Any audio experts out there?

I am not convinced Ive got my home cinema amp set up correctly.

When I play bluray movies, the blue light comes on my amp indicating dolby Digital (Master), and the text DTS master scrolls across the front. However when I watch sky (HD) with channels with the abbreviations DD (Dolby digital) & DS (dolby surround) I am not sure I am getting the full surround sound. When watching sky all I get on the amp is “Linear PCM (48)”. The rear speaker symbols only show empty boxes too, and are not filled in with SL & SR like when watching blurays?

If the sky box is outputting DD or DS, shouldn’t this be displayed on the amp and the symbols lighting up for the surround speakers? (box and letters)

Please help this has been bugging me for ages.

Easy money, this.

The Sky HD box does not output surround over HDMI. You have to use an optical cable.

(On my amp, I’ve got the ability to say “when using the ‘tv’ source, expect video via AV2 and audio via AV4” or some such.)

Ive got an optical cable doing the audio, but maybe I havnt set up the amp correctly?

Perhaps.

By default, when you connect the HDMI cable to the amp, it’ll use that for audio and video (and you’ll get 2.0 stereo, woo!) You need to configure that input to take audio from the TOSlink input instead.

It’s a known problem with the Sky HD box, and I may have said a rude word when I finally got to the bottom of it.

You need to enable Dolby Digital on the Sky box too – Settings / Sound / Digital Audio Output. I’m assuming you’ve done that, though.

Done all that, still get Linear PCM 48 when watching DD or DS channels. Do you get what I mean though that the boxes for the SR & SL speakers light up, but when watching blurays they actually have SR & SL inside each box.

The amp has got something called “decode priority” which can be “auto” or “PCM”, and Ive fiddled round with that but nothing seems to change.

Perhaps this is a good as its going to get?

If you disconnect the HDMI, does the sound continue?

(on mine, it does – proof that the audio’s being delivered over the TOSlink).

What’s the amp?

It’s a Sony DA2400ES, just watching band of brothers so I will try the cable thing once this episode has finished
Cheers