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HDR-Fox T2 digital optical output.

P

Pinky22

New Member
I have bought a digital to analogue converter as my hi-fi system doesn't have a digital input but it doesn't work when connected to a high definition source. (Freesat, Freeview).
I have tried connecting it to both my Philips 40PFL9705 television and my Humax Fox T2 HDR set top box, both of which have a digital output. The TV has a co-axial socket and as everyone will know, the Humax has an SPDIF optical output. It works fine in standard definition on both but when I select Hi Definition on either device, there is no audio output.
Is this to be expected?
 
Everyone back in their own bedz. I stumbled on the answer in another forum. Digital output on my T2 now set to 'Stereo' (was multi channel) and it now works fine.
Apologies for wasting time.

(Moderator: You can delete this thread if you wish)
 
By setting it to stereo you are losing the benefit of the digital signal - you might as well be using the phono output from the HDR-FOX to drive a line to your HiFi.

The only reason I can see for not using multi-channel is if the optical to analogue converter doesn't understand multi-channel audio. As it is, your optical to analogue converter is only doing exactly the same as the phono outputs do already.

(Edited to reflect that this has now been moved to the HDR-FOX section)
 
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Thank you for your observations; absolutely right of course (as I have come to expect!). Just for your amusement a little history may be useful. My current system consists of 2 Humax devices, a Denon DVD player, a Sony Blue Ray player and a Topfield recorder all still working perfectly! My current TV is a Philips PFL 9705, one of the better TV's at the time but now a little ancient and is up for replacement.
Currently my surround sound system (using the term loosely) is based on Alan Blumlein's system of phase coherent (real) stereo.......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair
.......which he proposed before the second world war. To avoid any digital processing - which really trashes the sound - I use the headphone out on my TV to drive my Denon amp which interestingly enough was designed for western (specifically UK) ears.
I introduced this system to the BBC when I was sent on a 'stereo' course in 1970. Their interest was peaked and they subsequently produced a programme touring a north sea oil rig in 'binaural' sound.
As a friend of Ray Dolby I liaised the efforts of the BBC to improve sound quality but Sony weren't really onboard with their (then new) betamax PSC cameras which caused no end of problems.
Of course these days hardly anyone is recording in stereo, it's all multimic mono panned into position with all sorts of digital processing. Occasionally someone does record in phase coherent stereo and the results are stunning. Some 15 years ago I watched 'Dances with Wolves' (on VHS no less) and actually ducked during the opening sequence when the shot was fired!
Researching modern TV's it seems they don't have either a headphone or line output so I can't use my Blumlein system so hence the need for a digital to analogue converter. Not the best way of doing it but it's nearer than digitally processing the sound.
During my time at the BBC I was the first person to use Sadie.....
http://www.sadie.com/sadie_home.php
...and was instrumental in getting the software adapted for use in television rather than radio only. What is even more interesting is I have audio editing S/W on my laptop I would have died for up to retiring from the BBC in 1995! (Adobe Audition).
Alzheimers hasn't quite caught up with me yet but the writing is on the wall so inevitably I will continue to ask questions I don't know the answer to!!
 
Impressive. Some interesting people about.
My 2·5 year old smart Panasonic TV does have a headphone socket. I'll test it out through the Onkyo TX-SR608 amp.
 
Thank you all. If you want to experiment with 'replaying' the Blumlein method of recording true 'phase coherent' stereo you need to do the following. (might be teaching you to suck eggs here but I'll give it a go). You'll need two small speakers. They don't need to be really special and don't need to reproduce sounds above 8Khz. Satellite speakers from a 5.1 system are ideal although I sourced and designed 2 units using reasonable 5 inch units. Pay attention to polarity and wire them in series so the negative terminal on one speaker is connected to the positive speaker on the other. This is quite important! Now connect the positive terminal of one speaker to the positive output of the left channel of your amplifier and the negative terminal of the other speaker to the positive terminal of the right channel of your amplifier. At first you won't really hear much, just a very quiet output of what you're already listening to but every now and then when you listen to audio that was recorded using AB stereo (using Blumlein's method) or something similar you'll be blown away by the spatial sound. In fact sounds will even appear well behind the satellite speakers. In 1985 I made a recording of the ILEA youth orchestra in a village hall in Sanderstead mounting the figure of eight mics 8 feet high in the aisle between the seats and I can now hear the coughing of the audience at the other end of my living room in the session between the tracks!
You can extend this experiment even further by wiring as many speakers as you can lay your hands on in series (plus - negative) and provided your amplifier has enough 'omph', you'll (I hope) be surprised at the results. This doesn't need any 'clever' digital processing but I notice over time that 'real' stereo recordings are rather rare than the norm. Before anyone asks, I'm not a supporter of vinyl, digital recording has it's place in the modern world but I just wish they wouldn't use multiband digital compression, it results in virtually no dynamic range. Probably good when you're driving to work but useless listening to at home.
 
Pinky22 said:
I just wish they wouldn't use multiband digital compression, it results in virtually no dynamic range. Probably good when you're driving to work but useless listening to at home.
Click to expand...
That's curious - I was recently lamenting that a CD of the Queen Symphony was unusable in the car due to its dynamic range!

Pinky22 said:
If you want to experiment with 'replaying' the Blumlein method of recording true 'phase coherent' stereo you need to do the following. (might be teaching you to suck eggs here but I'll give it a go).
Click to expand...
I think I had a play with this in the late '70s, using the stereo difference signal to pull the sound image away from "front". The effect is not in-your-face obvious (presumably because we are used to an all-round sound field) - until you turn it off! Unless a recording is especially engineered to exaggerate the anti-phase stereo signal, very little comes out of the rear speakers at all (natural recordings have a very small L-R).

The funny thing is that my dad was deaf in one ear, but came back from visiting a friend besotted with the idea of surround sound and toting a Kraftwerk album (which deliberately emphasises L-R).

Have you delved into binaural?
 
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I also played around with this sort of thing in the '70s. But took it a bit further. Used an opamp to extract the A-B, shoved the signal through a bucket brigade delay line to introduce reverb/echo with adjustable delay time/mix control, then shoved the resulting signal through an amp chip onto a couple of revere phased 'rear' speakers.
Quite an interesting experiment that really hacked off my Mrs. I actually found the box when having a clear out of my shed a couple of weeks ago.
 
Black Hole said:
That's curious - I was recently lamenting that a CD of the Queen Symphony was unusable in the car due to its dynamic range!
Click to expand...

I think the Queen album was about 15 years ago. A time before the mania for 'flat lining' the recording but I do take your point about playing music in a (noisy) car.

Black Hole said:
Have you delved into binaural?
Click to expand...

Yes, we played around with binaural sound at the BBC but it had limited appeal as one needs headphones to get the best out of it and really good headphones were quite expensive then.
Of course the introduction of rare earth magnets (neodymium magnets) changed all that and suddenly we had in ear buds that totally outperformed many so called 'studio' headphones. What was more important(?) was they insulate one from the environment so one can use then at a lower level without every day sounds getting in the way but no one seems to have told the modern generation that snippet of information who are well on the road to tinnitus in later life!!

I can't remember who it was but a company produced a set of binaural sound effects on CD which we had in our studio. I do remember the most impressive of them was of a 'Mack' (American) truck starting up and it was used in the opening sequence of Terminator. The other impressive sound was of someone having a crew cut with an electric trimmer and one could literally follow the trimmer as it went up and over one's head and around the back.
 
This thread has gone so off topic that I feel it's time for some fun!! Does anyone out there remember the BBC series called "Edge of Darkness"? I was the sound engineer on the programme and was asked to produce some realistic sound for communications over the then infant Internet which I did. At the time the download speed was 1200 BYTES per second and the upload speed was 75 BYTES per second!! Courtesy of Virgin fibre optic I now enjoy 75 Megabytes/second download!
Using a BBC model B computer and a dial up modem (US Robotics - which I still have) I planted an Easter Egg in the programme!! Sadly no one managed to decode the message and get back to me. Actually it wasn't encrypted, it was in plain text. Your mission (as in the true tradition of Mission Impossible) should you accept it, is to locate the programme which must be somewhere on the Web and read the message. I have the 5 part series on DVD so it's bound to be there somewhere. If you succeed in reading the message I'd love to hear from you!
 
Pinky22 said:
Thank you for your observations; absolutely right of course (as I have come to expect!). Just for your amusement a little history may be useful. My current system consists of 2 Humax devices, a Denon DVD player, a Sony Blue Ray player and a Topfield recorder all still working perfectly! My current TV is a Philips PFL 9705, one of the better TV's at the time but now a little ancient and is up for replacement.
Currently my surround sound system (using the term loosely) is based on Alan Blumlein's system of phase coherent (real) stereo.......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair
.......which he proposed before the second world war. To avoid any digital processing - which really trashes the sound - I use the headphone out on my TV to drive my Denon amp which interestingly enough was designed for western (specifically UK) ears.
I introduced this system to the BBC when I was sent on a 'stereo' course in 1970. Their interest was peaked and they subsequently produced a programme touring a north sea oil rig in 'binaural' sound.
As a friend of Ray Dolby I liaised the efforts of the BBC to improve sound quality but Sony weren't really onboard with their (then new) betamax PSC cameras which caused no end of problems.
Of course these days hardly anyone is recording in stereo, it's all multimic mono panned into position with all sorts of digital processing. Occasionally someone does record in phase coherent stereo and the results are stunning. Some 15 years ago I watched 'Dances with Wolves' (on VHS no less) and actually ducked during the opening sequence when the shot was fired!
Researching modern TV's it seems they don't have either a headphone or line output so I can't use my Blumlein system so hence the need for a digital to analogue converter. Not the best way of doing it but it's nearer than digitally processing the sound.
During my time at the BBC I was the first person to use Sadie.....
http://www.sadie.com/sadie_home.php
...and was instrumental in getting the software adapted for use in television rather than radio only. What is even more interesting is I have audio editing S/W on my laptop I would have died for up to retiring from the BBC in 1995! (Adobe Audition).
Alzheimers hasn't quite caught up with me yet but the writing is on the wall so inevitably I will continue to ask questions I don't know the answer to!!
Click to expand...

If you're looking to replace your Philips TV. It might be advisable to avoid LG smart TV's in view of the problems more than one of us are having with audio dropouts when connecting HDR Fox's via HDMI cables. Have a read through this...

https://hummy.tv/forum/threads/new-lg-smart-tv-audio-dropouts-via-hdmi.8151/

Gerry
 
Ezra Pound said:
Pinky22 : Were you DB (LB) in a previous life?
Now where is that old V23 modem :)
Click to expand...

DB(LB)? - or shouldn't I ask! Couldn't find my V23 modem but did find 2 V90 modems at (then) a blistering 56K, complete with 3.5 inch floppy installation disc! Think I made a mistake saying 'Bytes' when it should have been bits!
 
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