How can I get my dvd player to output Dolby 5.1?

Question

I recently bought 1 DVD player that had a 5.1 system but then I bought a second multiregion player on its own.

However I cant figure out how to get the 2nd player to interface with the 5.1 system (for true surround sound).

The 2nd player has a 2-channel audio out and a digital out (co-axial) - is it possible the digital out will let me hear true surround through the first player?

Answer 1

You will need to connect your second DVD player using its coaxial digital ouput to your home theater receiver with a digital coaxial cable like this one:

http://www.wildwestelectronics.net/moncoaxdigin.html

Next, you will want to go into the setup menu of your DVD player and ensure that your audio output on yoru DVD player is set to "bitstream". This will allow your DVD player to send multi-channel digital surround sound information to your home theater receiver.

Then, you will need to select a digital coaxial input on your receiver you wish to connect your 2nd DVD player. The back of your receiver will usually have the inputs labeled like "coax 1", "coax 2" et cetera.

Next, you need to tell your receiver which digital coax input you are using for the input you wish to select.

For example, if you decide to use the "Video 2" input to select your 2nd DVD player and are using the "Coax 2" digital input for your sound , you will need to use your receivers setup menu to assign the "Coax 2" input to "Video 2".

This lets your receiver know to expect digital audio signals from the "Coax 2" digital audio input when you are using the "Video 2" input on your receiver.

This explanation assumes you are using some kind of home theater receiver to connect your DVD players and has at least Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound decoder which most all modern home theater receivers have.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I have a digital coax out of my cable box to my receiver and the receiver receives it as Dolby Digital when a program is using Dolby Digital. Yes, it will let you hear true surround sound as long as the dvd's will output dolby digital, dts, etc..

Answer 3

DVD players don't generally communicate with one another. each would need to be connected to a Surround Sound Decoder/Receiver that would decode the 5.1 data from the DVD's and play on the approriate speaker channels.

Answer 4

You can connect the 2d player's s/pdif to the 1st only if the first has an extra digital audio input.