Not sure if this is possible but I have a Samsung HD television and a Samsung hard disk recorder which are connected via both a SCART lead and HDMI Lead.

On both the TV and recorder there are RCA audio connectors as well as digital audio out (optical) connectors (the recorder also has a digital audio out coaxial connector).

I also have a very basic 5.1 surround sound set up which has 3 pairs of RCA inputs for front, centre and rear speakers plus a pair of auxiliary inputs for a normal stereo source (non-surroundsound).

At the moment I have the TV RCA audio output connected to the auxiliary RCA input on the speakers which works OK but what I'm getting (I presume) is stereo out of all the speakers but not actual surround sound.

Is it possible to utilise the digital out connector via some form of Digital to Analogue converter to get genuine surround sound or is the impossible or prohibitively expensive?

John.

I'm pretty sure you would need some form of digital decoder, to split out the channels on the optical out, so it would probably be cheaper to by an new 5.1 processor.

Unless you have sky hd (or possibly hd cable or freesat!) then you won't get broadcast digital audio. If you connect either the tv or dvd-r to you amp with stereo phono leads, you will hopefully get basic surround sound, dolby pro-logic, which is carried in some broadcasts. If your dvd player doesn't have 5.1 out then your cheapest option for dolby digital is a dvd player that does have that. Even better would be a blu-ray with 5.1 out which could give you every possible 5.1 surround format available. At the moment though, connect your dvd-r to the amp with stereo phono to get surround from dvd (downmixed pro-logic) and use the tv tuner in the dvd-r to get broadcast surround sound.

john

[Edited on 24/2/09 by jake_truck]