Hi, I'm trying to find an upconverting DVD player that will allow for audio out to be active over TOS and HDMI simultaneously. The reason is that my mother has wireless headphones attached to the TV and she'd prefer to use these instead of relying on the captions, so the HDMI could run to the TV and provide that audio; but since we usually watch movies together I'd like to be able to run the audio through my receiver too for the surround and over all better quality since like many flat panels, the TV speakers aren't the greatest.

If I plug the headphones into the receiver it shuts off the speakers. I've tried several different ways of doing this already and I'm hoping that what I'm picturing now will be a viable solution. I'm certainly open to suggestions though and thanks!

Mark

Hi, I'm trying to find an upconverting DVD player that will allow for audio out to be active over TOS and HDMI simultaneously. The reason is that my mother has wireless headphones attached to the TV and she'd prefer to use these instead of relying on the captions, so the HDMI could run to the TV and provide that audio; but since we usually watch movies together I'd like to be able to run the audio through my receiver too for the surround and over all better quality since like many flat panels, the TV speakers aren't the greatest.

If I plug the headphones into the receiver it shuts off the speakers. I've tried several different ways of doing this already and I'm hoping that what I'm picturing now will be a viable solution. I'm certainly open to suggestions though and thanks!

Mark

I know the OPPOs all do this, but I haven't kept up with other lines.

-Bill

Thanks very much Bill, I'll look into their models and see what seems best!

Mark

I think you could also try getting an adapter cable for your headphones.

If you get an headphone-rca cable (with perhaps other adapters to get the genders right), then you should be able to go from an RCA output(figure out where you want to get this signal)to the headphones. This should stop your issue of cutting off the speakers when using the headphone jack on your receiver.

You might want to aware that your headphones might not like the line-level rca output, so you might need an inline headphone amp or other adjustment to adjust the volume, if the headphones don't like line-level audio and can't amp it itself.

The more i think of it, wouldn't the dvd player you have have plain RCA stereo audio out that probably won't cut off when you are using optical? You could just have that go to the tv. So HDMI+stereo->TV. optical to your receiver.

The current DVD player is a HTIB, built in to the amp, etc. It's designed to output the sound right to its own speakers. Using any of the other audio outs on the receiver cuts out the speakers and I like the current surround system the way it is. So the headphones are currently connected to RCA outs on the TV instead. Which works fine for TV watching; the cable box is plugged in to the TV through HDMI and to the receiver with an optical cable. They're both live. I can even shut off the TV's speakers (they're usually off) and the audio outs on the TV will pass the audio to the headphones. But if I set the home theater to route DVD audio to the TV through its HDMI cable, it also shuts off the external speakers.

Since the goal is to have the surround system working and also provide my mother with a "boost" through the headphones, I haven't been able to find a viable combination to allow for this with our current equipment in order to play DVDs.

Perhaps that gives a better overview of the situation. I appreciate your taking the time to come up with a potential solution raytseng, and if you think that I've overlooked anything please let me know.

We're also not too thrilled about the idea of blu-ray at this point, although that may be a mistake. (My 58" Panny Plasma is 2.5 years old and only goes up to 1080i, if I got blu-ray I'd start itching to be really wasteful and my mind would be headed towards...) I did want a better player for standard DVDS anyway though so I thought there might be a way to kill 2 birds with one stone.

Based on wmmclain's post I wrote to support at Oppo this morning with a pre sales question and they confirmed what wmmclain had said. So I ordered one of their players and HDMI and TOS switches. I only have 2 HDMI inputs on the TV and 1 optical audio in on the receiver so I figure that with the switches I can share the ports currently used by the cable box with the new Oppo player. I also have a roku box which I can run through that for better video and audio capabilities than how it's currently connected.

So if anyone sees an easier and more cost effective solution, I can still cancel that stuff ;)

And thanks again,

Mark

Ah, makes more sense now that you've explained you have a HTIB DVD+receiver.

If you don't have a stand-alone dvd player at the moment, I think you won't have buyers remorse as it'll still be useful no matter what you upgrade in the future.

Oppo is definitely an excellent player, but it is at the high end of dvd players. You could probably get by with any no-name cheaper ~$30 player. Since you've stated you are using a HTiB that sort of puts you in a group where you most likely won't need or use all the fancy Oppo features for which you are playing a steep 300% premium.

On the other hand, although it's 300% more expensive, that still adds up to "only" maybe $100 or so. In the grand scheme of things this maybe insignificant as compared to the costs of the DVDs you intend to buy yourself. You'll have one of the best players (which you may take more advantage of later as you upgrade parts of your system).

Either way, one good suggestion is to check ebay as Oppo does sell their official "refurbs" for a few $$ less.

Thanks Ray - I appreciate your efforts on making sure that I don't end up with buyer's remorse! I should have explained the HTIB situation in my first post but I didn't want to overly complicate the post.

As far as a less expensive player; before I posted initially I looked up several DVD players and downloaded the manuals from the manufacturer's sites. In most every case the manual made it clear that once you select audio out over HDMI, the optical audio output shuts off. Other manuals didn't cover that point, so rather than query every manufacturer I thought that someone here might have experience with this issue. As it turns out, Oppo puts so much emphasis on the audio features of its players that it makes sense that their systems would function this way.

Remember the initial intention of my post wasn't to find a recommendation on an upconverting player, but for a player which would keep multiple audio outputs live simultaneously.

So I could spend time trying to find out about the cheaper players or bite the bullet and go with this one which is very highly reviewed in any case. Sure I'd rather that the money was in my pocket, but it's not too much of a difference for me and if it solves the problem, so be it.

Now I just have to hope that I'm not overlooking anything which would prevent it from working the way I'm picturing. But I really can't see why that would be unless I have some sort of problem with the switches.

Mark

Not sure about the Sonys. It seems the issue is not whether both outputs are live, but whether you can still get DD or DTS out of the optical output when you're also connected to the TV via HDMI. Seems like a pretty stupid design decision if you can't: I want HDMI to my TV for ease of connection and picture quality, and digital audio to my surround sound amp.

BTW my Xbox 360 works this way: HDMI cable to the TV for picture (I keep the sound on the TV all the way down - I suppose I could turn the speakers off - but I could easily plug headphones into the TV), and optical audio to my surround amp.

Most of the HDMI players can output on both. Even my $39 RCA can do it. Yes, I can get DD and DTS out of optical.

Thanks guys. Well then maybe it's overkill but the Oppo was delivered. Just waiting on the HDMI switch so I don't have to mess with things repeatedly. I'll let you know how it works out.

Mark

I often listen to movies and TV using my sennheiser 555 headphones. I use to just plug into my receiver headphone jack. But when my sister and I watch movies at night we like the movies at different volumes. I have a portable headphone amp (made by headroom company) that I use for travel and it has a line in with RCA left/right. I plugged the headphone amp into the back of the oppo 971 via analog RCA. This allows me to listen to two headphones at the same time. One through the heaphone amp and one through the receiver. I can also run one headphone and the main speakers at the same time. I can also adjust the sound independently as well. The wireless headphones base should work just like an amp. My Oppo is connected to my receiver via coax digital cable and my headphone amp via analog.

Thirsty,

Yes that's similar to the sennheiser's my mother uses. I'm glad that solution works for you but it wouldn't be the best for us. My mother needs to use the headphones for TV too, and it would be a hassle to keep reconnecting them back and forth. Plus I only have that one TOS input on the current HTIB and I want to run both the oppo and the cable box through it. Unfortunately the HTIB doesn't have another digital port at all so I can't run a coax to it.

Oppo showed up last week and I hooked it up on Saturday. The whole thing worked except the TOS switch I got is apparently attenuating the signal too much for the HTIB to pick it up, so I had to keep switching cables by hand this weekend. I bought a TOS amplifier to see if that will help and it should be here within the next few days. I'm not sure if those things are legit; mixed reviews. At the very least though it would make it easier to switch the cables around if I have to since the little amp essentially mates 2 TOS cables and will be easier to access than the back of the relevant equipment.

If anyone has any ideas on this please let me know. Thanks!

Mark

^ I'm surprised the TOSLINK switch is attenuating the signal so that it's not adequate for the HTIB. I didn't go back and read the whole thread - are you running very long cable lengths? Don't even know if that would make a difference unless you're using really cheap cable with poor quality optical material.

I've used at least a couple of switches that support TOSLINK, including an el-cheapo manual switch that RadioShack used to sell, and never had a problem with any of them. They may not pass muster with audiophiles, but certainly my decoder has no problem interpreting the signals correctly (solid indication of DD, DTS, etc.) and it sounds fine to me with no dropouts. I think the cables to and from the switch are probably 4 feet, so 8 feet total (plus switch) from source to receiver.

I'm casting a wary eye at your switch, I guess, since it seems your sources and your HTIB play well together when directly connected.

Hi Gantt,

Thanks for taking the time to post. I'm using pretty short cables, just 6 feet. Perhaps you're right about the switch. I've never used one before so I have nothing to compare it to. It's made by Cables To Go and got pretty decent reviews online. I can see that the output when run through the switch is visibly dimmer than without it when I look at the end of the cable. If that's not normal than perhaps there's something wrong with this particular switch. The output seems to be about half the strength. I was just assuming that the input on my HTIB is particularly finicky.

Thanks,

Mark

Is your switch the 3-Play? That's one of the ones that I have used. I think it worked fine as far as TOSLINK switching. It does seem suspect that there is a substantial visible difference in the output brightness, but I doubt I looked at mine.

You already ordered the amp, so hopefully that will fix the issue, whether it's your switch, your HTIB or a combo. I've no experience with TOSLINK amplifiers. Good luck.

It's this one actually:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002OF2FC

And we'll see how the amplifier goes. I'm not sure that I want to deal with the hassle of returning the switch to amazon and ordering something else. It'll be a waste of time, money and hope if the next one doesn't work either because of something with the sensitivity in the HTIB. I can't find anything around here locally, we're sort of in the electronic boonies.

So perhaps the amplifier will work.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I94FRM

It should be here within a day or so and I'll try it out. At least if it doesn't degrade the signal it'll serve as a way to change the TOS plugs more easily. Now if that doesn't work at all I'll have to look for another alternative since I don't want to get stuck pulling out the equipment to change plugs every time I'm changing sources.

It's this one actually:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002OF2FC


Ha! That looks nearly identical to the RadioShack switch I mentioned. I used that one for quite a while and it worked fine. However, I wonder if the mechanical design (rotary switch) makes it susceptible to issues if the mechanism isn't properly aligned. IIRC mine had very well-defined positions and made a satisfying clunk as it locked in each position - but with yours, is it possible to slightly tweak the position of the switch clockwise/counterclockwise while watching/listening to your HTIB to see if that affects the signal?

Good idea and again I thank you for thinking on it and taking the time to post, but this one makes quite the clunk and locks into place too. There's no wiggle room at all.

Too bad that I don't have any other component in the house that accepts optical audio input or I could test the setup with another device.

Well that little TOS amplifier showed up today and guess what? It fixed the problem. I've installed everything and it does exactly what I wanted it to do in the first place. Thanks very much everyone for all your help!

Mark

^ Congrats on finding a solution.

BTW I can confirm that the Sony DVP-NS700H will output DD or DTS via optical while simultaneously providing audio and video via HDMI to a TV. It's probably safe to assume the replacement DVP-NS710H also can output both HDMI audio and audio-only digital out simultaneously, but NOT TOSLINK because Sony (in its infinite wisdom) removed the TOSLINK output from the NS710H - you'd have to use the digital coax output.

The Panasonic DVD-S54K will as well.