Bose Lifestyle V30 and Sky HD in 5.1

[steigy]

Without going ino the whole debate about the merits or drawback of BOSE speakers that litter the net and this forum, I was going to purchase this system in white yesterday due to their size and ease of use, being an all in one system. I held back as I read somewhere that if connecting Sky HD to the system via HDMI, the BOSE system cannot output in 5.1. My understanding is that it defaults to 2.1 with no option to change the output. If anyone has experience of this please let me know. I understand it can be overcome by connecting Sky to component but that seems to defeat the object and seems a huge omission on the part of BOSE if correct. Some urgent feedback would be greatle appreciated.

 

[johnr2110]

Hi Steigy

Sky HD only outputs 5.1 DD through optical, it's not avaliable via HDMI at all not just Bose.

Regards

John R.

 

[Mummy of Felix]

I have a Bose Lifestyle V30 which I love to bits but I had a problem from day 1 with getting Sky HD and Dolby 5.1. The guys we bought it from at Bose and the AV guy who fitted it both told us that the problem is that Sky doesn't send the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal over HDMI - instead it sends it over optical. The factory setting for the Bose system tells it to look for sound over HDMI but there is a software fix that will allow you to tell your Bose system to look to optical. Loading the fix should give you an option under Audio in the sytem menu that says "CBL.SAT Audio Priority" set this to "Optical/Co-ax" (I have seen this working in the local Bose shop). The AV chap who did the fitting was conviced he had loaded the software fix when he did the installation but he came out to re-install last week. He couldn't get the Bose system to upgrade, so our main controller has had to be returned - hopefully it should be back at the end of the week.

My advice therefore is if you do opt for the Bose and you aren't getting 5.1 DD, first see if you have this above option in your Audio settings, if not you need the software fix -your retailer should be able to provide it for you - if not try Bose themselves. Once you have that make sure that the correct option is selected. If the software won't load then you have a problem with your Bose system and it needs to be fixed.

I ought to point out that we bought our system some months before it was actually installed and I have been told that systems shipped more recently come with a more upto date software version that which includes the Sky "fix". I have no idea whether this is true or not.

 

[craigarmitage72]

I bought a v30 at the weekend and connected it all up yesterday. Sound quality was not too great but picture quality poor

I thought I would check out this forum to see what I could learn. Interesting news about the SkyHD5.1 only outputting 2.1 on HDMI. I was going to try using the Optical cable this evening and play about. Interesting to see what will happen.

PICTURE QUALITY - This was poor. I was thinking of using the HDMI straight into my TV and optical sound into the Bose Media Box. Hopefully this will work. My SkyHD looked like Standard Def and my Standard Def looked like bad, especially watching the football on ITV, bad picture. And this was using HDMI and HDMI leads only.

If anyone out there has advice on this then I would be greatful if you could post on here. I will post my findings.