Sky HD and Philips Cineos incompatibility?

seanbirkhead

Hi,
I'm looking for some help on what I think may be an incompatibility.

I had a Sky HD box installed yesterday and my TV is a Philips 42PFL9732. Previous to the HD install I had an optical to coaxial converter conneced to my SKY+ box which was providing a Dolby Digital surround sound feed to the TV. This was working fine and providing a very much improved sound output above the normal feed provided by the standart SCART connection.

After the HD install all the connections remained the same except now I obviously use a HDMI connection from the HD box to the TV.
The problem now is that I cannot get a Dolby Digital sound feed no matter what I try.
I have programmed the TV to tell it the "digital in" feed is now to be assiciated with the HDMI input and I have specified that the HDMI input is a HD set top box but the TV still reports a Stereo input rather than the "3,2" or "2,0" input I was used to.
The strange thing is that if I revert to connecting the HD box by SCART and then specifying that the Digital input is asscoiated with the SCART connection I then get the DD sound!
This implies that there is no fault with the optical output of the HD box or the converter so I suspect there is something to do with the HDMI output assocaited with the digital input to the TV.

Apologies for the long post but I was trying to provide as much info as possible.
Any suggestions as to how I can get a the digital sound input working with the HDMI connection would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sean

seanbirkhead

I read this on the Philips web site but while it implies that I should still get surround sound via the HDMI cable I still don't seem to be able :
===============================================================
Philips Cineos Flat TV 42PFL9732D 42" LCD integrated digital with Perfect Pixel HD Engine and Ambilight Surround
42PFL9732D/10 Connection
Question
I have no digital audio out on the S/PDIF when using the HDMI connection.

Answer
If your media device is connected with an HDMI cable to your TV, you might not have digital sound on the S/PDIF connector.

This cinch connector is usually labeled 'Digital Audio out'.

This is the case when your media source (DVD, Blu-ray, ...) is protected with HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection), and is due to legal requirements.

You will however still be able to enjoy digital sound and video with your TV via the use of an HDMI-cable.

In certain cases, the signal on the S/PDIF connector will transform your digital signal to a lower specified format automatically.

The sound quality of analog outputs is not restricted in any way.

watty

Almost all channels are just stereo and no difference with optical out to SCART except on some Sky Movie channels and some Box office.

Your TV may have been doing something creative with coax digital audio, which is identical content and quality to SCART unless there is 5.1 data transmitted.

Dolby 2.0 can be carried on SCART or any stereo channel. Mostly TV sound and all radio that is 2ch, is actually just Stereo.

spockety

Sky HD boxes do not send DD over the HDMI output.

The only way to get DD 5.1 from a Sky HD box is through the optical output.

HDMI out is stereo only from a Sky HD box.

seanbirkhead

That's correct and what I was trying to do was set the television to associate the digitial audio input coming from the optical output of the sky box with the HDMI input of the TV. If effect I was telling the TV to get it's sound input from the digital audio in rather than from the HDMI. I spent a long time on the phone to Philips and in the end their answer was that despite the fact that it is possible to program the TV to accept a different sound input when using the HDMI connection the TV is ignoring that and still trying to atke the audio input from the HDMI cable.
The agent I was speaking to has said he will escalate internally to see if a software update can be released to fix this but for now it seems I will not be able to have HD picture with surround sound with this model of TV unless I go and invest in a home theatre system!

dmeehan

how can you get surround sound/5.1 through a tv? how many speakers does it (the telly) have?

watty

You need a proper surround sound amp and decent speakers otherwise even mono is OK.

spockety

seanbirkhead wrote: »

That's correct and what I was trying to do was set the television to associate the digitial audio input coming from the optical output of the sky box with the HDMI input of the TV. If effect I was telling the TV to get it's sound input from the digital audio in rather than from the HDMI. I spent a long time on the phone to Philips and in the end their answer was that despite the fact that it is possible to program the TV to accept a different sound input when using the HDMI connection the TV is ignoring that and still trying to atke the audio input from the HDMI cable.
The agent I was speaking to has said he will escalate internally to see if a software update can be released to fix this but for now it seems I will not be able to have HD picture with surround sound with this model of TV unless I go and invest in a home theatre system!

Ah, I understand. Sounds like a possible software problem with your TV then.

As a matter of interest, and as others have already asked, does your TV have more than 2 speaker outputs, that you can position in a 5.1 setup?

seanbirkhead

spockety wrote: »

Ah, I understand. Sounds like a possible software problem with your TV then.

As a matter of interest, and as others have already asked, does your TV have more than 2 speaker outputs, that you can position in a 5.1 setup?

So, the television has four speakers and performs what Philips call "Virtual Dolby" . It probably angles the sound to bounce it around the room behind the viewer somehow. The purists will probably rubbish it but there is a noticible difference when this "virtual dolby" is fed with a 3/2 input.
Here is the offical blurb from Philips:

"•Sound Enhancement:
Digital Signal Processing, Graphic Equalizer, Dynamic Bass Enhancement
•Sound System: Virtual Dolby Digital, BBE
Loudspeakers:
•Built-in speakers: 4
•Loudspeaker types: Integrated woofers with wOOx, Dome tweeter"

On top of that I have a pair or rear speakers being fed from the Audio output of the TV. So, the sound improvement IS really that drastic (even with the rear speakers turned off) that I really do not want to lose it in favor of HD picture. I would obviously prefer both. I do realise that it is really only any use for Movies etc. which is really only what is broadcast in Dolby.

Finally after a couple of days back and forth with Philips it would appear that spockety is probably correct. A customer service rep believes that the TV may be ignorning the fact that I am associating the digital audio in with the HDMI input and instead is insisting on taking the audio from the HDMI source. This would explain what has already been pointed out i.e. there is no Dolby Digital sound on the Sky HDMI output for "Copyright Reasons". He is escalating with the software team internally to see if a TV firmware fix can be made available (instalable via USB thankfully!).

To add a final spanner to the works here is the description of the digital audio input from the Philips manual :
"Digital Audio In (if present) :
Sound input cinch connector for use with any
of the HDMI connectors with a HDMI to DVI
adaptor".

That's a little confusing in that the TV does NOT have a DVI input so why would you convert HDMI to DVI? However, to me this still really implies that I should be able to use this digital audio source in conjunction with HDMI input.......

I'll update if Philips come back with anything more.......

watty

Some "boxes" / computers have DVI out. DVI has no audio. The DVI --> HDMI gives video but no sound. Hence you then use a separate pair of "cinch" (AKA RCA or phone or analogue coax) for the stereo.

I rather also suspect that if you hear any difference on non-Movie channels, then the Philips TV is doing its own "creative effects" with one audio input and not with the other.

Really there should ONLY be ANY difference between analogue stereo/SCART, Digital RCA/Optical or HDMI audio on 5.1 material and no difference at all on other programs, unless for wierd reasons the philips only does it's fake surround/Dolby 2.0 processing on one input.

craichoe

seanbirkhead wrote: »

Hi,
I'm looking for some help on what I think may be an incompatibility.

I had a Sky HD box installed yesterday and my TV is a Philips 42PFL9732. Previous to the HD install I had an optical to coaxial converter conneced to my SKY+ box which was providing a Dolby Digital surround sound feed to the TV. This was working fine and providing a very much improved sound output above the normal feed provided by the standart SCART connection.

After the HD install all the connections remained the same except now I obviously use a HDMI connection from the HD box to the TV.
The problem now is that I cannot get a Dolby Digital sound feed no matter what I try.
I have programmed the TV to tell it the "digital in" feed is now to be assiciated with the HDMI input and I have specified that the HDMI input is a HD set top box but the TV still reports a Stereo input rather than the "3,2" or "2,0" input I was used to.
The strange thing is that if I revert to connecting the HD box by SCART and then specifying that the Digital input is asscoiated with the SCART connection I then get the DD sound!
This implies that there is no fault with the optical output of the HD box or the converter so I suspect there is something to do with the HDMI output assocaited with the digital input to the TV.

Apologies for the long post but I was trying to provide as much info as possible.
Any suggestions as to how I can get a the digital sound input working with the HDMI connection would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sean

What happens if you pull out the scart cable ? Does the sound still work while its on that channel ? OR ... if you pull the optical cable while using SCART does the sound stop working ?

Perhaps its just stereo coming over scart and the Virtual Dolby stuff is doing its thang

seanbirkhead

craichoe wrote: »

What happens if you pull out the scart cable ? Does the sound still work while its on that channel ? OR ... if you pull the optical cable while using SCART does the sound stop working ?

Perhaps its just stereo coming over scart and the Virtual Dolby stuff is doing its thang

When I pull the Scart there is no difference.

There is an info button on the remote which displays the current video and audio formats. With this info screen on view while using SCART and optical the picture format is "Analog" and the sound is "Digital 3/2" . When I pull the optical while watching SCART the info screen immediately changes from "Digital 3/2" to "Analog Stereo" i.e. the sound reverts to what is coming from the SCART rather than the optical.