Digital input on Sony AV system

[RogerS]

I have a Sony DAV-S880 AV system (5.1) and the manual says that I can connect a digital satellite receiver to the digital input jack. However the manual doesn't say exactly 'what' the digital signal is.

I would like to connect the digital output of a BluRay DVD player into my Sony if possible...so I can listen to a BluRay disc in 5.1...but as I don't have a digital satellite receiver and so don't know what digital signal they will output., I'm kind of scratching my head.

I know that it isn't HDMI as the socket is an optical jack.

Any help very much appreciated.

 

[defsdoor]

Dedicated digital audio outputs are either optical fibre or coaxial. The signal they send can vary and is often configurable so you will need to select the same (Dolby, DTS, Raw etc..) on each device. If your amp also has HDMI inputs and outputs you might be able to use that still - but you can still select the audio stream type for HDMI too.

 

[knappers]

If the Sony AV has an optical digital connection, it will be a "Toslink" connector. Digital audio connections are either optical (connected by optic fibre toslink cable) or coaxial (connected by digital coax cable). All you need to connect the two devices together is the right cable, available quite cheaply from places like Maplin. However, the Bluray player will also need a digital output (in addition to any HDMI it may have). It's best if it's the same type as the Sony has (optical), but you can buy convertors to convert optical - digital or vice versa.
If your TV has HDMI, you could run HDMI to the TV (for picture), and toslink to the amp (for sound).
As for Dolby, DTS, RAW, etc. it depends what decoders are built into your amp. It looks as though your amp will natively decode Dolby Digital and DTS.

Si.

 

[RogerS]

Thanks, chaps. Makes sense..sort of. OK...I can get a Toslink cable and there is digital audio out on the BluRay player. However, the manual for the Sony suggests that both video and audio go down the digital cable and that if a digital signal isn't detected then it automatically switches over to the analogue inputs. No information whether the Sony bases it's detection on audio or video or digits of any description.

EDIT: Just found this on the web and so think I might be OK.

That isn't quite what it says. It says that any PCM audio soundtracks will only play back in stereo (through the front two speakers).

That means that if your Blu-ray movie has a 5.1 PCM soundtrack - then it will be downmixed to stereo. This is because 5.1 PCM audio requires a higher bandwidth than optical connections can handle.

If you play a Dolby Digital soundtrack, then this should play ok over optical in 5.1.

It can be confusing. You can go here for a guide to the different Blu-ray audio codecs.

Is there any reason why you aren't connecting via HDMI to your receiver? This would be the best way to send the audio/video to your system as it will handle all the different formats.

All the best.

Paul
Solved
by: Russ

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your reply I was at work when I sent the first message and I didn't explain myself very well.

I have a Samsung UE46C8000 3DTV, Samsung BD-C6900 3D blu ray player connected to Sony DAV S880 AMP/DVD Player (my mistake on the model) makes a big difference.

All is solved anyway, I found an audio option on the blu ray player menu to change the bit rate of the audio stream depending on what amp you are connecting to, and then i got DTS and Dolby Digital options being played through via the blu ray player.

 

[knappers]

Nope, the toslink carries audio only. The only video input on the DAV-S880 is composite video, which will look rubbish at best, and certainly wouldn't do a bluray justice...

Use the Sony amp for audio only, and run the video independently to the TV via one of the following (in order of preference) HDMI, Component, S-Video, Scart.

Si.

(edit, sorry - started to write this before your last post).