No surround sound with RCA on philips DVD

johnniekipper

I Have a Philips MX3600 DVD Player/Home Theatre Sound. When I play DVDs in it I get the surround sound fine. I then bought a philips dvd recorder that I want to play the DVDs through (because it has component out for my projector). I connect the dvd recorder to my old dvd player via RCA to get the surround sound but I do not get the surround effect.I get nothing thru the centre speaker and I get average sound through the other speakers. I get the same problem trying to play my Sonos thru the surround sound via RCA,

Any ideas anybody ? Thanks in advance.

Wolff

RCA - you mean phone leads - right red and white etc -

these will only ever give you stereo sounf you need to connect up the digital input output on both - usually either optical or coaxial - sometimes though you have optical on one and coxial on another in which case you need to buy an adapter -

Hope this helps

Wolff

to summarise - on your Philips MX3600 DVD Player you should have a digital - optical or coaxial in

on your recodable drive you should have a digital out (either coxial or optical)

if its optical - you need to get a toslink cable if its coaxial you need to get a coaxial cable

johnniekipper

Thanks Wolff. Yes I mean Phono leads - a red one and a white one. From memory (I'm at work so I cant check) the new DVD recorder does have optical out and coaxial out but the older DVD did not have either input. I will check again tonight. The Sonos only seems to have the phono outputs (and speaker outputs) - does that mean I cannot hook that up to any surround system and get good results ?

Wolff

I would be very surprised if the phillips MX3600 did not have at leat one digital input either Optical or coaxial

andy1249

Heres the thing , while most DVD recorders these days cater for some kind of component video out , the majority of low end entry level recorders have stereo sound output only , no multichannel capabilities whatsoever ! So the only surround option is good old fashioned Dolby Surround , which is just the front two speakers summed and fed in series through the back speakers , there will be no dedicated center or rear channels.

The higher end units typically have a secure recording system for 5.1 etc. I think this is a kind of hardware DRM whereby the recorders are limited on surround sound capabilities but Im not an expert and could be wrong here.

Wolff

I think you are getting confused here - there is hardly any dvd player recocoder or what ever that does not have a digital
output - Ive never seen one with stereo only, even the cheapest nastiest all have a digital output of some kind.

The problem here is not with the DVD recorder he has already said it has 2 digital outputs - its the older combined
dvd/surround sound system - it has to have a digital input. And again Im sure it has -as any of these all in one jobbies ive
had in the past have had at least one type of digital input.

andy1249

I didnt say they dont have digital out , I said that they only have stereo , and there are plenty of those , no 5.1 appears on any output , only stereo , in the case of the optical or coaxial out , only PCM stereo 44khz.

andy1249

Heres a link to philips website , note the cheaper recorders specify on the audio playback capabilites , Dolby Digital , PCM , Stereo , they do not specify if it is 5.1 or DTS , usually when 5.1 or DTS is present its plastered all over the machine , as in the more expensive ( i-link - thats what i was trying to remember earlier ) machines it distinctly specifies DTS and 5.1 multichannel.

http://www.store.philips.com/b2c_redesign/catalog/updateItems.do?shop=DIRECT ,

The idea here of course , is that you cannot make copies of DVD movies off the tv with 5.1 sound , only stereo , thereby making it still worthwhile to buy originals !!!

Of course , with a PC , .........but thats another story !!