Question Connecting my old Blu Ray/home theatre system to my computer

psyxologos

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I need some help please. I have my old SC-BT200 Blu-ray home theatre sound system (I replaced it with a UB820 Smart 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray & DVD Player and a Denon X2600H) which I thought I connect to my desktop PC. Would that be possible? I have attached pictures of the back of the SC-BT200 and the back of the PC where it shows what connections are available to me. My initial thought was to use an optical cable from 2 (STB) on the SC-BT200 to the S/PDIF on the computer. Would this work? Any help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks

P.S: There is also a HDMI port on the back of the PC, but I think this is to connect it to a HDMI enabled screen, so I do not think this is an option for me.
 

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Are you trying to feed the PC sound to your old Home Theatre system? that would work fine.
The PC is geared to be the source so without any additional hardware it is difficult to get an input to the PC via your BluRAy system. Connecting video to the PC (4K) will also need to satisfy HDCP criteria. Your bluray video can be connected to a suitable PC monitor but I'm not too sure that is what you are trying to achieve.
 
If wanting to output audio and video from your PC to an AV receiver then HDMI would be your best option. THis would however require that the PC had a video card that included at least one HDMI or display port output.

The optical interface on board the PC is an output and not an input. No idea as to why t=you are trying to input audio into the PC?

If getting an AV receiver then do away with the old Pansonic all in one setup all together. Maybe look at getting a PC with a more up to date video card that includes HDMI. Connect the PC as a source to a modern AV receiver via HDMI. HDMI can convey both audio and video and the audio you can potentially convey will be HD formats superior to what is possible via S/PDIF. THe HDMI output tfrom the PC to the DEnon AVR is your best option.

In the meantime and if you have issues associated with the HDMI output on the PC, connect the S/PDIF output on the PC to an optical input on the Denon AV receiver. This would enable you to convey SD 5.1 encoded audio from the PC to the AV receiver.



Note that you'll need to configure both the sound and the HDMI settings on the PC to enable it to convey a signal to an AV receiver via HDMI.
 
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Are you trying to feed the PC sound to your old Home Theatre system? that would work fine.
The PC is geared to be the source so without any additional hardware it is difficult to get an input to the PC via your BluRAy system. Connecting video to the PC (4K) will also need to satisfy HDCP criteria. Your bluray video can be connected to a suitable PC monitor but I'm not too sure that is what you are trying to achieve.

Thank you. Yes. All I want is to send the sound from my PC in to the old home theatre system. I will use the old home theatre system as the amplifier (the old home theatre system has a 5.1 DD set up with speakers and sub). I am not interested to feed anything from the Theatre system to the PC. I know about connecting it to a PC monitor (and the HDCP criteria) but at this stage it is just the sound that I want to send from the PC to the home theatre and use it as an amplifier and speaker system. So, what do I connect it with? Optical as per my OP? Thanks again!
 
If wanting to output audio and video from your PC to an AV receiver then HDMI would be your best option. THis would however require that the PC had a video card that included at least one HDMI or display port output.

Thank you for your reply. My PC and video card do have a HDMI port output, but at this stage I am not trying to send anything from the home theatre to the PC. I just want the PC to play sound through the old home theatre system and use this as an amp and speaker surround system.

The optical interface on board the PC is an output and not an input. No idea as to why you are trying to input audio into the PC?

I am not. It is the other way round. Sound from PC to the old home theatre system.

If getting an AV receiver then do away with the old Pansonic all in one setup all together. Maybe look at getting a PC with a more up to date video card that includes HDMI. Connect the PC as a source to a modern AV receiver via HDMI. HDMI can convey both audio and video and the audio you can potentially convey will be HD formats superior to what is possible via S/PDIF. THe HDMI output tfrom the PC to the DEnon AVR is your best option.

My PC has a video card that is equipped with HDMI port. Will this also send the sound from my PV to my old home theatre? If so, then all I have to do is cnnect it via HDMI and I am ready, right? Otherwise will the optical connection work too?

In the meantime and if you have issues associated with the HDMI output on the PC, connect the S/PDIF output on the PC to an optical input on the Denon AV receiver. This would enable you to convey SD 5.1 encoded audio from the PC to the AV receiver.

My Denon lives downstairs and is connected to my GZ950 and a UB820 Smart 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray & DVD Player. I just have the old SC-BT200 Blu-ray home theatre sound system sitting doing nothing now, so I thought I connect it to the PC and that way upgrade my sound at my home office. That is all...



Note that you'll need to configure both the sound and the HDMI settings on the PC to enable it to convey a signal to an AV receiver via HDMI.
I will have to find out how to do this. Would it not be more straightforward to connect the PC to the old home theatre system via optical?
 
Simply discard the old home theatre setup. You could output audio via the PC's S/PDIF output to an opticalinput on the old system, but thid wooulf resyrict the auidio you can then access to SD formats consisting of 5.1 channels or fewer. The legacy system has no HDMI inputs and cannot decode HD audio formats anyway.

Not sure why you'd want to keep the old Panasonic system as well as having the new Denon receiver?

S/PDIF cannot convey the HD formats you can convey via HDMI. There's also the reasoning why you'd want to access audio directly from the PC? If stored on that PC then you'd be better off setting up a DLNA server on the PC and accessing it directly via the AV receiver using that AV receiver's inbuilt networking capabilities.
 
Simply discard the old home theatre setup. You could output audio via the PC's S/PDIF output to an opticalinput on the old system, but thid wooulf resyrict the auidio you can then access to SD formats consisting of 5.1 channels or fewer. The legacy system has no HDMI inputs and cannot decode HD audio formats anyway.

5.1 is more than good enough for me in my PC set up. Why would I discard a perfectly good system when I do not have anything better in my home office? Surely the home theatre set up is better than the 1998 Cambridge soundworks 2.1 I currently have plugged in my PC...

Not sure why you'd want to keep the old Panasonic system as well as having the new Denon receiver?

Because the Denon is in my living room in the ground floor, my home office is on the second floor. So, I have the old home theatre system doing nothing so I would put it to good use in my home office.

S/PDIF cannot convey the HD formats you can convey via HDMI. There's also the reasoning why you'd want to access audio directly from the PC? If stored on that PC then you'd be better off setting up a DLNA server on the PC and accessing it directly via the AV receiver using that AV receiver's inbuilt networking capabilities.

I know all that, and I already do so for other receivers throughout the house. But for the home office itself, I want to explore the possibility of putting to use the home theatre system I have sitting doing nothing.

So, reading passed your objections about whether I should do it, I understand that it is possible to connect my PC to my old home theatre system. Is this the case? How do I do it? HDMI or optical is fine by me. What would you advise?
 
It would be easier to use optical, but you would not get access to the best possible HD audio that way.

You could do HDMI but the PC would see the amp as a display device and you will have to configure multiple monitors. You could clone them and then ignore the 'phantom' one.

Maybe try both ways and see which you prefer?
 
I use S/PDIF to AV amp and it is fine for DD (NETFLIX etc) and music is also OK. I avoid HDMI to a 4K monitor as HDMI is not great in terms of picture quality, I use Display port to my monitor which offers a better quality picture.
 
Thank you both for your contributions. That's exactly what I needed to know.
 

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