PS3 optical sound problem solved!

VictoryGin1984

I've read about many people having problems getting sound via digital optical to work when hooking up their PS3 to an AV receiver. I myself had been having these problems until last night.

My PS3 is connected to my AV receiver via HDMI (the AV receiver is then connected to my TV via HDMI) and I wanted to use the digital optical for the sound rather than the HDMI (I had been told it would sound better than HDMI, and wanted to test this claim). However when attaching the optical cable and adjusting all the PS3 settings to use the digital optical for sound, and assigning the optical in on my receiver, I was left with no sound.

I searched the internet for an answer and found many people suffering the exact same problem, but there is an easy fix.

My receiver is an Onkyo TX-SR308, but the basic process will be the same for most receivers. Basically, the receiver has a priority setting for where to take the sound from for any given source. If you have connected a PS3 via HDMI (which carries both video and sound) the default setting on the receiver will be to use the HDMI for sound as well as video (this is why everything went silent when changing the PS3 settings, the HDMI was no longer carrying sound, but the receiver still expected it to).

What I had to do was press the audio button on my remote, and scroll down until I found the option to prioritise optical audio for this input. It now works perfectly.

Note that this is different to Sky HD boxes. The HDMI on these doesn't carry sound information so the receiver automatically searches the other potential sound inputs to find the optical in.

Hope this helps.

safcalibur

Thanks for the post mate but just curious as to why anyone would want sound via optical when they can get it over hdmi .  With the advantages of audio over hdmi (HD sound) plus having only one cable for both audio and visual I dont see the need to connect an additional optical cable.  Obviously if you have an amp that doesnt to do audio over hdmi then thats fine but the amp should auto detect this and switch to optical automatically (some need inputs assigning).  Never had a problem with this myself to be honest, but thanks anyway

Cheers

Saf

VictoryGin1984

Hi,

I basically wanted to do it to see if the claims I'd heard (that sound over optical are better than HDMI) were true (haven't had time to judge yet). When I found I couldn't, it prompted me to search the net.

I found loads of situations where people were connecting their PS3 to their receiver via a medium that could carry sound (for e.g. HDMI) but wanting to use the optical output for sound, but found they couldn't. A lot of this seemed to be getting blamed on the PS3, and I wanted to see if this was the case, or there was a simple fix.

It would appear that on my Onkyo receiver you have to state for each HDMI input the priority order for sound input. For the PS3 by default it looks for the sound via HDMI, even if you've set your PS3 to send the sound by optical. You then have to tell it to prioritise optical, and you get your sound.

I think a similar situation could exist for people connecting their PS3 by component but wanting the sound via optical (i.e. by default it will look for the sound on the component connection, unless you specify otherwise.)

It would appear that some AV receivers will automatically scan all assigned inputs for sound whereas some need pointing in the right direction.

After all that, I'll probably return to sound over HDMI for the convenience, just wanted to prove it wasn't going to beat me really!

andy1249

Most receivers default to sound over HDMI , because optical cannot carry the new HD audio codecs.

The HD codecs are uncompressed  ,and the optical  interface ( or co-ax , which has the same limitations )cannot carry this much data.

Dont know where you heard that sound over optical was better , but its just not true.

For the lower definition Dolby digital and DTS tracks , the data is the same , and sound quality depends on the DAC in your receiver  ,the actual data transfer interface doesnt come into it.

safcalibur

Hehe, sounds like something I would do!!!  Never one to shy away from a challenge lol!  Still puzzles me as to why, if you have a capable receiver, anyone would want to output their sound over optical.  I wonder in what way people seem to think sound via optical sounds better as i've never heard this!!  Given the increased bandwith of HDMI and with that its ability to transmit HD audio surely HDMI would be the way to go.  I've not noticed any difference between the two (but obviously thats not to say other people havent!).  Given that its a digital signal in both cases, i would'nt have thought there is a difference.

The only major bit of controversy I've come accross to do with something similar is peoples opinion on where the sound is decoded.  Some people prefer to bitstream the audio to their amp and let that decode it others prefer to do onboard decoding and send the sound to amp via pcm.  One camp swears blind that it definately does make a difference as to where the audio is decoded and the other says it doesnt!  I've heard arguments about HDMI jitter and how this can have an impact on the sound quality but nothing concrete.

Cheers

Saf

VictoryGin1984

Just from a guy working in a shop. He was a bit of a muppet, his exact phrase was "optical should be about 20% better". Just wanted to prove/disprove this, then came across the problem (which my stubborn streak had to solve).

Cheers for the information you've provided, gives me assurance that move back to HDMI is the right one.

andy1249

Ah yes , shop assistants , the main reason for about 50% of the threads started here.

VictoryGin1984

I actually ended up complaining about the guy in question to the MD of the business. I had gone in the shop to buy a Home Cinema system, and because my budget didn't stretch to the kit he wanted to sell me he gave me a pretty short shrift.

All sorted in the end, the MD was a top guy, offered me some discount on the gear I wanted, upgraded my speaker cable and chucked a couple of extra leads in too.

VictoryGin1984

Which camp do you fall into?

safcalibur

Personally I cant tell the difference but I always let my amp do the decoding as that it what it was designed for!!! (plus i like being able to look at the display and see what i'm listening to at a glance!) Have to have my stupid phat ps3 output via pcm otherwise i wont get HD audio which is a bit of a bummer as i'm yet to see the lovely blue light on my denon .

Cheers

Saf