need help hooking up dolby digital (1 Viewer)

[NickHuxley]

Hello everyone, ok heres my problem, i have a phillips dvd recorder/player, a harmon kardon AVR 110 and a hitachi big screen tv, and 4 klipsch surround speakers, im trying to get my reciever to go to dolby digital or dts, it wont go to that mode at all, ive read the book for the reciever and it says that it will switch to dolby digital when a source that use's it is on,this is what i have connected to my reciever, all my speakers, rca inputs to my tv's stereo out, on my dvd player i have the rca inputs to the tv and rca inputs to my reciever, do i need a coaxial cable to connect from the reciever to dvd player or something? if so what kind would i need? i dont understand why it wont go on dolby digital at all, any help would be much apreciated, thanks

 

[Bill Kane]

Yes, you need a digital cable from the DVDp to the HK receiver to get the DD5.1 signal. RCA (two) connectors pass along a stereo signal.

Depending on whether your DVD player offers either a TOSlink (optical) output or single RCA-type coaxial digital output (or both) you must buy one of these cables, for around $20 give or take $10.

There is no signal difference between optical and the RCA-type or coax digital cable. Optical comes with a special, square-type plug. Sometimes the player comes out of the box with a temporary plug that must be removed. The optical plug fits in one position in the outlet. The only downside to optical is the cable can be more fragile and must not be kinked.

Once connected, the HK110 ought to "read" and display a DD light of some sort on the receiver's faceplate display.

bill

 

[John Garcia]

Square peg does not fit in round hole...

The stereo RCA cables are why you cannot get Dolby Digital or DTS. As Bill notes, the 1st thing you must have is a digital connection. The 2nd thing you may have to do will be to go into the DVD player's digital audio setup and configure it to use the digital out, as well as configure the output to send the correct thing - bitstream. While you are in there, you may have to turn DTS on, as it is turned off from the factory in nearly all cases.

 

[NickHuxley]

Thanks guys