Fiber optic cable

[beachbabe]

Hi

I have just finished installing my new Samsung LED TV. Wow! On my old set there was no difference btween normal and HD. Now it's amazing.

Anyway i rigged it up with a Humax freesat box and a samsung blu-ray 3.1 home theatre system.

I bought all the boxes, tvs, and cables at the same time. The problem is the supplied optical fiber cable - I can't see where it fits in.

I feed my incoming sat cable into my humax. This in turn is connected to the Samsung 3.1 blu-ray dvd/home-cinema-in-a-box system with HDMI cable and the dvd box is connected to the TV by another HDMI cable.

As far as I can see there is no optical fibre cable socket on the Humax box. And as I am in effect just using the TV as a dumb monitor, I can't see any point in connecting the fiber optical cable between the dvd/cinema system and the TV set.

I took the cable back to the shop but they say I need it. Before returning and getting my money back I just though i'd ask here first if i need the fibre optic cable.

I could see the point if i were using the tv's built in free sat, and then feeding the video and audio signals into the dvd/theatre player, but not the way i have configured things.

Or am i barking mad?

[El Cid]

There is definitely an optical socket on the Humax.

It is marked SPDIF and on the basic HD box it is at the extreme right and on the hard disk version it is in the middle.

I don't think is makes much difference whether you use it or not as the HDMI connection should carry all the audio to the system. In my case I use it as the audio amp I use does not have an HDMI connection so I use the optical connection.

Sid

[pmb]

There is usually a black plug covering the socket that you need to pull out.

[El Cid]

No, it's a little hinged black flap that gets pushed in when you insert the plug.

Sid

[pmb]

It's different then to my stuff with an optical socket including my Technomate HD satellite receiver.

[beachbabe]

OK, guys. Many thanks. I'd lost the Humax instructions so hadn't spotted the craftily hidden optical output.

Well now the humax and the dvd/cinema are 'optically' connected...

...and i can't notice any difference in sound!

Maybe when I fire up my very first blu-ray dvd disc, eh?

[El Cid]

I don't think you will notice any difference - optical is just another good way of connecting digital audio - which HDMI also does.

The only advantage of having the optical connection is that it might give you a few more options on the AV amp but I doubt it. That's the beauty of HDMI - that's all you need!

I am sure you will enjoy it. Just remember that to get the best out of HD TV you need to sit much closer to the screen than you would normally do.

Sid