Digital Audio Passthrough (AppleTV, TiVo and other toys)

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FlyingPete

112 posts

Master Geek

#103110 30-May-2012 17:35

Hi,
I have an aging HT Amp (Marantz SR5000) that does not have any HDMI connectors or switching. Now first up, approved budget to upgrade to new shiny HDMI capable amp is non exisitant!

Our TV is a Panasonic Viera TH-P50ST30Z video sources is an AppleTV and Tivo HD as primary video sources, both HDMI (we also have a Wii and a dodgy cheap DVD player running composite and component).

The AppleTV has ATVFlash on it and has our collection of Ripped DVDs on it, the dodgy DVD player is for anything that hasn't been ripped yet (impatient kids).

Currently all video sources are connected directly with audio to the TV, and the TV is connected to the amp via an optical digital link.

Everything is all fine and peachy until I try to enable Dolby Digital or DTS on the AppleTV, all we get out of the amp is nasty static (amp does support both Dolby Digital and DTS).

Has anyone else played with this sort of setup? I am guessing something is getting lost in the translation here.

Thanks!

Pock

156 posts

Master Geek

#632823 30-May-2012 19:18

Have you tried to troubleshoot it / find the device causing the problem?

Simple fault finding will help a lot here. I would start with connecting the Apple TV directly into the amp and see if the sound works, at the very least you can rule out the TV as causing the problem.

Handle9

11391 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#632846 30-May-2012 19:51

Check that the digital out from the TV allows for 5.1 to the amp. My 50V20 only outputs 2.0 from external sources. The 5.1 optical out is only for Freeview really.

Dunnersfella

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#632854 30-May-2012 20:06

Try going into the 'Sound' menu and choosing 'PCM' as the sound output.
Let us know if that works for you...

beddy

93 posts

Master Geek

#633325 31-May-2012 13:02

Try setting audio to 16bit in the AppleTV settings

FlyingPete

112 posts

Master Geek

#636773 6-Jun-2012 16:29

Hi all,
Thanks for your input, I did a whole bunch of testing and it looks like its the TV dumbing things down, basically it does not pass the signal straight through unaltered, so the only way I am going to get this to work correctly is to directly attach the video/audio sources to the amplifier, not the end of the world but slightly more complex for the other kids to figure out.

Thanks again!

(or upgrade my amp :) )

kiwijunglist

2981 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#636783 6-Jun-2012 16:39

use RCA from TV-> Receiver and Optical from Appletv2->Receiver

HTPC / Home automation (home assistant) enthusiast.

FlyingPete

112 posts

Master Geek

#636797 6-Jun-2012 16:48

kiwijunglist: use RCA from TV-> Receiver and Optical from Appletv2->Receiver

Yes that would work, keeps it down to two sources, don't really care for fancy digital signals from the other sources