Help with setting up home theatre system

[BRISTOL86]

Hi All

Apologies if this is a daft question...

I have just purchased a home cinema system (Panasonic 5.1 system) and have connected it all up etc. It is connected to the TV (Panasonic LCD, about 2 yrs old) via an HDMI cable.

Basically when i'm playing DVD's on the system the sound is fine, when I'm watching Sky, there is no sound at all coming from the home cinema speakers. It does say in the manual that unless my TV's HDMI socket is an "ARC" socket, I will need a digital optical cable between TV and home cinema to enjoy the sound from the home cinema. Is this all there is to it?

I don't want to go out purchasing more cables that I don't need, so just wanted to check that this would be the reason? The Sky is also connected to the TV via HDMI cable.

Also, to further confuse matters, I am awaiting delivery of an Apple TV, and was hoping that I could connect that via digital optical cable to the home cinema system so that I wouldn't necessarily need the TV on to enjoy music from the Apple TV through the home cinema speakers. Is there such a thing as an optical cable splitter so I can connect two sources into the one input without having to manually switch?

Cheers, appreciate any help offered!

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Cheers Mate,
Yes, your htib manual is correct. Your TV must support HDMI 1.4 in order to support ARC - Audio Return Channel. Two year old TV - might or might not - check the TV manual and it's correct - yes - you would need additional cable.

My suggestion, if possible is to check if your sky box has it's own digital audio out and connect it to your htib directly if possible.

About optical (aka Toslink) switch - yes, such products exist, but mostly they are manually operated like this one:
Cables To Go Digital Audio Explorer Toslink Selector Switch AV selector - Black

Amazon.com: Nyrius SW100 Digital Audio Optical Toslink 3 Input Selector Switch Compatible with Fiber Optic Cables, HDTV, Blu-ray DVD player, PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS, XBOX360, PS3: Electronics

Normally - the best place to do all audio and video switching is not at TV, but at HT receiver, but since you already purchased htib - this might be more restrictive and cumbersome to get it all working right

 

[BRISTOL86]

Thanks mate, looking at it my TV has another audio out (i.e. the red and white circular connections) and the home theatre has the matching audio in. Would this be a better option to connect the TV for sound, then allowing me to use the toslink cable for the apple tv so that i don't need the TV on when playing music through the apple tv?

Would there be a noticeable difference in quality between the toslink cable and the red/white audio connection for everyday tv viewing?

Thanks

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Thanks mate, looking at it my TV has another audio out (i.e. the red and white circular connections) and the home theatre has the matching audio in. Would this be a better option to connect the TV for sound, then allowing me to use the toslink cable for the apple tv so that i don't need the TV on when playing music through the apple tv?

Would there be a noticeable difference in quality between the toslink cable and the red/white audio connection for everyday tv viewing?

Thanks

Red and White is analog stereo sound - means it wont have all the surround effect information in it

There is another way to fix your issue:
Get this switch and it does support HDMI ARC:
For only $68.60 each when QTY 50+ purchased - 4x1 HDMI® Switch w/ TOSlink & Digital Coaxial Audio Output (Audio Return Channel/3D/CEC Support) | Auto & Powered HDMI Switches

 

[BRISTOL86]

The not supporting surround wouldn't matter in the short term as until I move to a bigger place I'm using it as a 2.1 system, so that could work until I am utilising the 5.1 capabilities...

 

[Grador]

The sound quality will also be better over digital, optical is your best bet. The analog out will work as well though, just not surround as stated above.