# TiVo Mini and Digital Optical audio



## sneagle (Jun 12, 2002)

I am a little confused about this. What I am trying to do is run HDMI from the Mini to my TV then use the Digital Optical out to a receiver. Perhaps this is not possible. 

Experimenting a little with different Mini and TV settings, I found that I only get sound from the TV to the receiver IF the TV output is set to PCM. Not ideal.

Also, when I do get sound, it is delayed and not sync'd to the video. Obviously not good. 

Lastly, it seems regardless of the settings, I get the TiVo sound effects. These too are delayed.

So, it seems that this is not possible. Should it be?


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

sneagle said:


> I am a little confused about this. What I am trying to do is run HDMI from the Mini to my TV then use the Digital Optical out to a receiver. Perhaps this is not possible.
> 
> Experimenting a little with different Mini and TV settings, I found that I only get sound from the TV to the receiver IF the TV output is set to PCM. Not ideal.
> 
> ...


This may be related. If you select PCM and not Dolby on a Roamio, sound effects will always be heard if enabled. If Dolby is enabled, they stop happening when live TV is displayed. Since a Mini doesn't have a live window, you get sound effects. Further information is outside my scope since I have never used a Mini to a TV with its speakers disabled.


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## JBDragon (Jan 4, 2004)

sneagle said:


> I am a little confused about this. What I am trying to do is run HDMI from the Mini to my TV then use the Digital Optical out to a receiver. Perhaps this is not possible.
> 
> Experimenting a little with different Mini and TV settings, I found that I only get sound from the TV to the receiver IF the TV output is set to PCM. Not ideal.
> 
> ...


Let me try to make this as simple as I can. The Optical port on your HDTV is really meant for use with the built in HD Tuner of your HDTV. This is how you would get 5.1 Surround sound to your Receiver using the built in Tuner of your HDTV when using a Antenna!!!

HDMI has DRM (Digital Rights Management) As such, while you can do what you are doing at get audio, I think the best you can get from it is Dolby Pro Logic II. Which is not true 5.1 surround sound. This is because of DRM from HDMI. I tried the same thing at first and then I noticed what my Surround Sound Unit display was showing. Which should have been Dolby Digital!!!

What you need to do is plug the HDMI directly into your Surround Sound Receiver!!! You'll then get 5.1 Dolby Digital. If you have a old receiver without HDMI ports then it can be a issue.

I have a pretty new one with 5 HDMI IN ports and the 1 HDMI Out port which goes to my HDMI1 port on my HDTV. I have all 5 ports filled and then I needed to add my new Tivo Roamio to it. What I ended up doing is getting a 3 port HDMI switch which has a little remote for it and add that to the system. I pulled one of my HDMI cables to free up a slot, plugged the HDMI Out switch into that free port, and then Plug in the cable I pulled into that HDMI switch, and then plugged the Tivo into another free port of the switch. I still have one free port left now. I've been using a Harmony 900 Remote. It does RF to IR and so I can use Mini IR Blasters and I attached one to my new HDMI switch that's in the back hidden. I had to add the new Tivo and the new HDMI Switch into the Harmony software and then Program what Inputs everything needed.

The HDMI switch I got was from Monoprice.com. part# is MP-SW03 which is a 3 port HDMI switch. I also a few years ago got a couple 5 port HDMI switches from Monoprice.com. Almost the same thing. These are used in the Bedrooms.

Now if you don't have HDMI Inputs for your Receiver because it's older, that's OK also. Monoprice has a BOX just for you. It's called a HDMI Audio Converter, Part#10251. You should then be able to plug your TIVO (Mini) into this Box HDMI Input. Then plug the HDMI Output to your HDTV!!! On the Box there's a Optical Out port. Use this to plug into your Surround sound receiver!!! This will then output the Dolby Digital Audio for you!!!

A lot of people don't realize this stuff. They plug their Tivo in their TV and a PS3 into another free HDMI port on the TV and something else, and then use the optical port on the TV and plug that into the Receiver and don't realize they aren't getting true surround sound from anything!!! My Receiver would show Dolby Pro Logic II doing that!!! Except from any TV programs if your watch TV from the TV's built in TUNER, which you aren't doing if you have a TIVO!!!

PCM I believe is Surround sound, but the TV is doing the processing of the surround sound, not your Receiver, so your Receiver won't display what type of Surround sound it's getting!!! It's doing no processing, it's just spitting out the surround sound that it gets from the TV. This is a way to get around the DRM of HDMI I guess. When the PS3 came out and had Blu-Ray, HDMI was still kind of new, having a Receiver with HDMI Inputs and that supported Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio was still rare for Blu-Ray, and so PCM was used to get the full Surround sound from a Blu-Ray movie. Until you upgraded to a newer receiver that supported the new Audio formats and had HDMI in ports. After that you didn't need to use PCM, it was now Bitstream I believe and the Receiver did the Processing and would now show TrueHD or DTS Master Audio for a Blu-Ray or Dolby Digital or DTS for a DVD or lesser audio formats.

I hope I didn't confuse you to much. Any questions just ask.


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## JoeKustra (Dec 7, 2012)

JBDragon said:


> Let me try to make this as simple as I can. The Optical port on your HDTV is really meant for use with the built in HD Tuner of your HDTV. This is how you would get 5.1 Surround sound to your Receiver using the built in Tuner of your HDTV when using a Antenna!!!
> 
> I hope I didn't confuse you to much. Any questions just ask.


It must depend on the TV. Any 5.1 that my TV receives from the cable, HDMI or streaming (like Amazon) goes out the optical unchanged up to DD5.1 but not higher. It's not perfect but better than changing it to 2 channel. I leave the audio connected but I normally feed the AVR with HDMI from the source.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

JoeKustra said:


> It must depend on the TV. Any 5.1 that my TV receives from the cable, HDMI or streaming (like Amazon) goes out the optical unchanged up to DD5.1 but not higher. It's not perfect but better than changing it to 2 channel. I leave the audio connected but I normally feed the AVR with HDMI from the source.


yes most TVs only send stereo. But some will keep the DD5.1 intact.

Personally I just dumped optical many years ago to avoid these issues. My life has been much better with not having to deal with a mix of HDMi and the old legacy connections of optical and coaxial.


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## sneagle (Jun 12, 2002)

Thanks for the replies. My receiver does not have HDMI so I was trying to make a work around. Sadly, it won't work.


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

JoeKustra said:


> *It must depend on the TV. *Any 5.1 that my TV receives from the cable, HDMI or streaming (like Amazon) goes out the optical unchanged up to DD5.1 but not higher. It's not perfect but better than changing it to 2 channel. I leave the audio connected but I normally feed the AVR with HDMI from the source.


Correct. And determining if a TV you want to purchase has acceptable optical digital audio passthrough can be tough; I've found the best way is to hunt down a PDF of the model's owners manual before purchase, and dig.

e.g. See also this 2013 article from CNet and this older AVSforum thread.


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