Digital Optical to Analog Converter

has

TV.

rep

rter

Hmm... knowing how to RTFM, I suspect this factoid is important:

NOTE: The D3 does not support Dolby, DTS, or other surround sound signals. Therefore, it is important that the digital audio output of your device defaults to or can be set to PCM/LPCM output. Otherwise the sound will be static.

Have you already taken this into consideration?

has

TV.

rep

rter

Had a similar problem but the earphone jack works well enough. For reasons that make no sense to me using the earphone jack disables balance, bass and treble controls. Somebody in Korea believes that earphones are perfect. Who knew? Anyway I use one of the USB ports to take the 5 Volts and trigger a solid state relay to turn on the receiver to run the speakers. It's only stereo but then again it's only TV.

G=B2

A related issue...

Though it's not the source of your problem, you might want to look into the possibility of ground loops, especially if you wind up making an analog connection between the Panasonic and your system.

It's difficult to find RF isolation transformers for cable systems. MCM sells one -- the #33-8700 that seems to work okay. It's sometimes available for ~ $10. You might also want or need a double-F connector, #33-480.

I think that will do it. When RTFM (thanks spamtrap1888) the Panasonic will provide Dolby Digital when an ATSC channel is selected and PCM when NTSC channel is selected. I'm getting ATSC over the air so I need to convert Dolby Digital. Looks like the Gefen unit will do this. I'll get it and post back the results. BTW, I could find no menu option to change the digital optical out fomat on the TV. Thanks to all for your help.

he

le

I bought 2 of these directly from RMS for $5 each a couple of years ago. They work very well. I had a hard time finding ANY 'galvanic isolators'.

I had the very problem you're talking about and the isolators cleaned all of it up. The problem was PCs in different rooms on different branches and opposite phase connected by the antenna cables. The hum was quite bad before the isolators.

G=B2

Interesting. My 60" Mitsubishi DLP converts everything it receives, whether OTA or from any HDMI or analog source, into 48 KHz stereo PCM for its optical output. This allows me to use an ancient DAC with it and get full functioning no matter what the source.

There may be a setup menu option for forcing the digital output of your TV into PCM mode all of the time. Or not.

The MCM is spec'd at a 2.4GHz bandwidth, so it might provide better performance in some systems. (I have no idea what the upper limits of cable systems are.)

le

I'm using them with OTA digital TV which tops out at 700 MHz so it's no problem at all. Our cable provider is currently topped out at channel 135, under 900 MHz

G=B2

We have the Gefen new in stock new for $100.

Klay

Yep. That did it. The Gefen DAC successfully converts the Panasonic Optical Digital output Dolby Digital to 2 channel audio. Yippee!

This digital stuff is all new to me.

Thanks all, John