HMDI and dolby digital (1 Viewer)

[Jay H]

Hi, I recently went ahead and bough a Sharp LC32DA5U and a Sony DVP-NS70H upconverting DVD player, I have an HDMI cable connected to the tv directly cause my preamp only handles S-video as a moniter. I have a toslink digital cable from the Sony to my DD processor. Does anybody know how to turn off the speakers on the Sharp LC32 tv or on the Sony DVD player?

I see no options in the audio section of either the Sharp or the Sony to halt the audio part of the HDMI cable. I just simply turn the volume down on the Sharp to 0 right now and I can't simply use component video cables because the Sony only upconverts to 1080i/720p via the HDMI cable.

Anybody familiar with this?

jay

 

[John S]

I think this set has a head phone jack. Plug some old walkman headphones into it maybe?

 

[Jay H]

Doesn't it seem very silly for a HDTV not to have the option to turn its speakers off. It's not like the Sharp is a $20 walmart special and it can't be difficult for the software guys at Sharp to simply provide a function to turn the speakers off. Doesn't take a rocket scientist I think.

I browsed the manuals and browsed the audio options, I didn't find any option there. At least the Sony still outputs DD through it's digital audio output when the TV/DVD player are connected via an HDMI cable.

Jay

 

[JeremyErwin]

Might this advice be of some use?

From page 33 of the manual

 

[Jay H]

Perhaps, I'm not using the (audio) monitor outputs on my Sharp though. I have the HDMI cable from the Sony DVD player to the Sharp LCD and a toslink cable to my DD processor. However, if what you posted is true that if I set the Monitor Audio outputs to variable that it turns off the speaker, then I can try that. My audio output from my DVD player goes to my DD processor and not my TV! Certainly, it would be much more intuitive to simply provide a speaker on/off function, no?

Jay

 

[JeremyErwin]

Well, the most useful option, IMHO would be a "speakers off, monitor out fixed" configuration. But don't ask me about intuitive. I've configured my home theater so that it is impossible to watch TV without turning on my reciever. Luckily, the my Harmony remote abstracts all the nitty gritty details into a single "Activity".

 

[Jay H]

Yeah, I used to be able to do that with my old 20" Sony CRT, because the only (best) input it had was s-video. My Parasound PSP-1500 is an older preamp with an s-video monitor so I would connect all my video devices to it, i.e. my DVD player, my Satellite receiver and connect one s-video cable to my CRT. However, now with HD and component and HDMI cables, my preamp is now a bit dated so I simply connect the DVD player to my TV and switch my audio via my preamp which still uses Toslink cables. Not a big deal cause I still have to select my preamp for sound and for some reason, if I don't want to use my HT for the audio, I can still use the audio from the HDMI cable to the speakers on my Sharp LCD.

I gather that some of the newer preamps/receivers will have HDMI monitors? I don't follow technology trends as much as I used to.

Jay

 

[Jay H]

Aha, figured it out, though it is still a kludge. There is a setup menu for the HDMI input, in that little submenu, there is an option for the digital audio with two selections, one of them is the digital audio included inside the HDMI cable and the other is basic composite audio via RCA cords. So basically if I change if from the digital to the composite and never hook up the composite audio cables, I'm golden. Real stupid design but it works.

Jay