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Optical Output Not Working

I have had my AppleTV since Feb 2007 and been working well for me. I have been running into a problem lately where I cannot get the ATV to send audio thru the optical port. I have tried every combination of connecting it to my Onkyo receiver to test with no luck.

*Here's what works:* Audio from cable box w/ same optical cable and same port on receiver. HDMI audio on TV (my receiver does audio/video passthru but doesn't do HDMI audio, hence me using optical cable for this application). I also do have a visual that the light is coming thru the cable from ATV.

*Here's what doesn't work:* Optical audio on any input on my receiver from ATV.

I didn't really realize this as I also have been using analog 2 channel cables to my receiver as my receiver requires this if I want to use 2 sets of speakers at the same time (ie indoor and outdoor). When I did start noticing some problem, but didn't really think to much of it at the time, my receiver would try switching to digital audio but would revert back to analog audio in a matter of a second or two.

I have factory restored my ATV to its original Version 1.x and updated to Version 2.3 with no success either way.

I also live over an hour away from the nearest Apple Store and want to make that my last resort for warranty replacement as I do spend the extra $ on Apple Care. I really wish Apple could do like most other hardware manufactures and do a pre-replacement, but it appears that I'm out of luck on that.

Any ideas?

MacBook 13", Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Nov 20, 2008 10:59 AM

Reply
22 replies

Jan 1, 2009 10:27 AM in response to maxrebo

Same Problem. Brand new 160Gig ATV running 2.3 code. Optical Cable works as tested between my Digital Cable box and receiver. I move the cable from DTV to my Apple TV (I have a "red" light on the cable before I plug into the receiver)and I have no sound unless I use the red/White analog cables. ATV connected via HDMI to my Hitachi TV - If I disconnect Red/White cables I only have sound through TV speakers via HDMI. There have been too many posts recently where this can only be a coincidence. This is clearly an issue with the Optical Output on the ATV box. Is there a "lot" number where this is a problem? Is it a problem on all boxes running 2.3 code or only some? Does anyone have an ATV box running 2.3 code, HDMI to the TV, optical to the receiver - and they get sound through the Optical connection?

Jan 4, 2009 10:29 AM in response to phirstpro

my atv connects to my tv using hdmi
and the optical connects to my sony surround reciever
optical works great for me of cause i have to change to
bd on the reciever remote which is what it call
the optical maybe because it's sony and they see optical to
must be comming from a blueray player

it still works if i turn off the tv and use my ipod touch as remote
and it's using 2.3firmware

Feb 17, 2009 9:24 PM in response to maxrebo

Just picked up an Apple TV and thought my optical output was broken until I found this thread. Running 2.3. Tried swapping a working optical cable input with the Apple TV and still no sound.

Rebooting the device also does not help.

Has anyone tried returning the Apple TV and swapping for a new one? Defective hardware or firmware?

Feb 18, 2009 10:17 AM in response to maxrebo

don't know if this is happening on movies you converted yourself, but there was a change in 2.3 that makes at least 1 AAC audio track compulsory... if you don't have at least one AAC track you get silence. you can have multiple other audio tracks but must have at least one AAC audio track.

some people encoded videos with only an AC-3 (Dolby Digital 5.1) track and this worked in previous versions, but the compulsory ACC track is required for any audio at all to play in 2.3.

i've tested this and it is definitely the case.. no AAC track = no audio at all.

Apr 28, 2009 8:58 PM in response to maxrebo

So I really forgot about this post. It turns out I really had a faulty optical cable. I thought I did all the troubleshooting I could, but on my cable box it seemed to be less picky (for no real reason). I think I had bad luck with bad coincidences!

With a new cable (I bought a heavier duty cable just to be on the durability safe-side), it has been working for a couple of months without problems!

Apr 29, 2009 12:25 AM in response to maxrebo

maxrebo82 wrote:
I wondered a while back why my 5.1 AC3 audio was silent on some converted videos (I didn't encode a 2nd 2 channel audio track).


Because one of the recent software updates for AppleTv 'enforced' a 'recommendation' that movies with 5.1 should have a separate stereo track rendering single track 5.1 files unplayable - not sure if this was fixed in 2.3.1 - a few fixes were posted a while back which involved adding a dummy or new stereo track in Quicktime (I think anyway, as I never had this issue).

This 'recommendation' was released by Apple soon after Take 2.0 software came out but for most was never seen being hidden away in AppleTV support pages.

Optical Output Not Working

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