereo Analog (2 Cinch connectors) can provide Left / Right
5.1 Analog (6 cinch connectors) can provide Left / Center / Right / LeftSurround / RightSurround / Subwoofer
Coaxial Digital (1 Cinch connector, usually orange) can provide either Left / Right, Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS.
Optical Digital (1 optical TOSLINK connector) is identical in capabilities to coaxial digital.

If you have the option of using either of the digital connections, I would highly recommend it, as this will provide the best quality, and make much less wire-mess. I personally prefer coaxial digital, as in most situations, any standard cinch patch cable will work perfectly. The voom box provides all of the options with the exceptoin of the 5.1 analog. Connect the orange cinch plug to one of the coaxial digital in's on your reciever, and you will love the improvement. If you only have the stereo analog cables connected currently, then any sound from the rear or center channels are being created by the reciever.

 

[johnfaas]

Just general info for slick (or anyone else with similar questions)

Stereo Analog (2 Cinch connectors) can provide Left / Right
5.1 Analog (6 cinch connectors) can provide Left / Center / Right / LeftSurround / RightSurround / Subwoofer
Coaxial Digital (1 Cinch connector, usually orange) can provide either Left / Right, Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS.
Optical Digital (1 optical TOSLINK connector) is identical in capabilities to coaxial digital.

If you have the option of using either of the digital connections, I would highly recommend it, as this will provide the best quality, and make much less wire-mess. I personally prefer coaxial digital, as in most situations, any standard cinch patch cable will work perfectly. The voom box provides all of the options with the exceptoin of the 5.1 analog. Connect the orange cinch plug to one of the coaxial digital in's on your reciever, and you will love the improvement. If you only have the stereo analog cables connected currently, then any sound from the rear or center channels are being created by the reciever.

crazi ,
you like to use the coaxial digital cable over the optical digital(toslink) if so what is the difference ?

 

[Ominous1]

There is no difference 99.999999999999999% of the time. Digital is digital.

 

[wasch_24]

Durability

Some folks feel that since the digital signal is 1's and 0's it doesn't make a difference which one you use. Others prefer the durability of the digital coax over the optical. Personally it makes sense to me that the fiber optic connection could be superior because of the low resistance of fiber as compared to copper wire.

 

[Westbender]

CrazyFuzzy,

Thanks for simplifying what I was trying to say. Nice post.

 

[Slick]

Hello there everyone you sure had a lot of good imput on this so I printed out all your posts and took them to work with me and read thru them.. I also took my manual for my receiver and went thru that as well, I figured I should have gave you all a little bit more info about my setup..

I have a dts receiver and dts dvd player, I hooked up 5.1 cables from the dvd player to the receiver as the manual says and I also ran the optical from the dvd to the receiver.. I have four optical imputs on the receiver so I went from the optical out from the voom box to the receiver as well and that is the only Digital sound connections coming from the Voom to my receiver..

I almost forgot I am useing the dvi out on the Voom box to the dvi imput on the tv and with two rca cables for the analog sound thru the tv.. I just happen to notice that the OTA 5.1 did not sound as good as the 5.1 from the dvd player..

I am going to play with some of Vooms HD channels and see if they sound as good as the dvd.. Well you guys seem to know a lot more about this then me so if it sound like I dont have something hook up right let me now alright.. Thanks Slick

 

[cmslick3]

Haven't you ever heard of digital encoding?? It's the 21's century and we can now send 5, 6, or 7.1 channels of audio through 1 cable using a digital encoding scheme. What you have going with your DVD player is overkill.. You can either hook up the 6 individual cables OR the optical digital OR the coaxial digital and get the same sound, depending on the encoding scheme that is going used. So if your DVD is outputing DTS you need to select DTS on your receiver for that input. You don't need to have the individual cables at all, just the optical... In fact I would be willing to bet that if you pulled the optical cable out while you are playing a movie you will notice a difference in the sound.

Now the DD from a DVD is probably going to be superior to the DD from Voom as the production time on a DVD is much more intensive. In my case I do not run any audio to my TV at all. I use my surround sound for everything no matter what it is. Now you won't get the effects to the extent of DD but I like the sound better, and some of the shows that are in dolby surround (not DD) actually sound great for regular TV.

Here's how I have my system setup:

Sources out
Voom: DVI video, Coaxial audio.
DVD: Component video, Optical audio, Stereo audio.
Gamecube: Svideo, Stereo audio.

TV in
Voom (DVI)
DVD(component)
Svideo (gamecube)

AV Receiver in
Optical and stereo from DVD.
Coaxial from Voom.
Stereo from Gamecube.
out to 5.1 channel speakers.

and there ya have it.

I hope this was useful and not just a ramble...

 

[Westbender]

Slick,

If you're using optical from the VOOM box to your home theatre receiver, than it also supports Dolby Digital, not just DTS. I believe the VOOM box will put out only Dolby Digital and NOT DTS. Maybe you don't realize they are two different digital coding formats.

As I pointed out in my first post, your DVD connectivity indicates that your DVD has a digital decoder built in. Otherwise it would not have the 6 (5.1) analog outputs. There's nothing wrong with using it that way, but most receivers won't allow you to make any adjustments like EQ, DSP soundfields, etc. The analog 5.1 inputs are typically connected directly to the output amplifiers. I'm willing to bet you'd be a lot happier with coaxial or optical connectivity for all your audio/video sources as cmslick3 pointed out. You'd have much more control over your sound quality.


cmslick3,

I don't use the speakers in my TV either. Too bad they don't have the option to omit that part of the television and sell it as a video monitor only. It's a shame to pay for features I'll never use.

 

[Slick]

Hello guys here we go I am running a Sony dvp-cx985v 400 disk dvd player and a Sony STR-DE845 receiver, which are both DD & DTS compatible and the dvd player is the same way.. I use to run just the optical from the dvd player to the receiver but when I played a dvd it had better be a dvd encoded with DTS because if it wasent I would only be getting pro logic, because in the front of the receiver face it says what it is reading and a blue light comes on when your playing DD or DTS and when I hooked up the the 6 cables for the 5.1 from the dvd player to the receiver then and only then was I getting 5.1 DD..

That is why I had originally posted thinking that optical could only handle DTS and not DD.. The whole reason I came to you with this question was I was watching a HD show on Voom or OTA and I noticed my sub did not come on autmatic like it supposed to when it gets a signal and that is why I asked you all about only running the optical from the Voom box to the receiver and I did not think it sounded like it should, I guess like a dvd like I am use to..

I know you guys are beating your heads gainst a wall trying to explain it to me but I think it maybe because my receiver is 5 years old.. I do know this that when I run just the otical from the Voom box to the receiver the blue light comes on showing that it is reading DD 5.1, and it also says it on the front of the receiver, I just could not figure why the sub did not come on.. Well guys thanks all for your help I do apperciate it.. Cya Slick

 

[Westbender]

Slick,

I use the same Sony receiver (strde845) with my setup. I love mine by the way. It might be getting a little old technology-wise, but it's still a good piece of equipment. I'm willing to bet your DVD player settings have only the DTS active with the DD inactive. If you go to your DVD setup menu, you'll see that you can turn them on and off individually. Once you have them both on, you'll be able to connect the DVD player with optical/coaxial and it'll play either DD or DTS. Most DVD's support DD only now days, but some still have the option of selecting an optional DTS soundtrack. Give that a try and see if your DVD problems are solved.