Urgent help about Optical Input

[Ray0]

Trying to connect my pc to my LG DH6530T Home theater

Full spec:

LG Home Theater System DH6530T Series | LG UAE

Get more information on the LG DH6530T. Click for pictures, reviews, and tech specs for the LG Home Theater System DH6530T Series

www.lg.com

--------------------------
But one of my friends faced a lot of problems doing that,
so I need to make sure before I purchase a sound card,
because my motherboard don't offer any spdif out,
therefore, I would need to buy a sound card.

Quoting"
It's a bit questionable if your receiver actually supports surround sound through the optical input since I've had a similar issue with a friend's system where his Home theater could play back DVD's and Blu-ray in surround sound 5.1, but lacked multichannel input, as is the case with you having only stereo input."

I need a conformation that my LG DH6530T can support 5.1 input through optic cable, if it was connected from pc sound card spdif out to the optic input in the back of my DVD via an optic cable
would I get 5.1? Or is it going to be limited to 2.0 stereo?

Talked to LG they can't confirm.
-------------------------
Regarding sound card, I was told I should be getting a sound card that can encode DTS - Dolby digital live DDL,
something like this

Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus SABRE32-class Hi-res 32-bit/384 kHz PCIe Gaming Sound Card and DAC with Dolby Digital and DTS, Xamp Discrete Headphone Bi-amp, Up to 122dB SNR, RGB Li (70SB174000003) - Newegg.com

Buy Creative Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus SABRE32-class Hi-res 32-bit/384 kHz PCIe Gaming Sound Card and DAC with Dolby Digital and DTS, Xamp Discrete Headphone Bi-amp, Up to 122dB SNR, RGB Li (70SB174000003) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

Or any card that can encode DTS - DDL otherwise I will get 2.0,
therefore I can't use cheap external USB with spdif output I think.
But which one my LG DH6530T Home theater supports?
Is it Dolby Digital live? Or is it DTS? I'm not sure about that.
--------------------------
My main concern now, if I purchased a sound card that support DTS, DDL encoding " I'm not sure with one I need out of the 2 if you can help on this too",
and connected the spdif out of the sound card to the optic in port on the back of my DVD via optical cable, would I get 5.1?
Or is it going to be 2.0.
--------------------------
Buying a sound card + cables is ok if the results are going to be 5.1, I just needs to make sure.
-------------------------
Searching the manual, I found this: see picture"
When they mention 5.1 they say 5.1(2.1,2.0) so no true 5.1 then?

 

[fmw]

If I understand you correctly, you want to play music recorded on your hard drive through your LG unit. If so, then optical SPDIF will be fine and provide 2 channel music. If you are trying to play movies recorded to your hard drive then you will need HDMI which carries both the video and audio signal or a VGA connection to send the video. I don't know what kinds of connectors you have in the back of your unit.

My understanding is that you can send multichannel audio through SPDIF as long as you have the right encoder and decoder at each end. But why? Your LG unit can handle movies without a computer connected. You can't get video out of your computer for viewing movies without HDMI or VGA at both ends. SPDIF is only going to connect audio. I may have just misunderstood your purpose.

 

[BMXTRIX]

If LG can't answer you, then we are likely to be of little additional help.

But, most often, on these cheap home theater in a box systems, the optical input does support surround sound in the 5.1 format. It indicates that it supports Dolby Digital decoding on the unit, but, who knows how far that actually goes since they don't state?

This isn't even getting better. Manufacturers suck at this.

If you are bound and determined to use your PC as a source into that unit, then you can get a full on external sound card or similar if you want. You may be able to get by with the HDMI audio extractor as well, but not if you are feeding 4K to something. Depends on your entire setup and how you are feeding video to your TV. If using an actual TV, then most TVs also feature a optical audio output which could feed the system. I'm also unclear if that unit supports HDMI ARC, though it doesn't look like it does.

The most typical connection for these units is from the TV's optical audio output into the unit for playback of audio.

 

[Ray0]

If I understand you correctly, you want to play music recorded on your hard drive through your LG unit. If so, then optical SPDIF will be fine and provide 2 channel music. If you are trying to play movies recorded to your hard drive then you will need HDMI which carries both the video and audio signal or a VGA connection to send the video. I don't know what kinds of connectors you have in the back of your unit.

My understanding is that you can send multichannel audio through SPDIF as long as you have the right encoder and decoder at each end. But why? Your LG unit can handle movies without a computer connected. You can't get video out of your computer for viewing movies without HDMI or VGA at both ends. SPDIF is only going to connect audio. I may have just misunderstood your purpose.

Thank you so much for the help, I will post a new reply explaining everything in details I would really appreciate it if you can take a look, thank you so much

 

[Ray0]

If LG can't answer you, then we are likely to be of little additional help.

But, most often, on these cheap home theater in a box systems, the optical input does support surround sound in the 5.1 format. It indicates that it supports Dolby Digital decoding on the unit, but, who knows how far that actually goes since they don't state?

This isn't even getting better. Manufacturers suck at this.

If you are bound and determined to use your PC as a source into that unit, then you can get a full on external sound card or similar if you want. You may be able to get by with the HDMI audio extractor as well, but not if you are feeding 4K to something. Depends on your entire setup and how you are feeding video to your TV. If using an actual TV, then most TVs also feature a optical audio output which could feed the system. I'm also unclear if that unit supports HDMI ARC, though it doesn't look like it does.

The most typical connection for these units is from the TV's optical audio output into the unit for playback of audio.

Thank you so much for the help, I'm not using it with a TV, I'm using it with a projector, pc stream video to projector and audio to my home theater,
I will post a new reply explaining things in details, please take a look at it, I would really approciate your time and help, thank you.

 

[Ray0]

Thank you so much for the help,
I'm still a beginner and would appreciate all the help I can get,

I have a pc that transmit video using HDMI from my graphic card to my projector via HDMI cable as my display,
and transmits audio from my motherboard to my home theater using 3.5 mm to the RCA on the back of my DVD, I'm using adapter for this,

the audio I'm getting is good, but still it's just 2.0, and my system supports 5.1, therefore I need to use spdif, but the thing is my motherboard don't have spdif port.

My usage = 90% watching mp4 movies DDP 5.1 downloaded from the internet, and some gaming, both at 1080p, no 4k.
I've gone 3 options now

1-
fully priced sound card that can encode all the audio on my pc "is it true that it can?" to Dolby Digital live, then connect the spdif out on the sound card to the optical in on the back of my DVD player

2-
cheap external sound card that won't encode anything,
it's just going to offer me spdif output from my pc and claims to support 5.1 Dolby Digital.

3-
HDMI audio extractor, that support Dolby Digital 5.1,
I will connect the HDMI out from my GPU to the extractor then connect the extractor HDMI out to my projector, and the extractor spdif out to the optical input of my DVD player.

But It's going to get more complicated now,
some video files I play are DDL PLUS
here is an in depth look at one:
======================
Audio
ID : 2
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus
Codec ID : A_EAC3
Duration : 1 h 23 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 640 KB/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : L R C LIFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 382 MiB (11%)
Title : English
Language : English
Service kind : Complete Main
Default : No
Forced : No
=================
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
these 2 got me worried,
after seeing my system limited support to only Dolby Digital,
am I better off buying a sound card that can encode everything to Dolby Digital live on my PC, then even if the source I was trying to play on my PC was Atmos, DD Plus, DTS, or whatever else, the sound card will encode it to DDL, I'm not sure if it can do that,

Reading online, some say DDL+ would fall back to DDL if the receiver don't support it, but I'm not sure about that, therefore
It's important, Especially if I'm going to have issues playing the audio track of the example I posted DDL+ in my 5.1 thought the optical input
would the sound card solve such problem? Or am I missing something? what do you think?

Thanks a lot.
Much love and respect.

 

[BMXTRIX]

You don't need ANY device that 'encodes' audio. The encoded audio is already a part of your download. So, if your download has a supported audio format for your surround system (most do), then any playback device will deliver it to your sound system. An encoder will often take from one format, to another, which isn't what you need.

It really shouldn't be all that important what you are using here. The home theater in a box (HTiB) is where you should be looking to spend your money to replace it with a proper AV receiver and separate speakers at some point. At this point I would minimize spending and I would get a HDMI audio extractor with toslink optical output to connect to your HTiB kit.

https://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digital-Extractor-Converter-JTDAT5CH/dp/B00BIQER0E/ref=sr_1_2_sspa

$25 and you can feed your system just fine.

Be aware that what you use as a player for the videos may play as a factor as well. Different players support different formats and aren't always 'nice' about how they deliver either video or audio, so do some homework on that to ensure that not only are you starting with the best video possible, but you are using a player which fully supports the surround formats that are in the video stream.

Look in the media players sub-forum on this site and ask.

A lot of people, myself included, use Plex to feed videos into our home theater system and leave the PC in the computer room.

 

[Ray0]

You don't need ANY device that 'encodes' audio. The encoded audio is already a part of your download. So, if your download has a supported audio format for your surround system (most do), then any playback device will deliver it to your sound system. An encoder will often take from one format, to another, which isn't what you need.

It really shouldn't be all that important what you are using here. The home theater in a box (HTiB) is where you should be looking to spend your money to replace it with a proper AV receiver and separate speakers at some point. At this point I would minimize spending and I would get a HDMI audio extractor with toslink optical output to connect to your HTiB kit.

https://www.amazon.com/J-Tech-Digital-Extractor-Converter-JTDAT5CH/dp/B00BIQER0E/ref=sr_1_2_sspa

$25 and you can feed your system just fine.

Be aware that what you use as a player for the videos may play as a factor as well. Different players support different formats and aren't always 'nice' about how they deliver either video or audio, so do some homework on that to ensure that not only are you starting with the best video possible, but you are using a player which fully supports the surround formats that are in the video stream.

Look in the media players sub-forum on this site and ask.

A lot of people, myself included, use Plex to feed videos into our home theater system and leave the PC in the computer room.

Thank you so much for this detailed and informative answer, I really do appreciate all your efforts,

HDMI audio extractor would be the best option now,
but I still have 1 concern regarding the format of the video files I'm planning to use, most of them are Dolby Digital plus using
Format : E-AC-3
Format/Info : Enhanced AC-3
Commercial name : Dolby Digital Plus

while my home theater only supports Dolby Digital, and the audio extractor also support Dolby Digital and DTS with no identification of Dolby Digital plus

--------
Searching online, I found this
Is Dolby Digital Plus content backward-compatible? Because Dolby Digital Plus is built on core Dolby Digital technologies, content that is encoded with Dolby Digital Plus is fully compatible with the millions of existing home theaters and playback systems worldwide equipped for Dolby Digital playback.
--------

but I'm not sure if the audio extractor would take the dd+ and that my home theater would make the DD+ as DD and play it as 5.1 instead of down mixing it to 2.0

If this is going to be an issue then this is where the sound card will come handy since it will encode everything to Dolby Digital live,
no matter what the source is, at least this is my idea of a sound card,
for example, if I was playing a source file which has DTS, dd+, the sound card will encode it live to DD, Right?

What do you think?
Thanks.

 

[BMXTRIX]

...
What do you think?

I think your computer will handle this without issue already. It will deliver the supported audio stream without a problem would be my expectation.

 

[Ray0]

I think your computer will handle this without issue already. It will deliver the supported audio stream without a problem would be my expectation.

Like, without any sound cards?

Worth noting,
after doing some search I found out that DDL+ can't be transmitted via optical cable, I might be wrong that what google said,
therefore, I believe I might need to buy a sound card that can encode everything to dd because it's the only format that's being supported by my home theater, because some of my content are dd+
but for regular dd sources I should be able to play them using VLC with optical link because it can provide dd 5.1

if you would like to know exact issue
please open this link,
it was an email I sent to sound blaster support

Context – share whatever you see with others in seconds

ctxt.io

i'm very thankful to you,
i would really appreciate all the help I can get
because i've got no one else to ask
based on your opinion, I might go with HDMI extractor or sound card.
thank you.