Optical Cable to Cable Box or TV from Receiver

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Just got a new sound system for my "new" TV. PART of the instructions involved using a optical cable from the Sony Receiver to the back of the Sony TV. I checked out the setup on my "old" TV and it had an option (2 different Optical Cable plug in junctions side by side on back of the receiver) on the back of that Sony Receiver to run the Optical Cable to the cable box or TV.

My question, if you have the option of being able to run your optical cable from either your cable box or your TV to your receiver, which would you use?
 
Why not just keep it simple and use HDMI from cable box to your home theater receiver? And then HDMI from receiver to TV to pass video signal.
 
I would go through the TV, not for any specific reason, it would just make more sense to me.. however, why is Sony using Optical cables still? Seems strange to me, is your receiver older? Most stuff should work with HDMI alone.
 
Originally Posted By: Rolla07
I would go through the TV, not for any specific reason, it would just make more sense to me.. however, why is Sony using Optical cables still? Seems strange to me, is your receiver older? Most stuff should work with HDMI alone.


Yes, the "old" TV is one of those that you replace the bulb package in the back. It's about a foot thick at the bottom.
 
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If you only watch cable, just go direct from the cable box to the receiver. The optical audio output of the TV would be useful if you are tuning over the air channels on the TV.
 
Originally Posted By: Gebo
Originally Posted By: Rolla07
I would go through the TV, not for any specific reason, it would just make more sense to me.. however, why is Sony using Optical cables still? Seems strange to me, is your receiver older? Most stuff should work with HDMI alone.


Yes, the "old" TV is one of those that you replace the bulb package in the back. It's about a foot thick at the bottom.


Is your TV a rear projection unit. We had a rear projection TV for years. It did have a good picture but constantly replacing bulbs got expensive. And the power it consumed really became evident once we got tired of replacing the bulbs which were pricy. We gave it to our son. We saw a noticeable drop in our electric bill after replacing it with a new flat screen TV.
 
Originally Posted By: NGRhodes
My LG TV only passes 2.0 through its digital audio out, I connect to my receiver directly.

^^This. You won't be able to get full 5.1 or 7.1 channel surround if the signal passes through the TV. You'll need to run a cable from the cable box directly to the receiver. If the TV is a smart TV with Netflix, Chromecast, etc built-in though, you'll also need a cable running from the TV to the receiver, as the cable box is not involved in that at all. You will be able to get 5.1 or 7.1 surround when playing those sources. A simpler solution is to connect all the HDMI sources to the receiver, and run a single HDMI to the TV. On my TV, I had to run two optical cables from the cable box and TV to the receiver, because I have an older receiver that doesn't have HDMI connections.
 
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