# Confused w/ HDMI Audio Return



## BD55 (Oct 18, 2011)

My DVD player only has HDMI out and I run my HDMI from the DVD player to the HDTV. I then run optical out from the TV to the AVR because my AVR doesn't have HDMI inputs and the DVD player doesn't have optical audio out. My last DVD player had HDMI out plus optical audio out, so I could happily hook up the TV with HDMI and the AVR with toslink.

My question is: Am I not getting full surround sound from the DVD player by running through the TV? I have gotten confused by what Toslink can and can't do, ie 5.1, 7.1, DTS, etc... and what it can and can't do when fed back through the TV.

The TV is a Samsung 6400 Series 46" btw.

Any enlightenment appreciated!


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## Infrasonic (Sep 28, 2010)

Through an optical or digital coaxial connection you can transfer Dolby Digital and DTS but some TV's may only transmit a Dolby stereo mix so you would need to check the manual for the TV.

A good test would be to use a DVD that has DTS (like War of the Worlds or Jurassic Park) and see if your receiver recognizes the DTS signal. I believe there are some movies encoded with Dolby Digital EX which would have a 7.1 mix on DVD but there are very few (I think the newer Star Wars movies).

To take advantage of your side speakers you may need to enable something like NEO 7 or a THX movie listening mode in the receiver.


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## BD55 (Oct 18, 2011)

Ok, so it does depend on the tv. For some reason I haven't been able to squeeze that info from the manual, but now I know to check again! 

So DVDs don't typically have 7.1? That's really interesting. I guess that is a lot of data to store on a disc that is getting close to capacity on some of these movies.

Thanks for the info!


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## Infrasonic (Sep 28, 2010)

BD55 said:


> So DVDs don't typically have 7.1?


I would say over 90% of DVD's have a 5.1 AC3 Dolby Digital mix, with maybe 7% having a 5.1 DTS mix and very few with Dolby EX.

If you have a DTS DVD at home maybe do that test before scouring the TV manual again.

Good luck!


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## Arcticbear (Dec 1, 2011)

The optical from TV is not HDMI Audio Return Channel.

Typically the optical return from TV is only 2 channels.
I know Sony and Sharp have 5.1 return on some of their models.
Your TV manual should have the specs

Blu-Ray DVD does support 7.1, check each DVD box to see what audio format it supports.

Note: optical does not have enough bandwidth to play DTS-Master audio, Dolby Digital True-HD or any 7.1 audio.

If your TV does not do 5.1, you can use a HDMI Audio Converter
It extract DTS 5.1, Dolby Dogital 5.1 and 2-Channels to the optical output


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