Hi,

I have an optical connection on my tv and sky box.

What exactly is it (i.e. does it do sound and pictures) and would it be better to connect to the tv than the scart lead?

Just wondered as I can have a free optical lead from a friend?

Thanks.

Ben

Digital Audio link.

Use it wherever possible, as its fibre optic the losses are negligible.

So is it purely just sound?

So there would be no advantage connecting the sky to the tv by it?

Sorry about the silly questions, I'm normaly quite good with tech stuff!!!

I suspect that both the optical ports (TV and Sky) are "outs" so you won't be able to connect them together. They are for sound only and are digital outputs for an AV amp. FWIW, I have a digital coax cable and a digital optical cable and I think the coax one sounds better

Chris

The optical output on your tv and sky is purely for audio as stated. I run my skyHD+, DVD and Media centre into my amp for better sound quality. For better video quality you will need to use component leads or HDMI. for this you will need a suitable output source (skyHD, DVD recorder) and a compatible TV (HD ready)

I've always found the sound quality though the optical link to be better than any other method of connection available to me.

This is of course my opinion based on my hearing and my A/V setup (non HDMI amp )

Optical will be better than SCART but HDMI will be better than the optical link as HDMI can handle higher bitrates. Optical has been knocking around for donkeys years and can't hack it any more.

As others have said, it does sound, and only sound.

It will carry either stereo PCM (uncompressed) audio, or dolby digital or dts. Also, you can only get multichannel audio from the Sky box through the optical connector, even if it has HDMI because for some (stupid) reason, the audio on HDMI from the skybox is stereo only.

It's also known as SP/DIF or Sony Phillips Digital Interconnect Format.

More info here: S/PDIF - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia