Surround Sound

[lawrence567]

I would post this in the hi-fi or tv section but i need a fast response....
I'm after a home cinema system (surround jobbie).
What i want to know is it comes with a dvd player etc, but if im playing my xbox 360 will the sound come through the normal tv or the surround sound (i want it to come through the surround sound).

Cheers

[cottonfoo]

You'll just need to make sure it has an optical in, and that your XBox has an optical out.

[lawrence567]

Pass to both of those....
I have an HDMI cable from the xbox to the TV.
Surely the cable from the SS would go to the TV then if the SS is turned on the xbox would play the sound via the TV to the SS?

[Hedders]

lawrence567 said:

Pass to both of those....
I have an HDMI cable from the xbox to the TV.
Surely the cable from the SS would go to the TV then if the SS is turned on the xbox would play the sound via the TV to the SS?

[jimmyjimjim]

If the only connection form the xbox is to the tv via hdmi, then you're not involving the surround sound box at all, so it would be fairly optimistic to expect xbox sound to come out from it.

If you can set the xobox to send sound out via optical digital to the surround sound box as well as picture out via hdmi, then put the optical digital to the surround sound box, then you'll be laughing.

The other options would be to take an audio output from the tv to the surround sound box, so that you hhave thhe option of running everything heard from the tv via surround sound (with tv volume set to 0), or to invest in a surround sound amp with hdmi inputs.

[hornetrider]

Hedders said:

lawrence567 said:

Pass to both of those....
I have an HDMI cable from the xbox to the TV.
Surely the cable from the SS would go to the TV then if the SS is turned on the xbox would play the sound via the TV to the SS?

Two connections.

Sound: Xbox > SS via optical
Video: Xbox > TV via HDMI/Component (whichever your Xbox has)

[Raverbaby]

I've just rigged my ps3 up to surround sound. What a difference, I'm pretty sure the neighbours think so too
I think its best to use the optical connection (as suggested above) to achieve 5.1. I presume the xbox supports 5.1/surround?
You can also put your sky/cable box and your pc through it using other ouptuts ( AV/Aux etc )
Although the surround feature will only work if your source supports it, otherwise it'll only come out in stereo through front/centre/sub woofer speakers. ( I think )

[Hedders]

hornetrider said:

Hedders said:

lawrence567 said:

Pass to both of those....
I have an HDMI cable from the xbox to the TV.
Surely the cable from the SS would go to the TV then if the SS is turned on the xbox would play the sound via the TV to the SS?

Two connections.

Sound: Xbox > SS via optical
Video: Xbox > TV via HDMI/Component (whichever your Xbox has)

Jesus, i used to do this stuff for a living too..it has got so complicated!

[mackie1]

Or you could get an AV amp that takes the audio over HDMI in which case:

XBox --HDMI--> Amp --HDMI--> TV

The all-in-one boxes are generally quite limited and only have an optical in. As a half way house to a proper setup I'd recommend the Sony HT-SS1300.

[Glade]

I've got a cheap 1 box system. where you have to connect as per instructions above.

some surround sound amps will have HDMI pass through. which means one HDMI from surround to TV. then components e.g. xbox, sky connected to surround sound.


You just need to make sure that the surroudn system you buy has enough inpouts and they are switchable. mine has 1x optical in and 1x digital coax. The optical takes priority soooo you need to turn off the component connected via optical to hear the one connected by coax.

It works better than it sounds, and if the HDMI control works you only need one remote. I can run the whole thing off the sky remote as turning the TV on with it, brings on the surround automatically etc.