digital 2 analog audio

[downriver]

New digital tv has only one audio output, digital optical. I want to run my audio through an analog amplifier / et al. I find lots of gadgets that convert digital to analog audio -- but only in stereo. Both digital tv and analog amp have surround-sound capability, and my desire is to utilize the surround-sound, not only stereo.

What do I need (cabling and devise[s])?

My concern is that I may have to spend more on this conversion hardware than I might pay for a digital surround-sound audio system that would simply plug into the TV, no conversions needed.

Thank you for help!

[downriver]

Am I in the wrong forum? I see this is more about video recording / capture etc than TVs.

[edDV]

That Optimus 31-3035seems to lack 5.1 inputs. No mention of AC3 in the specs.

I think it just processes 5.1 from analog stereo inputs.

[johns0]

Just buy a 5.1 receiver and feed the audio directly to it from your sources,no need to go through a tv audio amp.

[Case]

You would need an audio converter box for digital optical (toslink) to stereo analog, as your Optimus 31-3035 audio receiver has Left-Right inputs only. Ideally this converter box would encode the audio signal as Dolby Pro Logic Surround, to get multichannel information 'matrixed' in two channels, which your audio receiver could decode/output to 5 speakers (L-C-R-RL-RR).
A quick search didn't find any converter boxes that listed Pro Logic output, though.
Maybe the tv can send a Pro Logic signal over its own analog stereo out?

[downriver]

Hmm. I think the most practical thing is to avoid conversion and to tie everything through the amplifier which seems to do a "flow through" with the video-out to the TV monitor -- the amp does have four speaker channels out, and it's correct that I really don't need to use the TV audio-out at all.

(With the old setup, I used a stereo out and the internal TV speakers together; it wasn't sorround-sound, of course, but the two "filled in" for a more complex audio that way: like 4-speaker stereo, if that makes sense...

Thanks all.

[downriver]

Hmm, I see that I mis-stated that the amp is analog. It's dolby digital with 4 speaker-out channels, and has video inputs as implied above.

[edDV]

Hmm, I see that I mis-stated that the amp is analog. It's dolby digital with 4 speaker-out channels, and has video inputs as implied above.

Where in the spec does it say Dolby Digital?

If so it would have optical and/or digital coax inputs.

[downriver]

Dolby Digital is incsribed on the device itself. This amp was purchased in 1997. I see no optical outputs, but one or more of these phono-jack looking sockets may be good for coax...?

I have successfully routed the Cable-box audio through this amplifier, with all four speaker outputs (7 spkrs; one only for center; not subwoofer speaker in my collection, so I don't know about that) all working (tho it doesn't seem to be "surround"). But this connection is via hdmi from box to monitor -- and now ALL audio is from whatever the Cable box is tuned to, regardless of which device is showing / playing on the monitor... still a work in progress, to way the least... I am going now to try some different configurations on the video cabling, but I don't want to abandon the Hi Def gained by the hdmi connection...

I seem to know just enough about this stuff to get myself into trouble... Thanks all for helping!

[edDV]

Digital audio inputs are usually labeled "Digital". Digital coax inputs are usually orange or black.

Your box only shows white/red analog stereo RCA in. The manaul should show any hidden digital inputs.

[downriver]

I think I need to re-formulate my problem because whether I have a full digital audio setup or not is less important to me than to be able to get "good" stereo audio working in sync with the Comcast digital inputs; &&& with other AV sources (camcorder; vhs/dvd combo; laptop computer, etc.)

I am going to try to just run all audio cords into the amp, and all video cords into the monitor... may need a simple switching box or something, but my goal is to get the best audio I can without buying a whole new audio system. (This amp is a goodie; it does, I guess, OUTPUT in an older version of Dolby... as said, the amp is at least 13 years old)

Wish me luck

[edDV]

I think I need to re-formulate my problem because whether I have a full digital audio setup or not is less important to me than to be able to get "good" stereo audio working in sync with the Comcast digital inputs; &&& with other AV sources (camcorder; vhs/dvd combo; laptop computer, etc.)

I am going to try to just run all audio cords into the amp, and all video cords into the monitor... may need a simple switching box or something, but my goal is to get the best audio I can without buying a whole new audio system. (This amp is a goodie; it does, I guess, OUTPUT in an older version of Dolby... as said, the amp is at least 13 years old)

Wish me luck

The digital audio from the cable tuner, TV, DVD player etc. all get mixed to 2 channel classic analog Dolby Prologic over RCA white/red connectors, then the receiver extracts and synthizes front-center-right plus surround from the Dobly encode.

This is all 1990's tech but will sound good since the source audio quality is high.

Next receiver step up is an AC3/DTS 5.1 feed over S/PDIF optical/coax.

The latest receivers extract Dolby HD (as uncompressed PCM streams) from HDMI. These are protected by HDCP content protection. You only get Dolby HD from Blu-Ray discs.

[n3vino]

I have a prologic receiver and it was not handling blue ray digital signals well since it does not have a digital decoder. The surround speakers were weak. So what I did, I set my blue ray player to send a PCM audio signal via analog cables. That fixed the problem. The prologic receiver does the rest. Now I have a much better sound coming off the surround speakers. It should be able to handle the 7.1 signal much better. Your prologic receiver should know what to do. Mine does.

If Your receiver does not have a DTS decoder, you should not send a DTS audio signal to it. I realized that when I had the audio set to AUTO. It would send the blue ray dts signal to the receiver, and it would send a PCM signal on regular DVD's. I was getting a better sound on DVD's then on Blue Rays.