Using an OPTICAL CABLE in 2022 (and why YOU might WANT TO)

[@y87_99Firebird]

As someone who still runs an older home theater system (2009; Sony), optical or Coax has been a saving grace compared to 3.5mm to RCA from my TV to receiver.

[@springchickena1]

you're going to be so impressed with innovations of last 5 years with dolby audio if you upgrade this year or next. and of course oled tv with a fire stick is a world of itself with how nice smart tv has become. I ran old (expensive) equipment but im blown away with what we're playing with in 2023.

[@ZacharyNoah]

My family has a decade-old Samsung Plasma TV that doesn't support ARC or eARC, and with my TCL Alto 8+ Dolby Atmos 3.1.2 sound bar, an Optical cable is the only good option for outputting the audio from the TV to the sound bar.

[@abc456f]

I'm still running an hd projector with a 5.1 Onkyo receiver (no hdmi). So I'm using optical cable from cable box to receiver. Plan on upgrading everything to Atmos, 4k. New projector, receiver, 4k bluray player, extra rear center speaker, and a custom screen (currently projecting on a white wall). Plug everything into receiver and eArc from receiver to projector. Is this the correct and best way to connect it all?

[@elise10lies84]

Great T shirt😊

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

Thank you!

[@mogensen84]

I'm trying to figure out if it's worth connecting my Bose TV speaker soundbar via the monitors Optical Audio or not - I have no experience with this in terms of sound quality. Just wondering if it will be worse compared to my PC's Optical Audio? The reason I ask, is because I'm about to order a new motherboard .. And there is a massive price difference between the ones with Optical Audio and the ones without. I'm planning to buy the LG 27GR95QE-B ..

[@harisadu8998]

Hey man, I have an LG C2 but I have an old Sony theatre system from 14 years ago. I have an AV receiver called the STR-KS2000 and it has HDMI but it doesn't say ARC. It also has two optical in ports called SAT and Video 1. I want to hopefully not toss out my old speaker system. So which optical port can I use?

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

It honestly shouldn't matter. Either one should work. You may also be able to assign the optical port to any of the inputs, so you can customize one if need be.

[@harisadu8998]

​@@HomeTheaterGamer I was able to get it to work with optical cables not HDMI. Plugged it into the Video 1 optical port. Very happy that I didn't have to junk my old system and buy a new one.

[@TemporaryTemporary-y2j]

Sometimes I've wondered why optical S/Pdif was never updated, since the technology it's based on could have *potentially* been improved upon. But then again, it's a relatively simpler and "dumber" connection compared to technologies like eARC. It either works or it doesn't. Sometimes I find myself using it especially with external DACs supporting optical input that go all the way up to 24bit/192Khz stereo for Hi-Res music and on surround systems for DTS/Dolby 5.1 surround sound for movies. Unless you have an extremely good speaker system, or perhaps want uncompressed/Dolby Atmos playback, once you are engrossed in a movie, you'd be hard pressed to critically register the quality of a momentary sound effect on the rear speaker, for example, with so many things going on at once on a decent home theatre system. Not to mention surround sound effects have recently become more nuanced and less gimmicky in films these days.

[@Youthman]

Fantastic video Brad. Absolutely love all of the visual elements you add another level to your production quality.

[@welderfixer]

Brad, Thanks for another flawless video both in audio and visual quality. Your attention to information and graphics detail makes you one of the best on KZbin! Since I'm rather new to the AV hobby I think it would be great and helpful to many others if you could help us out with a detailed explaination of the AV cables, audio formats(PCM vs bitstream, etc...), video formats and their best uses and settings. Thanks again and please have a great safe day, Kevin

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

@Kevin Gardner that is a really fantastic idea! All this stuff can be so overwhelming that a video explaining the basics of cables, audio and video formats would be super helpful. I'm on it!

[@welderfixer]

@@HomeTheaterGamer Thanks much. This old fella could use the info.

[@birdsoup777]

I have and still experience problems with ARC 2.0 and eARC. Currently LG G2 and Denon Receiver, both hdmi 2.1. Working perfectly for a while till yesterday and audio stopped working via eARC. Made sure it wasn't a bad cable. Turning the tv and receiver off and on usually works. Reset to factory default on both didn't work. Unplugged both from power outlet. Came back 1 hour later. Turned everything back on and it worked. I never had issues till i went from optical to hdmi arc

[@amitkalyan2317]

Have you tried setting the Xbox to Dolby Digital or DTS, but setting the TV to bitstream or bypass to avoid double transcoding. You may need to set other streaming devices manually to avoid any formats arc and you receiver don’t support if the tv is set to bypass.

[@1mbhercules348]

How to use it on pc ? I had pc who had a place to plug in the caple into the motherboard directly but my new pc dont have this future so any way that u can use it on my new pc ?

[@welderfixer]

Thanks for all of you efforts!

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

@Kevin Gardner oh my gosh, thank you so much! You're too kind and both Trish and I really appreciate you sticking with us. You have no idea what it means to us.

[@jeffjefferson7384]

DTS 5.1 at 1.5mbps is honestly still really good. After all most new streaming movies have Dolby Atmos maxed out at 768kbps!

[@eriklindahl7376]

ARC over HDMI was super-flacky for me going to a UHD-screen but sticking with an HD-reciver. I gave up on it. Never did try your optical out trick though. What has saved me in the past with optical is removing ground-loop issues. I had an ancient electrical setup in my old apartment which caused ground-loop-hum. Going all optical solved it.

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

@Erik Lindahl thanks for commenting and watching! That is good to know about ground loop issues. I’ll keep that tip in mind if I ever run into that.

[@gamegenieny581]

that was the issue. the codecs. hence why it only showed stereo uncompressed. I couldn't remember why I had that issue with that 2300. Loved that AVR. But since I upgraded to the 4700 I set everything to 5.1 uncompressed and use the Auro 3D upmixer. Its amazing and I hope sometime you'll be able to give it a try. I have to say I'm appreciative of what you do here on your channel, and its why I always check to see what you've posted. You find a way to make everything work, regardless of set up and we need more of that ! Not just what a 30K system sounds like, but what any system can do with a little love and time. Keep doing what you're doing Brad, its more helpful to more people than you realize. Thanks.

[@Youthman]

Oh and a HUGE CONGRATS on hitting 10K!

[@matthewschmidt6867]

I had very similar issues with audio delay trying to run a series x into my LG CX and ARC out to an older Denon receiver. I ended up getting an HDFury Vrroom to solve it, which not only let me keep full uncompressed 7.1 audio, but also act as a matrix switch to another HDMI 2.1 display in the next room. It's pricey, but it's a lot less expensive than replacing the entire receiver which is otherwise perfectly fine.

[@lowercasestephen7080]

I have ran into the exact same issue and I am considering using optical. One downside that is not mentioned in the video is that with optical you don't get any of the HDMI CEC features like audio control with your tv remote or the AVR UI appearing on the TV. This is only an issue for me as there are no decent alternatives to the now discontinued harmony remotes.

[@michaelwyckoff7593]

Yes there can be problems with HDMI if there is handshake issues.

[@gorkman5697]

I need help please .I have samsung hw-q990b sound bar and vestel tv .My tv doesnt have atmos optıon.so far I connected wıth Hdmı .my tv and sound bar has arc Which one is better .I didnt try optic cable yet,İs optic cable better.will ı get atmos sound.I dont even know how atmos sounds like And on tv which options I should enable .They mantion about the passthrough or Pcm when ı watched on other videos I will appriacte if you can help me ,Sorry my english is not good , Thank you

[@nichin79]

Good video, but unless i have missed some changes for optical cables, it doesn't have enough bandwidth to support 7.1. So if you have 7.1 speaker setup you probably wont get it via optical.

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

You are correct. Optical is still limited to only 5.1 when using lossy codecs. You’d have to upmix the audio using your receiver to fill out those two rear channels. Again, a compromise would have to be made here depending on your equipment and what you’re trying to do. Thanks for pointing that out though as I didn’t mention that in the video.

[@michaelwyckoff7593]

I use one on a Samsung sound bar that doesn't have HDMI ports. It's one of their first sound bars. But it's okay for me because it's hooked up to my living room TV that I don't watch as much as my bedroom TV. It's better than nothing but HDMI is better when it's works probably.

[@ChesterMan-qd3xj]

How are you liking your 85PQX by now? PQ still amazes me, but firmware is definitely buggy. You’re not missing much with EARC, Vizio broke it with an update last fall, and after the latest update it’s just ok. Was tempted to go back to optical as well. Wish they could update this connection with more bandwidth - such a reliable connection. Dolby Surround up-mixer on my Denon does a fantastic job that I don’t really miss Atmos when it’s not available, so optical would be fine. Granted, I’m running a 5.1 setup with height virtulization, but that continues to blow me away for what it is. One thing I would consider rather than the EARC adapter is just buy a standalone Blu-ray player and plug directly into your receiver. You get uncompressed audio this way, and Dolby Vision movies bypassing your XSX or PS5 as a movie player.

[@ryaneckel5601]

Hey Brad, is it ok if I email you or talk on the phone? I have questions about minidsp hd and yes I have watched all your videos on it and keep rewatching them. I just got minidsp hd last this past Thursday and played with it all day yesterday and got really nice response/housecurve with it but today I wanted to play with it some more and make tweaks. I know it may sound like a strange request but it’s to much to type out with the questions. Thx and hopefully I’ll hear from you

[@ryaneckel5601]

Question for you Brad. I just ordered a minidsp 2x4 hd and have been rewatching you and home theater gurus videos on it but when I run audyssey after I have my three subs time aligned, gain/level matched and eq’d, won’t audyssey screw up what I just did with the minidsp?

[@CLANK10]

On aliexpress I bought a perfect and much cheaper earc atmos hdmi splitter.

[@vincentlamarche5218]

Seem issue with gaming on pc, the audio delay thru my lg Cx then sonos arc are around 200ms and i dont find any device that do audio split with 4k 120hz... Like the Hdfury does only 4k 60hz.... If you find a product, lets us know !

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

What graphics card are you using? The way I do it for PC is HDMI out direct to the TV, and then I also bought a cheap DisplayPort-to-HDMI adapter on Amazon and essentially use the DisplayPort output to send HDMI audio to my receiver. I’ve never had an issue with audio latency on PC since I did this. I get 4K/120Hz and VRR with no audio latency. Pretty awesome.

[@ealanosborne]

Steppin' up your production quality, dude! I like it! :D

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

Thanks, Ealan! Always trying to kick it up a notch.

[@rayn1ful]

im starting to think the cable companies are in business to make a profit.

[@SqueamishPuppet]

I had a similar issue with movies being almost a second or two off. I endedd up having to set a 180ms delay for 24p content. I think you ought to play around with adding a delay on your arc. For example, 180ms or more might fix your problem.

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

Unfortunately, the issue is there already is a delay, and adding any additional delay only made it worse.

[@SmrGaming-ry3if]

I love you

[@darkdeath174]

Xbox and Samsung TVs have the delay with optical, it's been driving me crazy. I've been looking for an audio extractor that isn't crazy priced and out in Canada. Sharc isn't and Orei is, but no one is talking about it for the Series X. I hate being in weird use cases for stuff like this. I just wish the Series X had an optical out like the One X.

[@michaelanderson3703]

I got a Samsung tv and a series x and you have to go into the tv settings for audio and you can tune the latency I set mine to Dolby digital and the latency setting to the number 50 and it’s so perfect

[@michaelanderson3703]

But my Samsung tv was 1300$ new and has so many settings features yours might not have mine is also 120hz

[@michaelanderson3703]

I’m also useing a rocket fish premium optical super thick cable

[@michaelanderson3703]

My receiver is a Yamaha rx-v659

[@KrisCortez]

How did you use an optical cable with the Series X? To my knowledge, the console doesn't have an optical out port.

[@HomeTheaterGamer]

Sorry if that wasn’t clear. HDMI from the Series X to the TV, then optical out from the TV to the receiver.

[@michaelanderson3703]

Same thing I did

[@michaelanderson3703]

Works so good

[@michaelanderson3703]

Got a rocket fish optical cable really thick one