5.1 through TOSLINK from TV?

[angry hampster]

I am planning some upgrades to my home theater system. I have an older, low-end 5.1 receiver (Panasonic brand) and will probably replace it. If I do, I don't want to spend more than $200..this is obviously limiting.

To keep wiring simple since low-end AVRs don't support HDMI pass-thru, I am planning on running an HDMI cable from my Xbox 360 to the TV, and then running an optical audio cable from the TV to the AVR.

This way I don't have to have my speakers on when I want to play games/watch movies at a low volume. Will I lose any sound fidelity as it passes through the TV? TV in question is a Samsung PN51E450 plasma.

 

[nsafreak]

You won't lose any fidelity but most TVs will not pass back all 5 channels of audio that they receive from HDMI back through optical. They will send back the full 5.1 if they have a built in ATSC tuner from it but that's it. If you want to get the full 5.1 channels from your 360 you'll have to run an optical cable form it to the AVR. Depending upon which 360 you have you may have to modify an existing HD cable so that you can have both it and the HDMI cable plugged in a the same time.

 

[angry hampster]

Well that's annoying. I guess I could just run a switcher.

The TV's manual says it's uncompressed through SPDIF though..check out the bottom of page 3:
http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/c...[PE440-450-ZA]BN68-04214C-02-ENG_web_0404.pdf

 

[Soundmanred]

Well that's annoying. I guess I could just run a switcher.

The TV's manual says it's uncompressed through SPDIF though..check out the bottom of page 3:
http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/c...[PE440-450-ZA]BN68-04214C-02-ENG_web_0404.pdf

That pertains to the internal tuner only. Any other sources connected to the TV will only be output as 2.0 over S/PDIF.

 

[nsafreak]

I'm still not entirely certain it'll pass back the full uncompressed signal from HDMI to optical simply because optical doesn't have enough bandwidth for anything beyond Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS EX. For a 360 that really isn't an issue though since the 360 only outputs in Dolby Digital at most anyways. I suppose you could give it a shot and see what happens. The worse case scenario is that you find out only 2 channels are being passed back and you'll have to hack apart a 360 cable so that you can use it for an optical source. $200 won't get you an outstanding receiver btw but it'll get a decent receiver with HDMI.

 

[postmortemIA]

Some TVs can output 5.1 sound from HDMI input, but not all.
Since AVR supports multiple optical inputs, you can connect it to multiple devices. I know setup is easier with one optical cable, but sometimes it is not possible.

 

[vshah]

http://www.dakmart.com/product_info.php?products_id=11324

refurb denon 1610, supports hdmi passthrough. $219

just a couple bucks more than you'd spend on extra cables or a switcher

also, why not just turn the volume down on the AVR? that denon above has audyssey dynamic volume, which, if set to midnight mode, keeps loud sounds like explosions at the same volume as the rest of the audio.