Help in using Optical ports on AV Receiver

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alisam

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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?

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khull

1245 posts

Uber Geek

#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

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Vocus

#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

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

625 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

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Snowflake

#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.

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jarledb

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#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.

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Kyanar

4089 posts

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#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

329 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

4086 posts

Uber Geek

#1171443 8-Nov-2014 19:17

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

jarledb

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#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.

alisam

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

625 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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

829 posts

Ultimate Geek

#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.