Surround sound on Sky+ ? Does it exist ?

[thevman19]

Hello all

I am pretty clueless at this, and have learnt everything I know off these forums!

Just purchased a 5.1 all in one system.

We only watch DVD's very occasionally, but watch a lot of sport and normal Sky programmes.

When watching Sky, the 2 front speakers, and subwoofer are active, but the other 3 speakers seem useless with no sound coming out!

Have we wasted our money buying a 5.1 system ? Do normal Sky programmes utilise all 6 speakers ?

We havent connected the DVD player to the Sky box with an optical cable or Audio cable (from the advice of Currys!), does this matter ?

There doesn't seem be an option on our Sky "services" button for 5.1. It just says Mono or Stereo.

Any help would be grealy appreciated

 

[reckless]

Yes, Sky + will output 5.1 but only on certain progs transmit in 5.1 (films etc). You'll know because selecting any programme to watch brings up the info and in the corner you'll see the letters DD (Dolby Digital).

You'll only get this through the optical out though - not Scart. The setting is in the audio section of the setup. Obviously your amp has to accept optical in and it would also help if there's a setting in the amp to delay the audio to bring it back into sync with the picture.

 

[Andy98765]

In the sound setup of the SKY+ box you need to change the output to digital and run a fibre cable from the SKY box to your AV system.

 

[Clatter]

The only channels on Sky that are broadcast in 5.1 are the movie channels.

If you can set your amp to DPL2 this will give a very good approximation of 5.1 for many of the other channels.

 

[Broadz]

We havent connected the DVD player to the Sky box with an optical cable or Audio cable (from the advice of Currys!), does this matter ?

If you haven't connected your Sky box to your surround sound system via either an optical cable or an audio cable (RCA cable??) then how exactly have you connected them?

If you do have a subscription to the movie channels, and your all-in-one DVD surround sound system (how I hate those things) does allow you to connect an external system via an optical in cable, then you should be able to receive the movies in full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. But as Clatter suggests, even if you only connect your Sky box to your system using RCA cables but configure your surround system to interpret the stereo input as DPL (or DPL II) you will receive psuedo-surround sound - at least your centre and rear speakers should work.