Any way to have both PS2 and X-Box hooked up for 5.1?
 

I've only got one TOS link cable jack on my receiver so I'm guessing "no".

RadioShack sells a <a href="http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F002%5F002%5F001%5F000&product%5Fid=15%2D1586" target="_blank">4-Way Digital Optical Selector</a> that would allow you to switch between the XBox and the PS2.

Does that thing work well.........ie does it not take away from any of the sound. Thanks

Seeing it's from radio shack and the price is $30...my guess is that it may lower the quality of the sound. But who knows.

It's all digital (1s and 0s), so no it won't reduce the quality. i've been using one of these made by recoton, which was only $19.99 and it works great.

Alternatively, you could buy an optical-coaxial converter if your reciever has a free digital coax jack. I got one for 26.95 plus shipping from www.thesoundprofessionals.com

I've seen many switch boxes at Circuit City and then seen the same ones at Radio Shack for about $10-$15 cheaper there. They just have the RS logo on then, but they were the exact same. I usually buy my Fiber-Optic cable at RS also.

One thing to remember with digital sound is it either makes it to your receiver or it doesn't. These switch boxes will not degrade the sound quality. It's important to remember this when they try to sell you Monster digital audio cables. The cheap ones will have exactly the same sound quality and its one of the great things about a digital signal.

Are there any ps2 games in 5.1?

I've heard there are some portions of FFX that are in 5.1, but that's the only PS2 game I've heard of that might have it. This thread just reminded me I still need to go out and get a toslink cable, thanks! ;)

Brian

There aren't many PS2 games in 5.1 but with an optical cable your audio output will be about twice as much as if you were running A-Vs. I picked up and optical switch from Best Buy yesterday for $20, i also bought another 3' optical cable for $15.

SSY Tricky has real time DTS. A few FMV in some games also output 5.1.

FFX does not have any 5.1.

MGS 2 has some during a few key cutscenes. (Beginning of "Act 2" and Ending theme song/scenes).

The sound in Halo is incredible BTW....

Even though the PS2 does not really do 5.1 for the most part, the games still sound much better through the digital output. Even the old Playstation games sound much better. So it is worth hooking it up that way.

Does PS2 plan to do any digital 5.1 realtime? I know they are in some kind of contract so that we will only see DTS 5.1 in realtime, but it seems to be well behind the x-box in this regard.

SPY

Some kind of contract ... what?

Seems behind XBox? I wonder if it's because Xbox came out a year after PS2 ;)

The lack of 5.1 output is due mainly because of technological limits not licensing issues. EA was cleaver enough to use one vector units (part of the Emotion Engine) to do the dts output. Although I think Sony prefers dts , I don't think EA cares. I'm not an engineer, but don't see why you can't get DD the same way. In the future I expect more games to use EA design to get 5.1