Digital Cable Question (1 Viewer)

[Jim Full]

My digital cable box has the standard red and white audio out but also has a black digital audio out. How do I hook up the audio to my reciever? Do I use all three? Also, and this is probably a stupid question, but if I connect my cable box video to the receiver using s-video does the receiver have to be on to watch TV? Thanks for any help.

 

[Bob McElfresh]

Hi Jim.

The "Black digital audio out" from your cable box: is this a ordinary RCA plug or a square optical plug?

To use this, your receiver needs a spare coaxial-digital input or optical input. If you have a coaxial input, just run a VIDEO cable or a DIGITAL cable (they are the same thing). Then turn on the CATV box, switch the receiver to whatever input you plugged the CATV box into and enjoy.

if I connect my cable box video to the receiver using s-video does the receiver have to be on to watch TV?

Yes.

What I do/did was run CATV coax from the cable box straight to the TV. This allows the family to channel surf on "Antenna A" with just the TV.

But I also ran SVideo from everything to the receiver, then 1 SVideo to the TV. Now I can flip the TV to see the SVideo feed and use the receiver for the better sound and picture that SVideo offers.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jim Full]

The black "digital audio out" is a standard rca jack. Thanks for your help Bob.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

Be aware that channels under 100 (analog cable) probably won't have digital audio available. To deal with this, I have Video 1 and Video 2 on my receiver both set up as cable TV selections. Video 1 gets its feed through the VCR with red/white/yellow connectors and Video 2 gets its audio feed straight from the Dolby Digital output on the cable box.

 

[Jim Full]

I'm feeling dumber by the minute.
If I connect the black "digital output" on the cable box to the receiver do I need to also connect the red and white outputs?

 

[JeremyFr]

no

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Jim,

Jeremy might very well be wrong int his case. As Robert said above, usually the first 100 channels are analog, and many boxes will pass no audio on the digital connection for these channels. In that case you'd have to wire both.

-V

 

[Jim Full]

Thanks to everyone for your help. This is a excellent site and I have learned a lot from reading it. I can't wait to get my system up and running.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

Thanks to Vince for saying that much more clearly than I did.

 

[JeremyFr]

I hate to tell you that I'm not wrong, The motorolas will pass all audio through the digital out as either PCM for analog channels, dd 2.0 for non 5.1 channels, and 5.1 for full DD channels.

 

[JayDaniel]

Jim - I have a Scientific Atlanta box (3200 or something close - I'm not home to verify), and the instructions plainly say if wanting to use the digital connection, BOTH have to be hooked up (analog/RCA and Dig. Coax). Otherwise I get no sound at all, even on the digital channels. Also note that you have to set your receiver to "auto detect" a digital signal if you want to receive them. And finally, you will probably have to level match the digital source to match the analog. When I first hooked mine up, the digital was much more quiet than the analog (even on same channel if I switched back and forth on the receiver from analog to digital).

Hope this helps.

 

[RobertCharlotte]

Jeremy, I don't see where Jim ever said what brand box he has.

 

[JeremyFr]

ok that is the case with the Scientific Atlantas now I know why we dont use them anymore after looking at there website.

 

[Jim Full]

My cable box is a Scientific Atlanta 3200. I hooked up the the red and white analog and the black digital connections to my receiver and it works great. Thanks for all your help.

Jim