# Digital TV and Bose sound system



## BillK (5 Jan 2006)

I bought a Bose 321GS sound system as my Christmas present to myself and just after Christmas bought a Wharfedale integrated digital TV from Argos to go with it. Got my new aerial fitted yesterday and tried out the system. The sound works great with the analogue channels but fails to  operate with the digital channels so I have to use the TV speaker system. Fair play to Argos, they took the TV back without a murmur, but I still want to have my Bose sound system in use with a digital TV.
Are there any whizkids who can advise?
Thanks

BillK


----------



## Technologist (5 Jan 2006)

We don't have digital terrestrial TV in Ireland. Do you live near the border & get UK DTT?

If it was NTL Didital/Cable, then you'd need to connect the amp to the NTL digital box (not the TV), enable the NTL digital out and, assuming the amp was compatible with the sample rate and encoding, you'd get direct digital sound.


----------



## RainyDay (5 Jan 2006)

BillK said:
			
		

> I bought a Bose 321GS sound system as my Christmas present to myself and just after Christmas bought a Wharfedale integrated digital TV from Argos to go with it. Got my new aerial fitted yesterday and tried out the system. The sound works great with the analogue channels but fails to  operate with the digital channels so I have to use the TV speaker system. Fair play to Argos, they took the TV back without a murmur, but I still want to have my Bose sound system in use with a digital TV.
> Are there any whizkids who can advise?
> Thanks
> 
> BillK


I have a very similar problem. Standard Nicam TV (no digital, standard analogue NTL connection) hooked up to Pioneer amp. Works perfectly when watching TV, but when I play a DVD or Xbox, I don't get any sound through the stereo. I have to revert back to the TV speakers. 

Suggestions welcome.


----------



## Technologist (5 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> I have a very similar problem. Standard Nicam TV (no digital, standard analogue NTL connection) hooked up to Pioneer amp. Works perfectly when watching TV, but when I play a DVD or Xbox, I don't get any sound through the stereo. I have to revert back to the TV speakers.


How is the DVD or XBox connected to the amp? Using analogue cables, coaxial digital or optical? Sometimes you have to configure the output on the DVD player to use a specific connection and there may be options for PCM or Bitstream. You'd need to set these to match whatever connection and decoding  capability you have on the amp.


----------



## LexLuthor (5 Jan 2006)

Technologist said:
			
		

> If it was NTL Didital/Cable, then you'd need to connect the amp to the NTL digital box (not the TV), enable the NTL digital out and, assuming the amp was compatible with the sample rate and encoding, you'd get direct digital sound.


 
Would this mean you'd get surround sound on movies from NTL digital? If the answer is 'if they are broadcast with surround sound', then are any/many movies broadcast with surround sound?


----------



## MonsieurBond (6 Jan 2006)

LexLuthor said:
			
		

> Would this mean you'd get surround sound on movies from NTL digital? If the answer is 'if they are broadcast with surround sound', then are any/many movies broadcast with surround sound?


Most movies on TV are broadcast with matrixed surround sound i.e. Dolby Surround, i.e. the surround channels are encoded into the left and right audio streams.  Sky Digital broadcast some movie channels in Dolby Digital 5.1 which is better - wider dynamic range and 5 true discrete channels with a subwoofer channel for effects.

Your DVDs usually support Dolby Digital (or DTS which is supposedly a technically superior version where more bandwidth is available to each channel thus taking up more room on the disc but theoretically sounding better).

For true 5.1 you will need, as Technologist says below, to connect a Digital cable from your Sky Box and DVD player into the amp. This cable will be either optical (TOSLink) or coaxial (electrical) which is better, or better still, if you have it, HDMI. 6 analogue cables will work as well but this is only usually used if you are decoding multi-channel audio discs such as DVD-Audio or SACD Multichannel,

Richer Sounds have a good article on 5.1 setup [broken link removed].


----------



## BillK (6 Jan 2006)

I actually live in the Midlands of England.
The Bose kit consists of a box which plays CDs, Radio and DVD together with a sub-woofer and a pair of speakers on stands. The sub-woofer is connected to the Bose unit via a 14 pin plug and three jack plugs, i.e. video in; audio out left and right. The speakers then come off an 8 pin plug.
The bose unit is then connected to the Tv via a scart socket.


----------



## Technologist (6 Jan 2006)

BillK said:
			
		

> I actually live in the Midlands of England.
> The Bose kit consists of a box which plays CDs, Radio and DVD together with a sub-woofer and a pair of speakers on stands. The sub-woofer is connected to the Bose unit via a 14 pin plug and three jack plugs, i.e. video in; audio out left and right. The speakers then come off an 8 pin plug.
> The bose unit is then connected to the Tv via a scart socket.


Maybe the TV is configured to suppress the analogue sound and instead send digital audio to an optical or coaxial output when you're receiving DTT broadcasts.

You might need to look at the menu system of the TV to see if an option is there to change that.


----------



## RainyDay (6 Jan 2006)

Technologist said:
			
		

> How is the DVD or XBox connected to the amp? Using analogue cables, coaxial digital or optical? Sometimes you have to configure the output on the DVD player to use a specific connection and there may be options for PCM or Bitstream. You'd need to set these to match whatever connection and decoding  capability you have on the amp.


The DVD isn't connected to the amp. The DVD is connected to the TV by scart and the TV is connected to the amp. Is this not the right way of doing things?


----------



## Technologist (7 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> The DVD isn't connected to the amp. The DVD is connected to the TV by scart and the TV is connected to the amp. Is this not the right way of doing things?



If you want digital sound from the DVD, you'll need to connect the digital output from the DVD to the digital input of the amp.

To get the analogue sound coming from the DVD to the TV to be relayed to the amp, you'd need to enable this on the TV and then select the correct input on the amp. Some TVs only send the tuner audio out on the SCART, so you may be stuck then.


----------



## BillK (7 Jan 2006)

Hi,
Sound worked perfectly from DVD via the Bose kit as did anologue channels on the TV; the "only" problem was sound from the digital channels.
I spoke to a very helpful guy from a Bose retailer today and described how I had made the connections and he reckoned that the problem must have been with the digital TV. Anyway I have now bought a Toshiba integrated digital TV from the same guy's shop and he is delivering it and setting it up on Monday so hopefully I will be able to report a successful outcome to my query.

Thanks for all the suggestions

BillK


----------



## RainyDay (7 Jan 2006)

Technologist said:
			
		

> If you want digital sound from the DVD, you'll need to connect the digital output from the DVD to the digital input of the amp.
> 
> To get the analogue sound coming from the DVD to the TV to be relayed to the amp, you'd need to enable this on the TV and then select the correct input on the amp. Some TVs only send the tuner audio out on the SCART, so you may be stuck then.


Am I missing something obvious? I have just a single input to the amp, so I can't connect both the DVD & the TV to the amp. Or do I need some kind of reverse-splitter box which joins the two outputs (TV & DVD) to one input?


----------



## Technologist (7 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> Am I missing something obvious? I have just a single input to the amp, so I can't connect both the DVD & the TV to the amp. Or do I need some kind of reverse-splitter box which joins the two outputs (TV & DVD) to one input?


It must be a very,very old amp if it only has one input.


----------



## RainyDay (7 Jan 2006)

Technologist said:
			
		

> It must be a very,very old amp if it only has one input.


Not at all - 6 years old - Pioneer amp/CD/tuner with 1 aux input. I don't think I've ever seen a domestic amp with multiple aux inputs. Is there any solution given that we have just one aux input.


----------



## Technologist (8 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> Not at all - 6 years old - Pioneer amp/CD/tuner with 1 aux input. I don't think I've ever seen a domestic amp with multiple aux inputs. Is there any solution given that we have just one aux input.



That's a very basic system. Mine's got 8 analogue inputs and four digital.

You'll need some kind of external switching uint. Try Peats.


----------



## BillK (9 Jan 2006)

Delighted to report that the very helpful guy at the Bose retailer made up a cable for me with a scart at one end and the 3 jack plugs at the other.
The scart went onto the AV2 socket and the jack plucks were inserted into the AUX sockets. Great result.

He also programmed the Bose remote controller so that it now controls the TV on/off switch and the channel changer.

Charged me a tenner for the cable which I thought was pretty good.

Thanks again to all who responded.
BillK


----------



## MonsieurBond (9 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> Not at all - 6 years old - Pioneer amp/CD/tuner with 1 aux input. I don't think I've ever seen a domestic amp with multiple aux inputs. Is there any solution given that we have just one aux input.



What is the model no. of the amp?


----------



## RainyDay (9 Jan 2006)

BillK said:
			
		

> Delighted to report that the very helpful guy at the Bose retailer made up a cable for me with a scart at one end and the 3 jack plugs at the other.
> The scart went onto the AV2 socket and the jack plucks were inserted into the AUX sockets. Great result.


AV2 on the DVD or on the TV? If on the DVD, what happens to the sound if you are watching a normal TV channel, and not a DVD?



			
				MonsieurBond said:
			
		

> What is the model no. of the amp?


[broken link removed], but no cassette with mine.


----------



## legend99 (10 Jan 2006)

Just to be precise. You have to have a Sky+ box(as opposed to ordinary Sky box) to be able to feed 5.1 sound out from Sky. And its only a few movies on Sky Movies 1 that are broadcast in 5.1 surround as far as I know. Not every movie on every channel. 

Personally, I have a combined DVD/VCR/Amp machine that I got last year in Lidl. Passive woofer but I think its 100W woofer and about 60w on each of the main speakers. I just use the scart out on the Sky box into the Scart in on the Lidl machine. Its not actual true 5.1 sound on the channels, but the sound is a vast improvement on TV speakers as the speakers have much better range/bass sounds. Especially for explosions in movies etc.


----------



## MonsieurBond (10 Jan 2006)

RainyDay said:
			
		

> AV2 on the DVD or on the TV? If on the DVD, what happens to the sound if you are watching a normal TV channel, and not a DVD?
> 
> 
> [broken link removed], but no cassette with mine.


RainyDay, I did some Googling on this early this morning. This unit appears to be a mini-system, rather than a system of separates. As such, it presumably has custom connections between the Amp/CD player (XC-L7), the Stereo Cassette Deck(CT-L7), and Speaker system (S-L7). 

As such, I do not think you can not plug in external CD players to these inputs. Most separate amps have various inputs labelled for common uses such as CD players, DVD players, with some generic inputs sometimes labelled Auxiliary. (You can tell if the connections are not standard i.e. not RCA, digital or coaxial inputs.)

This mini-system appears to only support Pioneer components (such as the above-mentioned CT-L7 and the Mini Disc (MD-L7), but not components from other manufacturers.

There appears to be only one input, the AUX one, which is probably two RCA stereo jacks (red and white for stereo right and left).

As Technologist suggests below, if you buy a RCA splitter, you will be able to choose the different inputs on the splitter, and thus choose between your DVD player and your TV.

*Alternative Sulution (requires testing)*
 [FONT=&quot]Your TV probably has two SCARTs; one input and output and one output only. Call them AV1 and AV2 for convenience.

You are connecting your DVD to the TV on AV1 (SCART input), with both audio and video signal) in order to get the picture and sound.
[/FONT] _[FONT=&quot]
([/FONT]_[FONT=&quot]_True AV amps will allow you to connect everything to the amp and have one connection to the TV, but purists will argue that you should connect the DVD directly to the TV in order to have the shortest signal path.)_

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]If you connect the TV's AV2 SCART Output to the Aux input on your mini-system, then this should allow you to watch TV channels while outputting the sound to your Pioneer mini-system (switched to the Aux input).

When you play a DVD, the TV should switch to the AV1 channel when it gets an input signal through the SCART.  The TV *may *also output the picture and sound and also play DVDs in Stereo on your mini-system, which will probably sound better than through your TV speakers. (I doubt if Macrovision copy protection is implemented on a TV; this is usually only implemented on recorders such as VCRs and DVD recorders.)

I suggest you give this a try.[/FONT]


----------



## BillK (10 Jan 2006)

RainyDay,

The scart goes to the AV2 socket on the TV,with the 3 jack plugs going to the Bose Unit.
The TV has AV1 & AV2 scart sockets and the Bose unit has Video input and output sockets together with 4 pairs of audio sockets.
I select dvd/cd on the Bose to play music or films; Video1 to watch analogue channels on the TV with sound through the Bose; Auxiliary to watch digital channels with sound via the Bose and haven't found any else to play via the Video2 slot on the Bose.
Brilliant kit but not cheap; we went to their outlet at Bicester village in Oxfordshire and bought the kit there at a £300+ discount as it was a rebox from a trial. (Bose give a free 30 day trial on all their kit.) Still cost nearly £900 but worth it.


----------

