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No More Optical Out?

I

iPhisch

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 22, 2010
357
84
Indiana
Man! What's up with that? This is really going to mess with my setup. I have my optical out hooked up to my receiver and the component video from my cable box set up to a specific input so that I can stream AirPlay music through my Apple TV and watch tv (sports) at the same time. Looks like I won't be able to do that with the new model. Bummer! I guess I'll have to break out my old school Airport Express and find another spot in my power strip behind the TV. Maybe Apple will make their own cable service and I can overlay my own music over TV shows on the same device???

Other than that, shut up and take my money.
 
I also used to look for devices that had optical out as my AVR did not have HDMI but I got frustrated and upgraded my avr to a HDMI avr. You could upgrade your receiver to one that has AirPlay built in to stream your music and then use apple tv to watch sports.
 
I'm in the upgrade your receiver camp too, optical is a dying format and HDMI offers better quality audio.
 
I would love to upgrade my receiver, but it's hard to replace a $600 piece of Yamaha electronics that otherwise works flawlessly. If you find a way to convince my wife of that, I'll buy you an Apple TV, too. I'll just throw my old G-band AE from the garage behind my tv for music streaming and call it a day.
 
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I am disappointed by this same thing. I have a very nice $1200 soundbar that only takes optical audio inputs. And my television automatically downgrades all Dolby Digital+ signals over Optical to Stereo. Stupid DRM. So the old Apple TV was a great device with the optical out allowing us to get 5.1 to the soundbar. (The FireTV does this too. )
 
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My TV has an optical audio out. I use that when I use my older game consoles that plug right to the TV. Feed the audio to your receiver from your TV if you can.
 
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JesterJJZ said:
My TV has an optical audio out. I use that when I use my older game consoles that plug right to the TV. Feed the audio to your receiver from your TV if you can.
Click to expand...

Most TVs downgrade 5.1 optical signals to 2.0.

Not an issue if you're using TV speakers or a 2.0 setup, but you won't get 5.1 back, in most cases.

I have a 10 year old Sony 5.1 kit which still works great, which a 4-way splitter on my optical input. I won't be getting the new Apple TV until I feel like spending £600 on a new HDMI receiver and 5.1 speakers.. which will be quite some time away.
 
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I was disappointed to see this too, although I think I would have been more surprised if it had optical out.

Luckily for me I'll just need to redo the cabling for my setup since my receiver has HDMI...
 
I'm going to keep an old (hidden) apple tv plugged into the optical audio and use it just to airplay music through my receiver.
 
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William Gates said:
I'm going to keep an old (hidden) apple tv plugged into the optical audio and use it just to airplay music through my receiver.
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking of doing but frankly one of my big hopes with the new ATV was to get interesting audio apps, such as Spotify (I know, quite unlikely now with Apple Music).
 
Yea Apple won't allow Spotify, where do people draw these conclusions from? if anything you should come to the opposite since spotify is available through IOS on every other device. Last time i checked Apple music is on the IPAD and Iphone coexisting with Spotify
 
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JoeShades said:
Yea Apple won't allow Spotify, where do people draw these conclusions from? if anything you should come to the opposite since spotify is available through IOS on every other device. Last time i checked Apple music is on the IPAD and Iphone coexisting with Spotify
Click to expand...

I don't think anybody has drawn any conclusion.
However I think it is quite reasonable to hope that a Spotify app will be made available.

What would be the point of an App Store if you stop people from writing Apps. (What next, no Spotify on a Mac?)
Surely I am not the only one that couldn't care less about Crossy Road.
 
I have an Apple TV that floats around the house depending on who is using it, and in one location I use the toslink out to feed an old stereo system through a toslink to RCA analog out adapter.

The new Apple TV will probably live on my main set which handles 5.1 through HDMI, but it's sad to see the toslink out go because it came in handy for users who gave their Apple TV an additional, audio-only task. Streaming airplay with the TV off is a wonderful thing.
 
Wando64 said:
I don't think anybody has drawn any conclusion.
However I think it is quite reasonable to hope that a Spotify app will be made available.

What would be the point of an App Store if you stop people from writing Apps. (What next, no Spotify on a Mac?)
Surely I am not the only one that couldn't care less about Crossy Road.
Click to expand...
There will be a Spotify app, an Amazon Instant Video app etc. Finally. I bet there is no reason there isn't already one on the existing Apple TV other thanSpotify and Amazon didn't do the work to make it available.
 
iPhisch said:
I would love to upgrade my receiver, but it's hard to replace a $600 piece of Yamaha electronics that otherwise works flawlessly. If you find a way to convince my wife of that, I'll buy you an Apple TV, too. I'll just throw my old G-band AE from the garage behind my tv for music streaming and call it a day.
Click to expand...
well you could sell your Yamaha and buy a new one or if are using a HDMI switch why not replace it with this one: http://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=5557 It has Optical and Toslink out and it will allow you to have optical audio from all 4 ports of the HDMI switch.
 
I have my ATV (2nd gen) HDMI out to my 7.1 receiver for home theater and it's Toslink out to Zone 2 on the same receiver so I can play iTunes and/or Pandora (via Airplay) outside on my deck speakers. My 7 year old Denon receiver only outputs analog to Zone 2 so I have to use a little converter box. So with only HDMI in the new ATV it looks like I'll have to find one of those switchers others have posted or buy a newer receiver that supports digital out to zone 2. Haven't totally thought it through yet but would like to see if anyone else in the same predicament. I definitely want to pick up the new one. I recently jailbroke my ATV and played around with some of what I can do with it but wasn't terribly impressed. So, may be resetting it, putting it in another room where it probably won't see much use, or selling it.
 
fieldsphotos said:
I am disappointed by this same thing. I have a very nice $1200 soundbar that only takes optical audio inputs. And my television automatically downgrades all Dolby Digital+ signals over Optical to Stereo. Stupid DRM. So the old Apple TV was a great device with the optical out allowing us to get 5.1 to the soundbar. (The FireTV does this too. )
Click to expand...

I'm in the same situation. I currently take the optical audio out from the Apple TV and feed that into my soundbar system which does 5.1 surround sound. My television downgrades the HDMI audio to stereo, so using that isn't an option. (and I don't want to buy a new TV... I have better things to spend money on)
 
Just received a couple extra HDMI cables from Amazon (I can't believe they work on Sunday....poor guy could be home with his family instead he's delivering me HDMI cables and a mouse pad to me lol) and rewired my receiver in preparation for the new AppleTV.

I really would have preferred optical out but I knew this was coming for years. Everything seemed to be moving that direction, I'm just thankful my receiver has HDMI support.

Overall I do feel this is a better setup. No perceivable differences once I got the remote reprogrammed but less cables and I feel thats a good thing.
 
No need to buy a new compatible receiver. Just buy a $20 splitter and that should get the job done. You could put off that upgrade a few more years.
 
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