Optical-In To RCA

Basq

Have a home cinema audio related problem.. and i'm a bit of a novice when it comes to this stuff.

Am after getting a new surround sound system - as seen here!

Would like to hook it up to my XBOX - so i've to buy one of these fancy advanced scart-cables - as seen here!

But my realised my surround system does not have an optical in... it simply has two sections - 'Audio In' and 'Audio Out'. Both with 6 inputs for RCA Plugs (Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, Rear Right, Center and Woofer). I realise 'Audio Out' is for the actual speakers which means i need six connections for the 'Audio In'.

Bit of a longshot but any way around this? Is there any plug capable of converting the optical-in from the scart cable into a 6 plug RCA type system?

Many thanks in advance!

Slaphead07

basquille wrote:

Bit of a longshot but any way around this? Is there any plug capable of converting the optical-in from the scart cable into a 6 plug RCA type system?

Not that I know of.... it's a digital signal and you're trying to convert to analogue. No worky.

If it doesn't have optical in does it have a coaxial in? Both are digital but the coaxial will look exactly like an RCA socket but should be labelled "digital". Otherwise your "surround sound" sytem is only Dolby Pro Logic and not actually digital at all.

Where does the scart come into it?

GristlyEnd

Do you have a receiver or amplifier for the system you bought? If it was a dolby digital/dts system it would have an optical or coaxial input.

The six inputs on your system are for 6 outputs from a dvd player with a built in decoder.

Basq

Cheers for the quick reply.

Slaphead07 wrote:

Not that I know of.... it's a digital signal and you're trying to convert to analogue. No worky.

Yeah.. i thought as much!

Slaphead07 wrote:

If it doesn't have optical in does it have a coaxial in? Both are digital but the coaxial will look exactly like an RCA socket but should be labelled "digital". Otherwise your "surround sound" sytem is only Dolby Pro Logic and not actually digital at all.

No.. the only connections on it are the 5 as stated in the 'Audio In' section. (i.e in other words, the input connections in 'Audio In' and 'Audio Out' seem to be the same) - 5 RCA plugs for Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, Rear Right (etc). As you can see on the product sheet data sheet here in the diagram marked 'Connections'.

Seems odd that they can market it as Dolby 5.1 Ch if it is indeed Pro Logic.. i presume these are vastly different.

Slaphead07 wrote:

Where does the scart come into it?

I presume the scart is for video, whereas the optical-in is for audio.

You can see a diagram in the EBay link of the scart cable. The basic idea of it is that one end goes into a XBox Console and the other connections allow a 5.1 Surround System to be setup with audio output from the XBOX going to your system.

I'm really lost by it all... probably better asked when i actually recieve the actual scart cable and can take a better photo and get an idea of what connections are available and such. Will be very annoyed if it's not possible though!

DarrenG wrote:

Do you have a receiver or amplifier for the system you bought? If it was a dolby digital/dts system it would have an optical or coaxial input.

The inputs as stated are on the back of my subwoofer.

DarrenG wrote:

The six inputs on your system are for 6 outputs from a dvd player with a built in decoder.

Yeah.. this seems to be what the manual suggests but does this mean it can only be hooked up to a DVD Player, and not any other type of system?

Basq

Just to clarify what i've said so far... i'll take a decent photo of the connections on the back of my subwoofer and label them each, and put up the photo here tomorrow.

godtabh

Slaphead07 wrote:

Not that I know of.... it's a digital signal and you're trying to convert to analogue. No worky.

I thought you could go digital-> analogue but not analogue to digital? Or am I total missing the point?

Slaphead07

kearnsr wrote:

I thought you could go digital-> analogue but not analogue to digital?

You could be right but in this case it's a no no

kearnsr wrote:

Or am I total missing the point?

Not being smart but kinda. Conversion isn't the issue. A digital source should be going to an AV amp by either optical or coaxial digital signal... the outputs/inputs on that amp seem to be analogue.

Idleater

basquille wrote:

Just to clarify what i've said so far... i'll take a decent photo of the connections on the back of my subwoofer and label them each, and put up the photo here tomorrow.

What you need is one of these decoders.

Optical and Coax digital input, 6x analogue output.

L.

Basq

Cheers for that nereid.. can't find many places online to buy. You know of any?

Best i could find was a place in New Zealand here which works out at about €53. Anyone know of anywhere else to buy it or a alternative?

Oh.. and at the last minute this morning, i took some very poor quality photos of the connections using the phone on my camera. You can (barely) make out connections but i've labelled exactly what they say above each.



This is both a more wide shot showing the 'Audio In' on the left with no connections and 'Audio Out' on the left showing all the connections streaming out to the individual speakers.

godtabh

Slaphead07 wrote:

You could be right but in this case it's a no no


Not being smart but kinda. Conversion isn't the issue. A digital source should be going to an AV amp by either optical or coaxial digital signal... the outputs/inputs on that amp seem to be analogue.

I was thinking in terms of something like DDTS 100. I was going to buy one for the orginal xbox but didnt.

Idleater

basquille wrote:

Cheers for that nereid.. can't find many places online to buy. You know of any?

I bought mine in Maplin a couple of years ago.

I am toying with the idea of selling my Amp and the decoder so that might be an option.

L.

Basq

OK.. am looking into buying the Creative DDTS-100. Looks like my best bet, albeit also quite hard to find (as the US Creative Store sells them but not the Irish Creative Store).

Can someone who owns in (or knows a bit more about it) just confirm before i buy it that it does do what i want? (i.e converts the digital-in cable to the 6 RCA plugs needed to feed to my speaker connections)

Thanks in advance.

Basq

Last question... hope someone can help me answer this:

I don't fully understand how the Creative DDTS-100 will do the trick in my situation as i don't fully understand the connections. The optical cable will go into the 'Audio Input' section on it alright but the audio output only has the 3 connections (Front, Rear, Subwoofer / Rear Center) which then go to a switch box which have another 3 connections (FL / FR, RL / RR, C / SW).... so how do i use these 3 connections with the 5 connections i need to fill?

I've probably lost you here's one or two diagrams:

Diagram of Connections
Audio Input / Outputs on back of decoder

Idleater

basquille wrote:

so how do i use these 3 connections with the 5 connections i need to fill?

The three outputs FRONT, REAR, CENTRE/SUB/R CENTRE are Stereo connections.

i.e. the front stereo connector has two channels in it for Front Left + Right, the Rear has Rear Left + Right and the Centre is Centre and either rear centre or subwoofer.

Hope that makes sense.

you will need these kind of stereo to RCA adapters to fit your speaker set.

L.

Basq

Cheers nereid... makes sense now. I imagined i needed a adapters to split it in 2 alright.

Much appreciated.

Basq

One final question...

Would i be correct in assuming i need 3 of these stereo to RCA adapters to get the most outta the sound system?

FRONT --> Front Left, Front Right
REAR --> Rear Left, Rear Right
CENTRE/SUB/R CENTRE --> Centre, Subwoofer

Idleater

basquille wrote:

Would i be correct in assuming i need 3 of these

Yeah. Mine is straight forward 5.1 so I have 3 stereo jacks.

The one thing I am not certain about for the one you show is the Centre/Sub/R Centre one for 6.1/7.1.

I don't know how the 3 relate. Possibly you will have to find a 3RCA to 3.5mm triple jack type thing if such a thing exists.

That said, I might be completely wrong with how the box is wired up so you will just have to read up the manual.

L.

Wolff

Unklerosco is selling the creative decoder and 7.1 speakers on the general for sales section

Basq

Wollff wrote:

Unklerosco is selling the creative decoder and 7.1 speakers on the general for sales section

Yeah, spotted that.

Am in the process of buying one off deadfish though.

PS - rang Creative in Blanchardstown and they said the model was discontinued.. so no luck on that front.

Basq

Bump for this.. got my DDTS from deadfish.

Trying to hook up my external media hard-drive to it - there's coaxial ports on the external media hard-drive and the DDTS-100 at the back.

So i hooked up the coaxial from the hard drive to the coaxial input on the decoder. And then sent that signal to the switch-box via the three audio outputs and used three of those stereo to RCA jacks to connect to the 'audio output' on the back of the subwoofer.

Any idea what i'm doing wrong? Can do a diagram if above sounds confusing.

Basq

Scratch that - can get 2 outta the 3 connections working with it.

Either front and back (but no subwoofer), front and subwoofer (but no back)... and you get the picture!

Basq

OK.. i had the wrong mode selected on the DDTS. Now got the front left, right, rear left, rear right and centre working but the subwoofer still isn't working.

Guess nereid was on the money when he mentioned being unsure about the subwoofer.