[jojo1967]

Hi all, hope you can help me out. Sorry if this has been mentioned on a thread before but I can't find anything relevant to my question.

My partner has a Sony LCD HD ready tv (don't know the model sorry), Sky+ (not HD), Technomate receiver and dvd/vhs player. I bought him a Philips Home Cinema System HTS3568 and set it up last week. I also ordered a digital optical cable and hdmi cable from a separate company which did not arrive until yesterday. When I set up the system I wasn't really sure what I was doing but did the best I could. When I tried to disconnect the old dvd player which the aerial was connected to I lost the picture so I had to keep that connected, even though I now have another dvd player connected up, don't know if that really matters, it's just another machine to clutter the place up. So I connected the red and white cables to the tv (I'm not there just now, can't remember where these cables are coming from!) and I am getting surround sound when playing dvds which I wanted. With a bit of tweeking I managed to get sound coming through the the speakers from the tv but obviously not surround sound (I know you can't get that unless the programme is transmitted in surround). The thing is now I have these cables. I now know that even though he has a hd ready tv, unless he has an hd box, the hdmi cable is no use, am I right? Anyway, I connected it up, from tv to the new Philips dvd player. I then connected the optical cable from the tv to the sky+ (I'm hesitating here as now I'm not sure if I connected it to the Philips box!) and there is no difference in sound at all. Should there be a noticeable difference when this is connected? Or should I have disconnected something else when I connected the optical cable?

Sorry I feel like I am making no sense here and as I am not at his at the moment I can't check the connections so if there is anyone out there that has an inkling of what I am talking about, please answer me!

[Willie Wontie]

The old VCR/DVD player needs to be kept in the loop - if you still use the VCR part of it (for watching videos, or recording to tape). Also, if the old VCR/DVD player is actually a DVD recorder then you need to keep it for recording DVDs.

You would have done better buying a proper AV amp/receiver for producing the surround sound, and just connected the existing DVD player to it, rather than buying a home cinema which (1) has a second DVD player that you have no need for and (2) will have very limited connectivity for connecting anything else to it that you want to be able to hear in surround sound.

Anyway, it's done now. If you can't return it to where you bought it from and get a real surround sound system, you will need to try and make do with what you've got.

The optical cable shouldn't be used to connect the Sky+ box to the TV - no point, as the TV doesn't have a Dolby Digital processor in it, so can't reproduce DD5.1 surround sound. The optical cable needs running from the Sky+ box to the home cinema - if the home cinema supports optical in. Then select the optical in as input on the home cinema, and you should hear DD5.1 surround sound when you are watching Sky Movies (if you set the optical output on the Sky box to Dolby D).

You can use the HDMI cable to connect the home cinema system to the TV - that way you will get a better quality picture on the TV than you will using scart, and the home cinema will upscale any DVDs that you watch.

[jojo1967]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willie Wontie

The old VCR/DVD player needs to be kept in the loop - if you still use the VCR part of it (for watching videos, or recording to tape). Also, if the old VCR/DVD player is actually a DVD recorder then you need to keep it for recording DVDs.

You would have done better buying a proper AV amp/receiver for producing the surround sound, and just connected the existing DVD player to it, rather than buying a home cinema which (1) has a second DVD player that you have no need for and (2) will have very limited connectivity for connecting anything else to it that you want to be able to hear in surround sound.

Anyway, it's done now. If you can't return it to where you bought it from and get a real surround sound system, you will need to try and make do with what you've got.

The optical cable shouldn't be used to connect the Sky+ box to the TV - no point, as the TV doesn't have a Dolby Digital processor in it, so can't reproduce DD5.1 surround sound. The optical cable needs running from the Sky+ box to the home cinema - if the home cinema supports optical in. Then select the optical in as input on the home cinema, and you should hear DD5.1 surround sound when you are watching Sky Movies (if you set the optical output on the Sky box to Dolby D).

You can use the HDMI cable to connect the home cinema system to the TV - that way you will get a better quality picture on the TV than you will using scart, and the home cinema will upscale any DVDs that you watch.

Thank you for replying so quickly! I had originally wanted to get just an amp and speakers since we already had the dvd player but I got a good deal on this system so just went for it. He's got a really complicated set up with having the sky+ and the Technomate plus the dvd/vhs players and we had a guy who came and fiddled about with the cables last year which resulted in us not being able to record anything from the Technomate anymore. Don't know what he did and there is possibly an easy solution but there are so many cables back there I don't want to touch anything anymore. If anyone has an easy solution to how to tape from the technomate receiver on the old philips vhs recorder, I would be grateful if you could let me know!

I will have a look tonight as to what I connected the optical cable to and will change it if I have connected the wrong thing. The home cinema does have optical for certain though. You say I have to select optical in as input on home cinema and should have set optical output on sky box to dolby d. I don't know if this is the setting but how do I change it if it isn't? Sorry I'm quite "technically challenged" but if you explain it I can check it out tonight! Thanks so much for your help.

Oh, forgot to say, since I have added the hdmi cable from tv to dvd player, do I have to remove any other cables for this to work, ie scarts or should I leave everything plugged in as it was before?

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Last edited by jojo1967 : 20-11-2009 at 16:47. Reason: to add something

[Willie Wontie]

Setting Dolby Digital output on Sky box:-

Press Services, Sound Setup.

Scroll down to section marked Optical. Change it to Dolby D if it currently says Stereo (the default) using the right or left arrow key on the Sky remote. This makes the optical output from the Sky box include Dolby Digital surround sound - if the channel you are watching is broadcasting in DD surround sound. Which the Sky Movie channels do, most of the time. I think you might have to then either select "Save Changes" as an option on the menu, or press the yellow button to save the changes. Can't remember which - it's a long time since I've done this on a Sky+ box.

Once you have successfully connected the Sky box to the home cinema and selected DD as output, tune to one of the Sky Movie channels, press the (i) key on the Sky remote to make sure that it is being broadcast in DD, turn the volume down on the telly and the volume up on the home cinema, select the correct input on the home cinema (optical in), and you should hear full DD5.1 surround sound from the five speakers plus the sub-woofer of the home cinema system.

[jojo1967]

Wow thank you Willie, you're a star! Try that out tonight. As to the cables, with me having the hdmi cable connected, will this override the scart connections or do I have to remove a scart for it to work?

[Willie Wontie]

Up to you. You don't have to remove it - but your TV will probably autoswitch to the scart input while it is there, which you won't want it to do. Either way you may well have to manually select HDMI1 as the input when you want to watch DVDs from your home cinema system.