Running Sky+ and blu ray through Sony surrond system

[Adam B]

I have a Sony LCD with 3 x HDMI whihc I used to connect up to my sky HD, the sony blu-ray player and the Xbox elite

Added a simple Sony HT-SS100 home cinema amp/speakers (not what experts would recommend I am sure but that is all I wanted to spend and it fitted my room perfectly).

So I know connect the sky/xbox/BR player into the HT-SS100 via HDMI cables, and from the HT-SS100 via a single HDMI.

The issue is the is a big drop in picture brightness when switching from TV sound (ie bypassing the surround amp) and surround sound, obviously caused by interference from the amp.

Should this happen? I cannot see a way of fine-tuning the picture settings on the surround sound amp menu to reduce this distortion/effect. Could it be the HDMI cables?

Obvously I can change the TV brightness to compensate but that is a bit of a pain, as I regularly switch between TV sound and surround sound.

Any tips or suggesions would be much appreciated?

[headcase]

Need a little more info as to how you have it connected, it should be

SKY - Surround sound > HDMI for picture
SKY - Surround Sound > Optical or coaxial digital for audio (as you dont get 5.1 Via HDMI on SKY)
Then set in the surround sound menu to get the audio NOT from the HDMI but from the Optical/coax.

BlueRay - Surround sound > HDMI for Sound and picture.
Again make sure in the surround sound menu that the blueray input is set to get its sound from the HDMI and not the optical or coaxial

XBOX - Surround Sound > HDMI (same as BlueRay)

TV - Surround Sound > ??? You dont say how you are getting sound from the TV Tuner back to the surround system.

Finally Surround sound - TV > HDMI for picture from SKY/BlueRay/Xbox
The surround sound system does not upscale so it should output whatever resolution is inputted.

So how is it connected? Especially how are you getting sound from your TV to the surround sound? Opticsl/Coaxial/RCA ?

[Adam B]

hi headcase

all connections are the same

via hdmi into the 3 available slots in the surround sound amp

then from surround sound amp to TV via one single HDMI cable

I then switch between sky / bluray / xbox via the surround sound remote which switches input for picture and sound.

I am sitting now watching Question Time with surround sound, press the orange "Theatre" button (which toggles betwwen TV sound and surround sound) and sound goes through TV instead and picture gets considerably brighter, press "theatre" again and I get improved surround sound but picture dims

[Adam B]

headcase said:

TV - Surround Sound > ??? You dont say how you are getting sound from the TV Tuner back to the surround system.

hmmm, right now I am not! Should I do this? I guess I rarely watch TV via the aerial, I just use sky to view terrestrial channels

[headcase]

There should be no brightness difference at all when hittint the theatre button, its doubtfull its your leads but you could try swapping them around to see if it makes a difference. Id sounds to me like a faulty unit.

As for connecting your TV sound to it for 'Aerial' pictures, just a little confusion there, when you said TV earlier i thought that is what you ment but you are obviously watching it via sky so forget that one

[Adam B]

headcase said:

As for connecting your TV sound to it for 'Aerial' pictures, just a little confusion there, when you said TV earlier i thought that is what you ment but you are obviously watching it via sky so forget that one

Thanks for the advice - will check cables and if that fails to cure will send unit back.

If I did want to send aerial via surround amp (this will help when I mount TV on wall using a slim frame) I take it I just connect coaxial aerial cable straight into back of amp?

[headcase]

You need to look for the 'Audio Out' Connection on the back of your TV, most use Red and white phono connections, other use an optical, run a lead from there to a spare input on the amp. On some of the Sony stuff this Audio Out connection is dead until you turn off the speakers in the TV audio menu.

[Adam B]

thanks appreciate the help

yep got an optical output on tv and two in back of amp

out of interest why not just feed the aerial straight into amp?

[headcase]

BEcause the amp dosent have a TV tuner in it.

[Adam B]

doh! I suppose the aerial socket is just for the amp's radio.