Ok, newby to the in-depth world of home theater and have a question. I have a Yamaha 5650 receiver and have no problem hearing 5.1 from all speakers when playing DVD's. However, when a TV broadcast is in Dolby surround, there is my problem. When playing DVD's, the speaker indicators on the receiver all light up stating that all 6 speakers, with the sub, are receiving signal. But, when a dolby broadcast from the TV is on, only the main speaker indicator lights are on. Should they all be on when a dolby broadcast is coming through? I have the connections as follows: from the Comcast HD box, the three connectors (Blue, red, green) go into the component jacks on the back of my Samsung DLP. The optical cable is connected from the Comcast HD box to the Yamaha optical port. The red and white audio connectors from the audio out on the Comcast HD box go to the digital TV jacks on the back of the Yamaha. Sound about right? Am I missing something? Or, does Dolby simply not act the way 5.1 sound does? Should I be switiching something on the Yamaha to hear dolby surround from all 6 speakers? Should I have the DVI cable connected between the Samsung DLP and the DVI port on the Comcast HD box? I always understood that the yamaha would automatically sense the signal and switch as needed. Many thanks! James
"The optical cable is connected from the Comcast HD box to the Yamaha optical port. The red and white audio connectors from the audio out on the Comcast HD box go to the digital TV jacks on the back of the Yamaha."
The optical cable from the Comcast box to the Yamaha is all that you need to use. The additional analog cable (red and white) may be causing your problem. If the Yamaha receives the digital input from the optical port and has an auto decode mode then (probably very similar to the DVD set up) it will recognize the surround information and deal with it accordingly.
Great! Thanks! I guess I am being thrown off by the way the Yamaha does not "indicate" that all six speakers are receiving the signals with a Dolby Broadcast by lighting up all six speaker icons on the display. I will remove the red and white going to the digital TV ports and see what happens.
Knowing that the indicators are showing you what speakers are supposed to be active helps in many regards. In this case you have discovered a problem with decoding that should be pretty easily fixed. Let us know, we are learning too!!!
It sound to me like the digital connection from the cable box to the receiver is not set up correcrly. You may have to set up the digital inputs for the receiver in its Menues.
