How to channel audio from Roku 3 through old receiver?

August 7, 2013 8:13 AM

How do I connect my Roku 3's audio channel through an old AV receiver? I have an Onkyo that works fine, but it has no HDMI inputs. I just upgraded to the Roku 3, and there are no RCA outputs. I don't want to spend $250-$500 on a new AV receiver, and don't want to invest in a soundbar. I'm hoping I can still use my receiver. I was looking at this thing (http://goo.gl/SphLUa) at Monoprice, but not sure if and how I would use it. Thoughts?
posted by sholdens12 to Technology (7 answers total)

Roku is going into your TV via HDMI, right? Does your TV have RCA-out? If so, is there a reason you can't connect the TV's RCA-out to the receiver's RCA-in?
posted by griphus at 8:20 AM on August 7, 2013

Best answer: Griphus' solution is exactly how I do it at home. HDMI to the TV, optical out to the receiver (but RCA out would work fine, too). Input switching is all done on the TV and the receiver just stays on one input.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:27 AM on August 7, 2013

To be a little more clear: the issue is that if you convert HDMI audio (which runs along the same cable as the video) to stereo audio, you have to convert the entire signal, which means you're losing video quality. If that's not an issue, you can get something like this (I haven't actually tried that, but it's HDMI->Composite, which sounds like what your'e asking for.) The one you linked to just seems to be an HDMI switchbox, which isn't what you need at all.

If you want to keep HDMI video quality, you need something that splits the video from before conversion, and convert only the audio. The TV should be able to do that; it's how I have it set up at home.
posted by griphus at 8:28 AM on August 7, 2013

Does your receiver have optical or SPDIF input? Are you using surround sound? if so that switch you linked is exactly what you need.

If you just need two channel RCA audio output, buy this and this. If you need surround just get a TOSLINK or random old RCA cable to connect the SPDIF output on that splitter you already linked to your receiver.

Alternatively, i have a roku hd2000 with analog out i could trade you?(slightly kidding, slightly not)
posted by emptythought at 10:28 AM on August 7, 2013

The solution to pass the audio through your TV and use its digital audio out is the simplest, but there's one complication here: many TVs will not pass through a multi-channel bitstream from HDMI in to optical out -- only a signal from over the air. The best you'll get is the output of the TV's onboard decoder, which is likely going to be downmixed to two channel and then sent as a PCM stream.

(The usual reason given for this is that HDCP doesn't allow forwarding of protected audio via a link that doesn't also handle HDCP; anything connected by optical won't. In theory a TV could forward non-protected audio along, but I think a lot of manufacturers decide to not bother for any and save some money.)

If you're looking to have multi-channel encoded audio passed through, you'd be best off with the switch above. Depending on how much it respects HDCP (and given that it says it's fully compliant, I'd imagine it would) it *still* won't pass along audio that's HDCP protected. I don't know what output from the Roku is or isn't, but you might want to check on that if it's important to you.

Otherwise, either your switch, for a digital solution, or what emptythought provided for an analog one, will be fine.
posted by jammer at 11:23 AM on August 7, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks guys, I'm going to try getting an optical audio cable to connect the TV audio output to the receiver's audio digital input. I'll report back.
posted by sholdens12 at 1:25 PM on August 7, 2013

Response by poster: This worked. I hooked up the Roku to the TV with HDMI, and then used optical audio from the TV to the receiver. Bingo. Thanks.
posted by sholdens12 at 1:12 PM on April 9, 2014