digital cable receiver and Home Cinema Set

[jazztie]

I have a digital cable receiver (samsung) with a digital optical out-connection. An analogue (for analogue signal) and a scart connection (for digital signal) is made with my television (JVC).

As said, the digital cable receiver also has a digital optical output... I connected this output with the digital optical connection on my JVC home cinema set (QP-F30AL). When set to digital (source selector is on TV, input mode on home cinema set is set on digital) I hear nothing. When I switch the mode back to analogue - I hear the analogue audio signal of the TV, not the digital audio signal.

How do I get the digital signal from my cable receiver to my home cinema set? Am I correct to assume that the optical output of my cable receiver can be connected to the optical port on the home cinema set? Or is this also an output-only connection?

Any help is appreciated!

 

[MDS]

Assuming you do have the optical out of the cable receiver connected to an optical in on the receiver and the receiver is configured correctly, you should get digital audio when the cable program includes digital audio.

If you do not, you might have to change a setting in the menu for the cable receiver. For example, my TW digital cable (Scientific Atlanta set-top box) has a menu setting called Audioigital Out which can be set to Dolby Digital or 'other'. It must be set to Dolby Digital to correctly pass any digital audio. Check if you have a similar menu setting on the Samsung cable receiver.

 

[jazztie]

My samsung digital cable receiver does have that menu-option... and it is set to Dolby Digital (yes)... According to my Home Cinema manual, there are 3 DIGITAL IN connections (1 coaxial for the DVD/DVR; and 2 optical - tv and vcr). When set in TV mode (of Home Cinema), the input is set to Digital (not analogue - when set to analogue, I hear the analogue cable signal - not the digital signal).... but unfortunately, I still don't hear anything.

Could there be any other settings that I've missed...

Maybe handy extra info: the scart connection runs from digital cable receiver to TV -- than from second scart output of TV to Home Cinema Set. This connection should be there, right? Otherwise DVD signal isn't send to TV...

argh, so frustrating... now I have digital tv and radio, and I can only watch it on tv, not via my home cinema...

anyone?

 

[MDS]

I'm not really familiar with scart, but I think that is video only.

One thing that got me a few years ago when I first got digital cable was that not all of the channels have digital audio. Have you verified that the channel you want to view has digital audio?

If you connect only the digital cable, but the channel's audio is analog - you hear nothing. The solution is to connect both analog and digital cables and set the receiver to 'auto' so it detects whether the signal is analog or digital and uses the appropriate audio input automatically. Does the cinema set have a similar setting?

 

[jazztie]

That sounds logical -- my home cinema set has two options: analogue and digital auto. So, I guess that means it will select the digital signal when present, and the analogue signal when no digital signal is present.

However, a signal is send from the digital cable receiver to the TV via scart -- how come I still hear the analogue signal on the home cinema set? Shouldn't it send the signal that is currently on the TV?

Also, could it be possible that I should change the setting on the TV? I have two scart connections - one is connected to the digital cable receiver, and one is connected to the home cinema set. Also, an analogue coax cable is connected to the TV from the digital cable receiver. So, somehow the analogue signal is copied to the scart cable to the HCS, and the digital signal stays behind in the TV.

 

[MDS]

I'm a bit confused by all your connections...

Instead of me typing out a big list of all the connections, do you have a link to the samsung cable receiver, the JVC home cinema set, and the TV? It might be alot easier to help if I could see what connections each provides.

 

[jazztie]

The TV is a JVC 28WH3EP - couldn't find a link on JVC website.
According to the tv menu, you can 'copy' the external source to the SCART EXT2 "source". In my case, these are the options - I chose the last one:
EXT-1 is linked to digital cable receiver / VHS
EXT-3 is composite connection on front of TV (for camcorders)
TV is linked to EXT-2 which is linked to Home Cinema Set.
The 'copy' setting is now from TV to EXT-2... since this setting is needed to get the DVD signal to the TV. I've also tried the first setting (EXT1 to digital cable receiver / VHS) - but than I lost the connection to the Home Cinema Set.

The Home Cinema Set is a JVC QP-F30AL
http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL027251&pathId=30&page=1

The digital cable receiver is a Samsung DCB_9401r. However, it is only sold in the Netherlands. But, I can give you the technical specification from the manual:
VIDEO interface: 2 SCART (AV1 -labeled TV-, AV2 -labeled EXT / video-)
AUDIO interface: SCART
S/Pdif (Digital Audio Output) -- labeled "digital audio out optical"