Surround sound question

[Josh123]

Currently I have a Samsung HT-C5500 home theater in a box system. It has 1 optical in and 1 HDMI out.

My question is: Should I get surround sound on all of my components (Xbox 360, Wii, DVR) if I have the optical cable going from my TV directly to the HT-C5500?

All of my components plug directly into my TV by the way.

 

[Number1]

Yes, it should work fine if you use HDMI to connect all your components to your TV.

 

[kornphlake]

nope, the television only passes 2 ch PCM over the Toslink out when the source is HDMI, you should get multi channel surround from the television's internal tuner, but not HDMI sources. If you run the toslink cable from your source (xbox, wii, dvr) to the receiver directly you should get surround sound, but you'll have to manually swap the cable every time you change sources.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I think kornphlake is correct in that the TV will only pass 2 channel audio when running HDMI sources. You'll need to get a receiver to switch between components if you don't want to deal with the hassle of manually connecting your speakers to each source as you change between them.

 

[Josh123]

I agree, this is what I had to do on my old TV.

Is there an easy solution or will I end up needing to get a receiver with multiple inputs/outputs?

 

[NutBucket]

Monoprice

Optical selector switch.

 

[Durvelle27]

nope, the television only passes 2 ch PCM over the Toslink out when the source is HDMI, you should get multi channel surround from the television's internal tuner, but not HDMI sources. If you run the toslink cable from your source (xbox, wii, dvr) to the receiver directly you should get surround sound, but you'll have to manually swap the cable every time you change sources.

I have a Vizio E3D320VX and I have a xbox 360 plugged into it and a optical cable running from my tv to my receiver and it passes audio through just fine as Dolby digital 5.1

 

[kornphlake]

I have a Vizio E3D320VX and I have a xbox 360 plugged into it and a optical cable running from my tv to my receiver and it passes audio through just fine as Dolby digital 5.1

That's one of the rare sets that has an analog audio out (RCA) You're lucky the optical out works the way it does, I'd almost call it a glitch rather than a feature, I believe HDCP standards require the optical out to be downmixed to 2 channels. Most televisions (lacking analog audio outputs) won't pass multi channel surround over the optical audio output.

 

[skandl]

+1


or hdmi selector switch not sure of how your set is but this may be a solution as well

Monoprice

Optical selector switch.

 

[Number1]

That's one of the rare sets that has an analog audio out (RCA) You're lucky the optical out works the way it does, I'd almost call it a glitch rather than a feature, I believe HDCP standards require the optical out to be downmixed to 2 channels. Most televisions (lacking analog audio outputs) won't pass multi channel surround over the optical audio output.

You're right. I just tested this on my new TV.
5.1 goes in the TV via HDMI, 2 channel stereo come out via Optical.

Apologies to OP for the misleading info I posted.