help needed with surround sound set up

bargain_babe

I have just bought the all in one surround sound system SamsungHT-TZ315 to go with my 40" M87 Samsung LCD TV.

It has been set up just with a scart to tv as we haven't bought HDMI cables yet. Is there any way we can get the surround sound to come just from watching films and programmes of the TV not just from DVD?

We do not have another digital source like sky or anything, just the Tv, video, and wii (which, thanks to you, I have connected by a component cable!) and now this system. I would like, if possible, to have surround sound from all of these.

I expect we would have better picture quality with a HDMI cable but would it be worth me buying the optical cables as I haven't got any other digital input?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated, TIA.

gnatschuffed

To get pseudo surround (Doby Pro Logic) you will need to connect your TV via some audio cables to the Samsung providing it has the necessary inputs. They might be analogue phono cables with RCA connectors (coloured red and white) or a digital output (optical). Regardless of the type of audio output from the TV, the sound will be 2.0 stereo as that is all terrestrial TV is capable of. I'm not aware of how many audio inputs your s/s has but as the wii is again only capable of 2.0 stereo, you might as well connect the audio from the wii to the TV and then audio from the TV to the s/s. This way you will get s/s from whatever the TV is showing i.e. wii or freeview.

When you come to buy your HDMI cables check ukhdmi.com for cheap ones. As for optical again cheap cables will do.

Edit: Just checked and your TV has both optical and analogue audio output. There shouldn't be any difference between the two as TV audio isn't the best quality anyway. If you do get another digital source that requires optical, I would change the TV to analogue. For the analogue cables, you'll probably have some old composite cables lying around (the ones with yellow/red/white connectors), just connect the red/white up.

david69_2

I've got the same problem connected the home cinema to the tv via hdmi cable but i want surround sound for the tv when watching normal tv .
I've bought the audio cables (red and white ) plugged them in but still no surround sound only on dvd ?
sorry for hijacking your thread

bargain_babe

Thanks for the reply gnatschuffed (like the name, by the way!) I'll give it a go and let you know how I get on.

Good luck David69. I just hope someone can help you too.

Marty_J

david69 wrote: »

I've got the same problem connected the home cinema to the tv via hdmi cable but i want surround sound for the tv when watching normal tv .
I've bought the audio cables (red and white ) plugged them in but still no surround sound only on dvd ?
sorry for hijacking your thread

That's because as noted, terrestrial TV doesn't do surround sound. You're putting a stereo source into your receiver (via the red and white cables), so the best you can hope for is Dolby Pro Logic pretend surround sound. If you want true surround sound, you'll need to plug your surround receiver into the digital output of a Sky box or something similar.

Hotspur

bargain babe,

The short answer is yes you should be able to get surround sound from the tv Psuedo or pro logic.

Just looked at my set up Panasonic tv and Sony all in one dvd/surround system. The scart from the Sony is in the AV2 socket on the tv and I get surround from certain tv programmes/films/channels but not all. I also have a scart from an old video recorder and that goes to AV1 on the tv.

PS I don't use the audio connections at all

My Panasonic tv manual gave some diagrams that helped me. Good luck

gnatschuffed

Hotspur wrote: »

Just looked at my set up Panasonic tv and Sony all in one dvd/surround system. The scart from the Sony is in the AV2 socket on the tv and I get surround from certain tv programmes/films/channels but not all. I also have a scart from an old video recorder and that goes to AV1 on the tv.

PS I don't use the audio connections at all

The reason you don't need additional audio cables is because SCART is bi-directional. HDMI can AND should be but at present they've basically made it a one way cable from source to display or source to amp/decoder.

gnatschuffed

david69 wrote: »

I've got the same problem connected the home cinema to the tv via hdmi cable but i want surround sound for the tv when watching normal tv .
I've bought the audio cables (red and white ) plugged them in but still no surround sound only on dvd ?
sorry for hijacking your thread

Without knowing the exact make/model etc. so I can check an online manual I can't say exactly what you have to do but you have to select an external input, which will be achieved by pressing a button on the remote which might be labelled Input (to cycle through the inputs), EXT or AUX or similar.

bargain_babe

well guys, just an update, I have bought the HDMI cable and an optical audio cable and it all works fine now, if I want I can have some sort of surround sound from the freeview (think its only the two front speakers but okay with that) so thanks for your advice.

BB