Help in using Optical ports on AV Receiver

Forums › Home Theatre (incl HTPC) › Help in using Optical ports on AV Receiver

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Topic # 154746 6-Nov-2014 13:20

I have a Denon AVR 1603 which is probably 12 years old.

It has 2 Optical In and 1 Optical Out. It also has Coaxial In.

At present the 2 Optical In ports are used by:

Panasonic Plasma (not smart) TV
Panasonic BluRay Recorder (Smart but useless in the real world)

I have just purchased an Amazon FireTV Media Streamer which has an Optical audio Port.

I don't know what an Optical Out does and I did look at the manual.

Can I connect all 3 devices (TV, BluRay and FireTV)? Somehow?

PC: HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Windows 10 Home), Macbook Air (Mid 2013)
Net: Draytek Vigor 130 Modem (VDSL) in bridge mode to Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite-3, 2 x Grandstream GWN7610
Storage: Synology DS216play NAS, 2 x 6TB
Media: HDHomeRun Connect, 4 x Amazon FireTV, TiVo, Echo, Dot, Spot, Broadlink RM Pro+
TV: 2 x Samsung H6400 55" LED TV, Panasonic TH-P50G10Z 50" Plasma TV (Great picture, no smarts, just old), DMR-PWT530GZ Blu-ray Recorder (Rubbish!)
Mobile: Samsung Galaxy Note 5, Huawei P10 Lite
Wearable: Gear S3 Frontier

khull

1245 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 137

Reply # 1169998 6-Nov-2014 13:29

No you need a optical switch. The optical out is if you wish to pass through any optical signals - in your case, your plasma and blu ray recorder to another device.

Alternatively, if your plasma has an optical IN , then you can use that as an option by running the Fire TV to the TV (assuming your TV is turned on when you use the FireTV)

ubergeeknz

3343 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1089

Trusted

Vocus

Reply # 1170015 6-Nov-2014 13:51

You can use a passive splitter/combiner as long as only one sending device is on at a time.

http://www.dx.com/p/1-to-2-toslink-optical-audio-splitter-adapter-57602#.VFrF_PmUcXs

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Reply # 1170026 6-Nov-2014 13:58

khull: No you need a optical switch. The optical out is if you wish to pass through any optical signals - in your case, your plasma and blu ray recorder to another device.

Alternatively, if your plasma has an optical IN , then you can use that as an option by running the Fire TV to the TV (assuming your TV is turned on when you use the FireTV)

No, there is no optical IN on the TV.
I will research an optical switch.
Thanks

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Reply # 1170240 6-Nov-2014 18:28

ubergeeknz: You can use a passive splitter/combiner as long as only one sending device is on at a time.

http://www.dx.com/p/1-to-2-toslink-optical-audio-splitter-adapter-57602#.VFrF_PmUcXs

By the way the link doesn't work, but I did find it.

tangerz

536 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 154

Reply # 1170351 6-Nov-2014 21:34

Does your Blu-ray player have a coaxial digital out? If so you could connect it via that instead of optical and use the now free optical for the FireTV.

Or similarly, if the TV has analog outputs (and you don't need surround sound from it or it only outputs stereo anyway) then connect it that way and the FireTV to the optical.

Regs

Infrastructure Geek
4056 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 195

Trusted

Microsoft NZ

Subscriber

Reply # 1170364 6-Nov-2014 21:49

most elegant solution would be to use the digital coax connector on one of the other devices, but it doesn't look like they have one.

your other option could be to pick up a digital coax to optical converter from amazon or ebay. would be better solution than an optical switch.

Technical Evangelist
Microsoft NZ
about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

jarledb

Webhead
2049 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 654

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 1170417 7-Nov-2014 01:58

You should be able to connect the Fire TV via HDMI to your TV, and then get the sound sent through the TV to the receiver.

That should give you the sound digital all the way through.

Jarle on Twitter - Senson NZ - WordPress experts

Kyanar

3020 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 463

Trusted

Subscriber

Reply # 1170420 7-Nov-2014 02:48

jarledb: You should be able to connect the Fire TV via HDMI to your TV, and then get the sound sent through the TV to the receiver.

That should give you the sound digital all the way through.

The TV may not do that - I know that Samsung TVs for example will downsample all sound to 2 channel stereo before sending out via the Optical Out and that's only if the TV even has an optical out.

Best bet is to connect all devices via just HDMI without optical audio, and rely on ARC to get audio via the receiver (pray your receiver and TV support it!)

numfarr

325 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

Reply # 1171169 7-Nov-2014 21:17

You can get simple optical in, digital coax out converters e.g. http://www.amazon.com/C2G-40019-Optical-Coaxial-Converter/dp/B0002GV876 . It looks like the receiver supports all three digital inputs at the same time so this should work.

Dunnersfella

3363 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 455

Reply # 1171443 8-Nov-2014 19:17

3 people support this post

In all seriousness, time for a new amp...

jarledb

Webhead
2049 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 654

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

Reply # 1171543 9-Nov-2014 00:13

Kyanar:
Best bet is to connect all devices via just HDMI without optical audio, and rely on ARC to get audio via the receiver (pray your receiver and TV support it!)

From what I can see the receiver does not have any HDMI inputs or outputs. So that won't work.

As Dunnersfella stated, its probably time to get a new receiver, really useful to have a receiver that can do switching between a good amount of HDMI sources.

Jarle on Twitter - Senson NZ - WordPress experts

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Reply # 1171602 9-Nov-2014 11:36

A new receiver isn't an option at present.

This looks to be an equivalent to the C2G box: http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=AC1598

So to recap, an optical (Toslink) cable will go from the Amazon Fire TV media streamer to the above box. From the box will go a coaxial cable to the Coaxial In Port on the receiver.

To me this is exactly what I want. It may be slightly cheaper via Amazon and YouShop but I'd rather get it in NZ (in this case).

tangerz

536 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 154

Reply # 1171652 9-Nov-2014 14:32

alisam: A new receiver isn't an option at present.

This looks to be an equivalent to the C2G box: http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=AC1598

So to recap, an optical (Toslink) cable will go from the Amazon Fire TV media streamer to the above box. From the box will go a coaxial cable to the Coaxial In Port on the receiver.

To me this is exactly what I want. It may be slightly cheaper via Amazon and YouShop but I'd rather get it in NZ (in this case).

Yep that will work for you just fine!

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Reply # 1171783 9-Nov-2014 20:12

alisam: A new receiver isn't an option at present.

This looks to be an equivalent to the C2G box: http://www.jaycar.co.nz/productView.asp?ID=AC1598

So to recap, an optical (Toslink) cable will go from the Amazon Fire TV media streamer to the above box. From the box will go a coaxial cable to the Coaxial In Port on the receiver.

To me this is exactly what I want. It may be slightly cheaper via Amazon and YouShop but I'd rather get it in NZ (in this case).

Ordered it from Jaycar.
Many, many thanks for every ones help.

alisam

425 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 9

Reply # 1173728 12-Nov-2014 17:51

Ordered Sunday evening and it arrived Tuesday morning.
Very happy with the box.

PS Slight niggle - I asked that it not be delivered on the Wednesday and it wasn't. However, after the Order Confirmation, there was no other communication, so that I had now idea when it had been shipped and no tracking number. For $5 I would use Jaycar again because it would have cost me an hour (at minimum) of my time at lunchtime, plus petrol, to pick it up in from a store.