Help with ARC,HDMI connections (1 Viewer)

Hey guys, a quick question that I cant seem to get answered anywhere else.

 

 

 

I have a Panasonic plasma TV with a Panasonic Blu-ray/home theater system, they are all linked through ViERRa. The only inputs on the Blu-ray player are the ARC/HDMI connection(which is my output as well), 2 Optical Digital connections and one of the original red/white aux.

 

The problem is that I have my Xbox 360 hooked up to my TV via HDMI and I'm not recieving my true surround sound from it, I'm guessing its because of the fact of going to the the TV then back to the Blu-ray/HTS. I had the same problem with my cable box until I purchased another one with a Optical Digital output, so on my cable box i have an HDMI going into my TV for video and the Optical Digital cable for my audio. With this being said, understanding that Xbox has one output, either component or HDMI, is there any possible way to get true surround from my Xbox without having to switch back to components and sacrifice picture quality?

 

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks!!

You are right, most TV's won't very good audio out of the Toslink ouput. I cannot think of another way, but understand, Component vs HDMI is a small thing, with regards to PQ.

 

Unless there is another answer, it comes down to sound vs pq, and since you'd be OK with Component, I'd take better sound.

You can use an external HDMI switch with optical audio conversion features. For example, you can connect the Xbox 360 to the HDMI switch using HDMI and connect the Optical output from the switch to the AV receiver for Surround sound. For example, this HDMI switch has several 4 HDMI inputs, Optical output and 4 toslink Inputs. the optical output of the switch will convert audio from HDMI. Or if you want to feedin the toslink directly from the cable box, the switch will allow you to do that as well. Its totally flexible.