FAO Virgin V HD box users. Help with surround sound.

Stonedofmoo · 30 Dec 2010 at 11:49

Hi guys

I've just gotten my V HD box. This is the small Cisco box, not the V+ jobby.
Due to arrive later today is a Samsung LE40C650 tv, and a Samsung HT-C5500 bluray/home cinema kit.

The manual for the V HD box says if you want to use surround sound, then to connect it to your home AV amp with the digital optical cable.
I can do this, I have the cable... however I thought the point of HDMI was to carry all the video and audio signals?

I was planning to simply connect the V HD box HDMI straight to the HT-C5500 system on one of the two HDMI inputs, and then pass the picture through this to the TV via it's HDMI output.

Can I not do this? Why would I need to use a seperate audio cable to achieve this, or is it a limitation of Virgin's HD box?

Cheers all

Turbo-G · 30 Dec 2010 at 13:02

I don't have any experience with the Virgin box, but with Sky HD, you also need a digital audio out from the Sky box into your amp in addition to the HDMI cable in order to obtain DOLBY Digital IIRC.

james.miller · 30 Dec 2010 at 13:02

correcto. No surround sound over hdmi from the v+ boxes

Stonedofmoo · 30 Dec 2010 at 15:02

This is the 6 months old V HD box, not the older V+ boxes.

I think i've answered my own question refering to this post: http://www.avforums.com/forums/virgin-media/1383722-v-hd-box-hdmi.html

VM also tell people that they must use the optical audio output to get Dolby Digital audio, but this isn't the case and the HDMI output carries DD 5.1. THey only know what it says on the crib sheet in front of them and they are incapable of answering questions not covered by the information on their fact sheets.