Panasonic Audio Visual Connectivity

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Hi All.
I've just purchased a BDT167-EB DVD player and SC-SB1EB-K sound bar and having problems with the set up with my 'old' TH-42PZ80BA TV. (All Panasonic)

Sound is good from the DVD as it is connected directly to the sound bar via HDMI, but I cannot get sound to work from the TV when my Virgin Cable source is selected on the TV.

The TV only has x2 HDMI sockets but no HDMI (ARC).

Is there any way to re-configure the set up without ARC? Or do I need a more modern TV. :(

Cheers All
 
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This could be one of those times when having an older model TV actually works out well for you.

After having a quick look at the specs for the sound bar, it seems that Panasonic have dropped the Optical connection which would have been my normal go-to solution in cases like yours. However, there's still an analogue jack socket on 3.5mm. You could use that.

Your TV has a set of red and white RCA phono sockets marked "AUDIO OUT". Use these with a stereo RCA to 3.5mm jack cable. This will give you sound from the TV's own Freeview tuner plus any sources connected too.

There's one thing you may need to check and tweak though for Virgin to work. It's the sound settings on the Virgin box for the HDMI output. The audio output needs to be set to stereo/PCM rather than Dolby/Digital/Bitstream or whatever VM call it.

When using the sound bar, remember to switch between HDMI for the DVD and AUX for the TV/Virgin signal.

If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.
 
Cheers Lucid,
I have a 3 cable RED/WHITE/YELLOW RCA with a 3.5mm connector. I now have audio if I just connect the RED/WHITE to the TV.

One observation however: When I disconnect the white, I lose audio. But if I pull just the red, audio remains unchanged.
Does this suggest I am only receiving single mono audio via the White, rather than 2 channel stereo through both?
Cheers
 
What you have there is an AV cable rather than a simple 3.5mm stereo jack to stereo RCA lead. The complication is the extra connection for the video on the yellow RCA. When you look at the 3.5mm jack end, you'll see three black bands separating four chrome silver contacts. With an ordinary headphone plug and you'll see that there's only three contact areas, one of which is larger than the rest; that's the ground connection.

My bet is that your AV lead has one of the audio signal connections going to what would be the signal ground on a standard audio jack. That's why the sound is messed up. The reason I think this is that I know that there are at least three different configurations for how the signal and ground pins connect to the jack contacts. With a lead wired in the way that I think yours is, swapping around the red, yellow and white pug connections at the TV won't fix it because the grounding will always be messed up.

The bottom line is that you need a standard 3.5mm to stereo RCA lead. If you have one in the house somewhere then use that. But if not, order one from Amazon or Ebay or any of the online cable sellers or pop in to town on market day. The sort of shop or stall that sells bits for mobile phones might be a good place to start.


If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.
 
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Hi Lucid,
Ive now purchased a turntable with RCA/3.5mm stereo connector.
My sound bar only has a single 'Aux' input currently used by the TV.
Is there any way of connecting TV/Turntable to a single aux input?
I've seen the 3.5mm splitters, but these seem to enable 2 x speakers to be connected to a single output.
I need to go the opposite direction - 2 x switched outputs into a single speaker.

Cheers
 
A splitter (wired in reverse) is not the answer. You need a switch.

A switch isolates the various sources from each other. A reversed splitter does not do this. Even when the other source is off, having both connected at the same time means that the live signal interacts with the other source as well as the input on the sound bar.

Something such as this will do the trick: LINK

This is a passive switch. It requires no power. The dial makes a physical link between one set of inputs (AUX 1/2/3) and the output which goes to the soundbar in your case.

One thing to check; your turntable, does it have a built-in phono stage?

If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.
 
Thanks Lucid - You're a star :)

The turntable has a switched phono/line output and sounds great with the sound bar.
 
I'm now looking to replace the TV and all potential specs are only showing "Audio output 1 x Optical". My home system is all set up for RCA connectors and my sound bar has no optical input, only aux/HDMI. How do I manage TV audio optical output?
 
There are a couple of solutions.

The first and neatest is to use a feature in the HDMI connections called ARC. If you haven't come across this before, ARC stands for Audio Return Channel. What that means is that the HDMI connection between the sound bar and the TV works as a way to get sound from the TV to the sound bar as well as working the normal way. If you like, it's the digital equivalent of the RCA phono AUX connection.

In order for this to work, the TV you buy must have the ARC feature on one of its HDMI sockets. (Check the specs of whatever TVs you have your eye on.) The sound bar you own already has it. You don't need any special HDMI cables. The same type that works for playing Blu-ray to the TV or via the sound bar will work just fine.

There's a little bit of a set-up to do when you get the new TV. The exact sequence will vary between brands and models, but in essence you're turning on a feature called HDMI Control, and then enabling the ARC feature from there.

With HDMI control enabled, what should happen is that as you turn on either the TV or the sound bar then the other device will wake too. When watching from the TV's internal tuner, or any streaming apps, or the Virgin box, then the sound should route automatically to the sound bar. The TV volume control will work the sound bar instead of the TV speakers.

Waking the Blu-ray player, whether it's connected to the TV itself or directly to the sound bar, should wake the TV and sound bar too, and if they're already on then they should change to the appropriate inputs as well.



Your other option involves a device to take the Optical Audio Out from the TV and convert the signal to stereo RCA phono. The box itself is called a Digital to Analogue Convertor. DAC for short. It's a powered box that reads the digital data light signal via optical and then decodes it and creates an analogue version.

These little devices start at a modest £10 or less. They're all pretty much-of-a-muchness. I suspect that a lot come off the same production line, one day with one product name, and the next day with another. You should certainly be able to find one for under £20 delivered.

Many of the lowest-cost ones come with a power cable that will plug in to one of the new TV's USB sockets. Personally though, I've always gone for the versions that come with a small 3-pin power adapter. Touch wood, in all the installations I have done, none of these has ever gone faulty. Here's an example with a UK mains adapter.

Using the DAC doesn't involve any set up in the TV menus. The sound quality is going to be fairly close to what you'd get with HDMI, but it doesn't have the convenience features of HDMI Control, so you'll be back to using a separate remote for the sound bar volume unless you've programmed the Virgin remote to do the sound bar.


If this or any other reply was helpful to you, then please do the decent thing and click the T-H-A-N-K-S button. It appears when you hover the mouse pointer near the Quote Multi-quote buttons. This is the proper way to show your thanks for the time and help someone gave you.
 

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