360 and surround sound

Alnilam

So I have my 360 running at 720p on my nice big telly using the "HD-AV component cable" so it's got the 3 video connectors for me HD and then 2 phono connectors for audio. I'm thinking I might buy myself a new surround sound system but how do you get "Dolby® Digital 5.1 surround sound output" out of 2 phono connectors?

Now there may be some people out there who are more familiar with this surround sound stuff than me, I would be very grateful for your help as I've been living in a stereo world for a long time

mrbungle

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/675/675615p1.html

You'll need to get yourself an optical cable for optimum performance, thats 1 option should you opt for it !!

Alnilam

mrbungle wrote:

You'll need to get yourself an optical cable for optimum performance, thats 1 option should you opt for it !!

I think I'm missing something here, as I don't remember seeing an optical connector on the 360.

mrbungle

It's on the HD-AV cable, READ THE F-ING LINK !!!

Dont be at yourself

Play nice.

Alnilam

mrbungle wrote:

It's on the HD-AV cable, READ THE F-ING LINK !!!

Jeebus man calm down you'll only give yerself a heart attack!

That prolly explains why i didn't see one on the 360 though, weird thing is I don't recall seeing it on the cable either but I'll check it when I get home tonight

monkeyfudge

Yep.. the opitcal port is on the back of the connecter that goes into the Xbox360.

I've used it with my surround system and the quality is great.

I've got the the Joytech VGA cable in the post to me at the moment and it comes with built in optical lead which is pretty good value as the whole thing is costing me only £11.99.

Alnilam

monkeyfudge wrote:

Yep.. the opitcal port is on the back of the connecter that goes into the Xbox360.

I've used it with my surround system and the quality is great.

Ah OK, this opens up another can of worms for me though As I would prefer to connect my MCE PC via optical. I guess this means that I need a surround receiver with multiple optical connections, I'm thinking this is going to get expensive for that matter does such a beast even exist in the sub-"giz yer kidney and yer right leg" price bracket?

GrumPy

thats a proper peice of kit, i have the older model, and its great for xbox, this one have 3 opticals

monkeyfudge

Irish GrumPy wrote:

thats a proper peice of kit, i have the older model, and its great for xbox, this one have 3 opticals

Ooooh... very nice...

My credit card hates you now!

Alnilam

Irish GrumPy wrote:

thats a proper peice of kit, i have the older model, and its great for xbox, this one have 3 opticals

OK, bear with me and please feel free to draw pictures in crayon for me:D, cause I'm new to surround.

Essentially I get the decoder thingy and connect the MCE PC and the 360 to the optical inputs and the optical out from that to my surround receiver?

GrumPy

you buy the shiny silver thing, connect it to sub, and speakers, and connect a optical cable from the back of the video cable on the 360 (little hole on the bit that goes into the console) and connectthe other end of the optical, to one of the three on the back of the shiny silver thingy set it to digital, and you got yourself dolby 5.1 360 = :eek: :v: :cool:

GrumPy

monkeyfudge wrote:

Ooooh... very nice...

My credit card hates you now!

yeah, its nice i got the older model, thats a really good deal for €120.

god's toy

I use an older model too 'DTT3500' it's a few years old now so only one optical input and one digital but it's full 5.1 and sounds very nice with good HQ speakers.

Alnilam

Irish GrumPy wrote:

you buy the shiny silver thing, connect it to sub, and speakers, and connect a optical cable from the back of the video cable on the 360 (little hole on the bit that goes into the console) and connectthe other end of the optical, to one of the three on the back of the shiny silver thingy set it to digital, and you got yourself dolby 5.1 360 = :eek: :v: :cool:

Wot, no Crayons

But seriously thanks for that, now I know what I need to do and buy, it's time to consult the wise and noble lord bank balance to see just how much I can spend on speakers

monkeyfudge

Irish GrumPy wrote:

you buy the shiny silver thing, connect it to sub, and speakers, and connect a optical cable from the back of the video cable on the 360 (little hole on the bit that goes into the console) and connectthe other end of the optical, to one of the three on the back of the shiny silver thingy set it to digital, and you got yourself dolby 5.1 360 = :eek: :v: :cool:

haha... this is like watching one of those Sky adverts with the dog and the duck.

Alnilam

I just remembered something, when I was setting up the analog audio on the 360 it gave me 2 options 'Mono' or 'Dolby surround'(or something similar, it was at least a week ago:D) does that mean that it can send the surround info through the analog 'L-R' connectors at analog quality to be upmixed by the receiver or is that just wishful thinking?

GrumPy

wishful thinking buddy, all it means is, if you set the xbox to dolby 5.1, sound will output through optical only.

Alnilam

Ah well, shure twas worth askin anywho

Furp

The Analogue Dolby Surround Option will be Dolby ProLogic which is an analogue stereo signal with surround encoding.

A Dolby ProLogic reciever can then seperate the Channels into Left-Centre-Right-Rear Surrounds.

Whereas a Dolby Digital Signal encodes the sound into a bitstream and this contains almost CD Quality sound for each speaker, but it is much more accurate then pro logic as each speaker has its own channel, so you have going clockwise.

Left Front-Centre-Right Front-Right Rear-Left Rear and a dedicated Subwoofer.

This explanation is only basic and if you go to www.dolby.com there is lots of info there.

I have my Xbox 360 hooked up in my living room to a Sony Amp Dolby Digital-DTS reciever it has a couple of Optical connections and digital coax for the digital signals, its great considering that its about 4-5 years old now that it had these connections.

I have it hooked up to 100watt speakers all round and a dedicated active subwoofer the sound is amazing in PGR3 but I I'm afraid to turn the volume past 4. Its the first time I've played an Xbox game with DD surround, I dont; know why i never did it with the original xbox.

Davexirl

So if I buy the Creative Decoder it should work with my surround sound system here http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00027YIAO/qid=1135955622/br=3-7/br_lfncs_ce_7/026-4694652-4492429

Is it easy to set up????

FrankGrimes

I bought the Joytech Advanced Scart cable and it arrived today. It comes with an optical audio cable which I plugged into the back of the connector block hooked up to the Xbox 360.

I then connected the other end of the optical audio cable to the optical audio input of my Philips 5.1 system. This is not as tight a fit as at the connector block end, but the cable does seem to be fully in and staying in place. I switched the video cable to the scart setting and hooked the scart end up to my TV.

I went into the 'System' blade in xbox guide, clicked Audio -> Digital Audio and selected Dolby 5.1, then restarted xbox.

I turned my Philips home cinema system on to Auxilary Digital input (as instruced by manual) and yet I get no sound. I am still getting sound through the TV. Any ideas whats going on? Thanks, I mainly bought the cable for the Dolby 5.1 sound so really want to get this sorted.

GrumPy

Firstly, disconnect the audio from your tv (white, red) make sure xbox is set to dolby digital output, and connect the optical cable from xbox av lead, to the input of your 5.1 system, set the system to DIGITAL, not aux, or depending on the system, auxilary digital or something similar.

FrankGrimes

thanks grumpy.

My DVD system manual told me to turn it to 'Auxillary Digital' but this didn't work, when I changed to TV/AV input it worked, and dammit it sounds mighty fine

patch

Where did you guys find the Joytech Advanced Scart cable cheapest?
Cheers..

Julez

I got mine for €19.99 on play.com, if you leave the currency on pounds tho it works out at about €17 or something!

Gilgamesh

might even want to look in if your HTPC has an optical in, if so, you can pass the sound through there, catch is, you need to leave the PC on

mrbig

mrbungle wrote:

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/675/675615p1.html

You'll need to get yourself an optical cable for optimum performance, thats 1 option should you opt for it !!

Wrong the sound quality is inferior check your facts before posting

Alnilam

mrbig wrote:

Wrong the sound quality is inferior check your facts before posting

I'm Kinda puzzled by this statement, can you explain your thinking on this or post a link or 2 to back this up, Conventional wisdom dictates that a digital optical cable will deliver a better signal to your amp than any analog connection can possibly provide

Linoge

Alnilam wrote:

I'm Kinda puzzled by this statement, can you explain your thinking on this or post a link or 2 to back this up, Conventional wisdom dictates that a digital optical cable will deliver a better signal to your amp than any analog connection can possibly provide

Because digital encodes and then decodes you can loose some sound quality or its just not as rich (even though it is technically does not lose any information). Kinda, but not to the same extent as the difference between live and cd quality.

If you are using cheap equipment you may be better with optical, but if you have got expensive analogue connectors and leads they are the way to go.

Alnilam

Linoge wrote:

Because digital encodes and then decodes you can loose some sound quality or its just not as rich (even though it is technically does not lose any information). Kinda, but not to the same extent as the difference between live and cd quality.

If you are using cheap equipment you may be better with optical, but if you have got expensive analogue connectors and leads they are the way to go.

Ahm that's only the case if the audio is coming from an analog source like Vinyl or a cassette as I understand it the audio on the X-box is natively Dolby Digitally and then outputted to either the Digital optical (no conversion) or the analog connectors (with Digital to analog (DA) convertion) I could of course be wrong about that but I'm sure someone will correct me on that if I am.

Linoge

Alnilam wrote:

I'm sure someone will correct me on that if I am.

lol, as sure as death and taxes:)

Idleater

Alnilam wrote:

Ahm that's only the case if the audio is coming from an analog source like Vinyl or a cassette as I understand it the audio on the X-box is natively Dolby Digitally and then outputted to either the Digital optical (no conversion) or the analog connectors (with Digital to analog (DA) convertion) I could of course be wrong about that but I'm sure someone will correct me on that if I am.

I think you are correct.

The Optical digital out is used for the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, the RCA (red/white) cables are stereo LR sound.

There is no way that you can get DD 5.1 from the analog red/white phono plugs so in this case the optical lead does provide better sound.

If MrBig wants to be discuss the quality of Optical vs Coaxial for DD 5.1 then thats for another thread...

L.

mrbig

nereid wrote:

I think you are correct.

The Optical digital out is used for the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, the RCA (red/white) cables are stereo LR sound.

There is no way that you can get DD 5.1 from the analog red/white phono plugs so in this case the optical lead does provide better sound.

If MrBig wants to be discuss the quality of Optical vs Coaxial for DD 5.1 then thats for another thread...

L.

The signal to noise ratio on an optical cable is excelent however the standard sampling frequencies accommodated are limited by the bitrate,
that means the frequency response is limited and over all sound quality is reduced in favour of less noise.

ps. acording to Dolby every Dolby Digital decoder also provides a Dolby Pro Logic-compatible stereo signal on its analog outputs. so you can use the rca outputs for dolby 5.1