Shuki

OK. I've wanted to get a nice HT system set up for about 2 years now and just have not done it. I'm ready to make the plunge but have a few questions first regarding the audio and my game systems. Currently, I have a dreamcast, Xbox, GCN and PS2 all hooked up direct to my TV now. I have them hooked up to the S-video 4 to 1 splitter and hooked up with the standard RCA audio going into my TV. Here's my questions if anyone with experience/knowledge can help....

1. I see the PS2 and xbox have place for optical out. anyone know about the DC and GCN? I see on the back of GCN there is a digital AV output or analog. Now I have the analog s-video/RCA audio cable. Is there any option for going optical with dreamcast and GCN? if so, what do I need?

2. What is the point of going optical? can a receiver decode just
as well from RCA as optical?

3. with xbox, I realize some/many games are setup with true 5.1 but is there any advantage (vs. the cost involved) to going optical rather than RCA for the PS2, GCN and DC?

thank you and thank you!!

V-ism

1. DC no, GCN no the digital is for something else possibly component video output but I'm not sure, no GC game has digital audio. But GC games do have alot of Pro Logic II games which only require the standard RCA cables.

2. Optical audio output is a way to move digital audio from the source to the receiver. The only other form of output is coaxial which consoles do not use. Using RCA cables will not allow for digital audio to work.

3. A few PS2 games do have digital audio, but not many. The PS2 games are capable of both DTS and Dolby Digital. Audio quality of the games may be better using optical output, but you may or may not notice the difference. Other than that the only other advantage would be you can get 5.1 out of DVD movies.

Most receivers out there can decode DTS and Dolby Digital, but Pro Logic II is fairly new, so make sure you get one with it so you can take advantage of those GC and PS2 games that use it. Plus Pro Logic II works with games that only have stereo source as well, but works better with games made specifically for it.

Shuki

thank you!

so on #3 concerning PS2... there is no advantage to using the optical audio rather than RCA since only a few games use it?

Would the best way to hook up the systems then be:
1. xbox - optical
2. PS2 - analog (if only a few games have digital audio not really worth using an optical cable yeah?)
3. GCN - analog
4. DC - analog


edit - and pretty set on the denon 2802 which does use Pro Logic 2

Icculus

If you have the available inputs it won't hurt to hook up the PS2 with optical. There are a few games out there with DTS sound (GTA:Vice, EA sports games, etc.) and some have DD cut scenes, with an analog connection the best you can do is plII. If you only had one optical input available I'd say go with analog and use the optical for the Xbox but with that receiver you should have plenty of inputs.

Shuki

it has 3 optical inputs... guess that *could* be xbox, PS2 and DVD

Joshic

yeah, that's a good receiver you're looking at. denon 2802. and with 3 optical inputs there's no reason why you wouldn't hook up the PS2 via optical.

after you get everything set up, I recommend you get a HT tune-up DVD. you can choose from either the avia, video essentials, or the home theater tune-up dvd from sound&vision mag. I have the last one, and it's quite good for the low price ($16 @ barnesandnoble.com). It'll definitely help in balancing your speaker output levels and especially the hard-to-tune subwoofer crossover level. it'll also help tune your TV pic quality if you haven't done it already. money well spent.

RoQuEr

I set up my X-box to the Home theatre last night, and was comparing the different choices of hookups.

My conclusions were:
RCA to the TV speaker was the worst sound (Duh)
Optical hookup to reciever with no dolby or DTS still sounded pretty good. I later found out where to turn these on in the X-box setup menu, and I believe it sounds marginally better with DTS and Dolby 5.1. All of these were tested on Slpinter cell and Halo.

For video,
The jump between A/V cable (the yellow wire) and S-video was an enourmous difference in quality. ANd thats saying alot because I usually don't notice much when it comes to visual differences. The difference between S-Video and Component on the PS-2 was minimal, and since I was out of component video slots in the reciever, I saved $80 on a switcher and left it on S-Video

leemik

That's wrong... .ALL PS2 games will use the optical output but very few games are encoded to use Dolby Digital 5.1 or better.

If you play a game that is not DD or DTS encoded, PCM Stereo will go through the Optical outputs.. If your receiver is a "new" one, your audio will sound better than using the analog outputs because I'm sure the D/A converter in your receiver/surround processor is better than the one in the PS2.

--mike

~~ PAL ~~

Mike is correct, audio via Toslink optical cable will ALWAYS sound better than analog RCA cables for the same game, regardless whether the game audio is in stereo, DD 5.1, or DTS. Obviously you can't get DTS or DD with analog cables, but stereo really sounds much better when it's hooked up to a quality receive by optical input (compared to analog).

PAL

Shuki

thanks a lot for your input guys. looks like I'll have 3 optical inputs on this receiver. One for DVD, one for PS2 and one for Xbox...

Giantrobo

I just recently hooked XBOX to my Optical and the difference is truly night and day.

I picked up a RADIO SHACK optical splitter and I have both the PSX2 and XBOX going into my YAMAHA Optical in with a splitter to switch systems on the video monitor.

As mentioned, PSX2 is limited in it's surround abilities(no "on the fly" 5.1) but it still sounds nice in digital.

But XBOX is the true king when it comes to SOUND.

Adam Tyner

I'll agree with another poster that hopping from stereo to 5.1 on the XBox was night and day. I thought Halo in particular sounded amazing.

Do a search through some recent threads. I'm using a composite switcher to toggle between a few component video sources, and it's worked beautifully for me. I think my switcher was all of $25/$30.