surround sound with sky+

slothmeister · 15 Dec 2007 at 12:53

Hi guys, we've finally got sky+ a couple of days ago and have just hooked it up to my pioneer home cinema system via optical cable but i can't seem to get it working. Everything i've tried on it just comes out of the center speaker, i've changed the settings in the sky+ setup to DD but still nothing, am i right in thinking that a lot of the channels are broadcast in dolby digital or is it only the sky movie channels?

what could be causing it, i know it's not the pioneer setup because the xbox 360 and pc work fine through the same connection?

Surfer · 15 Dec 2007 at 14:08

its only some programs that are in DD (mostly the movies). You should be able to tell via the information box for the program. (top right hand side i tihnk)

ace2109 · 16 Dec 2007 at 07:25

Surfer is right when the information box comes up Dolby is recognised by "DD" on the top right mostly just for movies though and sky HD

TheKnat · 16 Dec 2007 at 15:22

Stupid question but when you plugged the sky+ box into the optical cable, did you also completely turn it off (as in at the wall)? I had to do this with my Sky HD box as it doesn't start outputting to the optical channel properly, until its had a complete hard reset.

There is some information on the Sky website about this, but it may be only for the HD box.

Corasik · 16 Dec 2007 at 17:00

My Sky+ Box has the digital output enabled all the time, infact the SP/DIF spec doesnt even include 'cable detection' from the transmitters point of view, although it can be enabled/disabled in software.

Anyway SKY+ only has dolby digital on Sky Movies(1-10.. ok whatever their new funky names are) and Sky Boxoffice. No other 'Standard Def' channels have Dolby Digital. SkyHD can add DD to any HD channel, although it depends if what they are broadcasting is DD encoded in the first place.

In theory BBC channels over Sky have enough bandwidth for DD transmission, but I believe they just 'waste' it with a PCM audio signal (On the Standard def channels)

The Digital output still offers convenience, and for non DolbyDigital channels, there is still a fair chance that the broadcast includes DolbySurround "Matrix Encoding", so your Amp should be set to DolbyPrologic when it doesnt get a DD signal, and you'll still get surround.