# Dolby Digital over RF & RCA?



## d0ug (Mar 22, 2006)

Does anyone know what this setting means/does? I noticed this after getting the most recent CE for my R15-500. I don't ever remember seeing these options before the latest CE, I beleve before you could only choose to turn Dolby Digital on and off. I have enabled the RCA option and connected the RCA SPDIF connection from my Dolby Digital decoder to each of the RCA outputs on the back of the R15, and I am not getting and kind of a digital signal out of them.


----------



## kikkenit2 (Oct 26, 2006)

That audio option is confusing and partially incorrect. The red and white rca will only pass 2 channel stereo. To get 5.1 digital sound use the toslink optical port directly above the s-video plug and set audio to rf. There is a coaxial digital connection that looks like a regular rca but my r15 doesn't have it. The HR20-700 doesn't have it either but the HR20-100 does. Both digital audio connections are a 1 cable connection. HDMI also carries this signal along with the video. Your on screen message clearly states that the stereo audio cable can do DD but this is the incorrect part.


----------



## d0ug (Mar 22, 2006)

kikkenit2 said:


> That audio option is confusing and partially incorrect. The red and white rca will only pass 2 channel stereo. To get 5.1 digital sound use the toslink optical port directly above the s-video plug and set audio to rf. There is a coaxial digital connection that looks like a regular rca but my r15 doesn't have it. The HR20-700 doesn't have it either but the HR20-100 does. Both digital audio connections are a 1 cable connection. HDMI also carries this signal along with the video. Your on screen message clearly states that the stereo audio cable can do DD but this is the incorrect part.


Yeah it is confusing. I do know about the coaxal RCA digital connection. That is what my 5.1 speakers use. I was hoping I would be able to use them with the R15. The setting makes me think that enabling it would disable the analog audio on the RCA connectors and output digital? However when I tried it I got nothing. As for the RF option it makes me think that it would output the digital over the RF output port. However i dont have a cable to convert the RF screw on connector to an RCA to try that. That just doesnt really seem possible though, since the RF output is a radio frequency output, not a baseband signal like the coaxial digital signal is.

Im thinking that these settings may be for another DVR, or one that is in development internally and this got left behind in the CE firmware that they released.


----------



## kikkenit2 (Oct 26, 2006)

d0ug said:


> Yeah it is confusing. I do know about the coaxal RCA digital connection. That is what my 5.1 speakers use. I was hoping I would be able to use them with the R15. The setting makes me think that enabling it would disable the analog audio on the RCA connectors and output digital? However when I tried it I got nothing. As for the RF option it makes me think that it would output the digital over the RF output port. However i dont have a cable to convert the RF screw on connector to an RCA to try that. That just doesnt really seem possible though, since the RF output is a radio frequency output, not a baseband signal like the coaxial digital signal is.
> 
> Im thinking that these settings may be for another DVR, or one that is in development internally and this got left behind in the CE firmware that they released.


Did you get DD out of the R15 before the CE software? Be more specific about what you are using as a decoder/speaker amplifier. You need something that has a toslink optical input for more than stereo sound.


----------



## ThomasM (Jul 20, 2007)

This setting has been around since the manual was printed. It says:

Dolby On (RCA): Select this option to optimize the audio on programs with Dolby Digital Audio if you are using the Digital Audio Out (Optical) to a digital audio receiver and the Audio/Video (RCA) cable to your TV or stereo.

Dolby On (RF): Select this option to optimize the audio on programs with Dolby Digital Audio if you are using the Digital Audio Out (Optical) to a digital audio receiver and the RF coaxial output cable to your TV or stereo.

OFF: select this option if you are not using the Digital Audio Out (Optical).

Sounds pretty self-explanatory to me...unless you are using the S-video output to feed your TV.


----------



## d0ug (Mar 22, 2006)

ThomasM said:


> This setting has been around since the manual was printed. It says:
> 
> Dolby On (RCA): Select this option to optimize the audio on programs with Dolby Digital Audio if you are using the Digital Audio Out (Optical) to a digital audio receiver and the Audio/Video (RCA) cable to your TV or stereo.
> 
> ...


Ok, this makes sense now. Essentially it is controlling how the R15 internally downsamples the 5.1 to stereo for TVs using analog stereo over RCA or RF.

I am pretty sure previously the R15 only had an on and off option, however i am not going to downgrade to find out. I couldn't find any screenshots of the R15 online, but did find this one from the HR20. I know its not the same as the R15, but on this screenshot from the HR20 it appears to only have an on and off option.










I am using S-Video. My setup is the R-15 is connected to my DVD-Recorder via S-video and analog RCA audio. and my DVD-Recorder is connected to my TV using Component Video and connected to my speakers using the Coaxial RCA Digital.

This allows me to enjoy DVDs using the best possible Video and Audio connections, and I just pass the S-video though the DVD-Recorder for normal watching. I see no visible reduction in video quality doing this, since the connection between the Recorder and TV is Component.

This also allows me to record stuff on my R-15 to DVD if i want to save it permamnently.


----------



## kikkenit2 (Oct 26, 2006)

d0ug said:


> Ok, this makes sense now. Essentially it is controlling how the R15 internally downsamples the 5.1 to stereo for TVs using analog stereo over RCA or RF.
> 
> I am pretty sure previously the R15 only had an on and off option, however i am not going to downgrade to find out. I am using S-Video. My setup is the R-15 is connected to my DVD-Recorder via S-video and *analog RCA audio*. and my DVD-Recorder is connected to my TV using Component Video and connected to my speakers using the Coaxial RCA Digital. This allows me to enjoy DVDs using the best possible Video and Audio connections, and I just pass the S-video though the DVD-Recorder for normal watching. I see no visible reduction in video quality doing this, since the connection between the Recorder and TV is Component. This also allows me to record stuff on my R-15 to DVD if i want to save it permamnently.


I use s-video also but I contend that you are not getting the best audio to your dvd recorder and tv if you are using the red and white rca ports. I'm guessing that your dvd recorder doesn't have a toslink optical (red laser) input. My dvd player only has a coaxial digital audio connection. Toslink is gradually taking over and hdmi is even better.


----------



## d0ug (Mar 22, 2006)

kikkenit2 said:


> I use s-video also but I contend that you are not getting the best audio to your dvd recorder and tv if you are using the red and white rca ports. I'm guessing that your dvd recorder doesn't have a toslink optical (red laser) input. My dvd player only has a coaxial digital audio connection. Toslink is gradually taking over and hdmi is even better.


Yeah my DVD-Recorder only has analog RCA audio inputs. I was just hoping to have a way to directly connect my speakers to the R-15 for the few programs out there that supported 5.1. Most likely most of it is PPV movies, which i dont watch much PPV.

When i noticed that setting under audio, i got the impression from the way it was described that it might output the coaxal digital audio out of one of the otherwise analog audio outputs.


----------

