A Sound Issue

[Weaverj]

I have a problem with the sound coming from my plasma TV. Bear with me while I explain the background.

My TV is a plasma 1080i Panasonic that is hung on the wall above our fireplace. The A/V technician that installed the wiring and the conduit for this TV turned out to be an idiot - in retrospect, of course .

The conduit he installed was too narrow, too long, and too convoluted for the purpose it was to serve. The conduit runs from the back of the TV to our cabinetry where the cable box is housed and requires approximately 20 ft. of cable to connect the TV to the box.

Enter the electrician who was serving as our sub contractor for the house and who volunteered to replace our A/V technician. Initially we used HDMI cable to connect the TV to our digital cable box and this worked well for a month or so following which the HDMI failed. Our electrician blamed the HDMI failing on the tortuosity of the conduit and the resulting torque that the HDMI connector had on the cable box. Irregardless, ultimately it was decided to use component video cables as the component cables were deemed to be less subject to torque and more stable at the connectors.

I agreed to this but mentioned to our electrician that we would also need to run RCA audio cable as well as the component video did not carry audio. He seemed a little confused by this but eventually discovered that I was correct and agreed to run 'some audio' cables as well.

Finally, upon finishing (fishing the wires through the conduit was a considerable exercise ...) he showed me how the TV worked. It appeared to work fairly well. I did not inspect the wiring at that time.

Over the subsequent several weeks I have noticed that when I am watching any program that has background noise (e.g. crowd noise during a football game, music, etc.) that the spoken word is drowned out by the background noise. When I turn the volume up loud enough to hear the spoken word, the background noise, music, etc. becomes almost unbearable. If I am watching a program that is featuring only conversation, the audio seems perfectly fine.

I went on to look at the connections on the cable box and noticed that we have two component video cables running to the cable box from the TV. One of them obviously carries the video (r,g,b). The other one is connected to the red/white audio jacks. Specifically, the red from the component cable is into the red audio jack on the cable box. The blue from the component cable is in the white audio jack on the cable box. The green cable has been left disconnected. In other words, the electrician used a component video cable to carry the audio.

In addition to the above, if I move the cable box even slightly the video and audio feed is lost transiently.

So my questions are these:

1) Is the connection as I've outlined it above a valid way of carrying sound (i.e. through two of the three component video cables)?

2) If so, then why might I be getting the odd and overwhelming background noise on my TV?

3) And, if the A/V connection is so fragile as to be lost quickly when any movement is introduced at my cable box, might there be something wrong with the connectors on the cable box itself?

I haven't yet asked my electrician these questions as I know that he is good electrician but I also think that his knowledge of A/V connections/components is not very good.

Thanks for your consideration.

JW

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, JW!

Using two of the three component video cables to run the audio is perfectly fine. Analog audio and video cables are essentially the same, although video cables sometimes have more shielding because of the frequencies (but that would only be better, not worse).

I'm not an expert on the dialogue issue that you mentioned, but I've noticed it before when listening to a 5.1 DVD through my parents TV speakers. It might be the way that the cable box is decoding the audio. Do you have digital cable? I'm guessing so because you mentioned an HDMI connection. If so, check the audio options in the menu for the cable box (you can also let us know the model number of the cable box, and we can help you through that). You might need to make a selection for the analog audio outputs that you are using. As a note, if you have digital cable that contains Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, the HDMI cable would be a better way to run the audio to the TV. I don't know if you're willing to try to have that get fixed.

As for the signal getting lost when you move the cable box, there might be something wrong with the connectors on the cable box, or it could be the cables, or it could be both.

Do you always listen to audio through the TV, or do you also have an audio system that you use sometimes?

 

[highfigh]

I have a problem with the sound coming from my plasma TV. Bear with me while I explain the background.

My TV is a plasma 1080i Panasonic that is hung on the wall above our fireplace. The A/V technician that installed the wiring and the conduit for this TV turned out to be an idiot - in retrospect, of course .

The conduit he installed was too narrow, too long, and too convoluted for the purpose it was to serve. The conduit runs from the back of the TV to our cabinetry where the cable box is housed and requires approximately 20 ft. of cable to connect the TV to the box.

Enter the electrician who was serving as our sub contractor for the house and who volunteered to replace our A/V technician. Initially we used HDMI cable to connect the TV to our digital cable box and this worked well for a month or so following which the HDMI failed. Our electrician blamed the HDMI failing on the tortuosity of the conduit and the resulting torque that the HDMI connector had on the cable box. Irregardless, ultimately it was decided to use component video cables as the component cables were deemed to be less subject to torque and more stable at the connectors.

I agreed to this but mentioned to our electrician that we would also need to run RCA audio cable as well as the component video did not carry audio. He seemed a little confused by this but eventually discovered that I was correct and agreed to run 'some audio' cables as well.

Finally, upon finishing (fishing the wires through the conduit was a considerable exercise ...) he showed me how the TV worked. It appeared to work fairly well. I did not inspect the wiring at that time.

Over the subsequent several weeks I have noticed that when I am watching any program that has background noise (e.g. crowd noise during a football game, music, etc.) that the spoken word is drowned out by the background noise. When I turn the volume up loud enough to hear the spoken word, the background noise, music, etc. becomes almost unbearable. If I am watching a program that is featuring only conversation, the audio seems perfectly fine.

I went on to look at the connections on the cable box and noticed that we have two component video cables running to the cable box from the TV. One of them obviously carries the video (r,g,b). The other one is connected to the red/white audio jacks. Specifically, the red from the component cable is into the red audio jack on the cable box. The blue from the component cable is in the white audio jack on the cable box. The green cable has been left disconnected. In other words, the electrician used a component video cable to carry the audio.

In addition to the above, if I move the cable box even slightly the video and audio feed is lost transiently.

So my questions are these:

1) Is the connection as I've outlined it above a valid way of carrying sound (i.e. through two of the three component video cables)?

2) If so, then why might I be getting the odd and overwhelming background noise on my TV?

3) And, if the A/V connection is so fragile as to be lost quickly when any movement is introduced at my cable box, might there be something wrong with the connectors on the cable box itself?

I haven't yet asked my electrician these questions as I know that he is good electrician but I also think that his knowledge of A/V connections/components is not very good.

Thanks for your consideration.

JW

What is the diameter of the conduit? If it's about an inch and a half, mini coax in a plastic or rubber jacket is available and it takes up less space. The ends are sometimes specific to that brand but it does work. This usually has 5 mini coax but some also has a Cat5e in the center. HDMI ends are a flawed design, IMO and the stress issue is one of the main reasons I try to not use it. The cable box may have indeed been damaged by the stress on the connector, so you may want to replace it. If it's Time Warner, you should be able to go to their office and just hand it over for a new one. The setup needs to be correct, though. That's one area many people just don't bother dealing with and some of your audio problems may be associated with this.