Help with connecting a soundbar

[Rawnblade1213]

Hello everyone,

I recently purchased a soundbar to enhance a television's audio, which may not be as glamorous as some of the other setups I've seen around here, but I've been having a lot of trouble getting it to work.

I inherited an older TV from my parents, it's a SHARP Model LC-46D43U and the soundbar I own is a VIZIO S3820W-C0B

The Soundbar came with a bunch of different connectors, but I can't seem to get the television to play through the soundbar. I've tried every single connector, theres a 3.5 mm to the dual color connectors, as well as a digital optical cable.

Either of these don't seem to work, I've tried messing with the tv settings to output PCM but it still doesn't work. I'm pretty sure the soundbar isn't defective since I tried playing stuff through it on my phone and it works great.

Is there something I'm missing? I'm trying to play things through an HDMI cable as well.

thank you

 

[psoohoo]

Generally you would connect all your inputs to the TV and have the TV's audio out (if it had one) to the Soundbar. Some will have just analog (two RCAs or 3.5mm stereo jacks) or better one will probably have Digital Out (either optical or coax). You seem to have Optical and Analog, from what the manual seems to say when I google the tv model.

I didnt read the whole manual so I am not sure if there is option in the TV menu to for the output to one of the Output options or not.
The soundbar says it support DD5.1, try that or even try Analog.

 

[boosted1g]

Optical out on TV to Optical on sound bar.
All input devices (dvrs, game consoles, dvd/bluray players, etc) conneceted to TV

Should be a setting in tv menu to output sound to external speakers

 

[Rawnblade1213]

Thanks for the responses, the problem is that the menus change when i flip through the inputs, on the "input 5" setting where I'm displaying a video it doesn't give me an option to output sound to external speakers.

however, on the "tv" default setting, it lets me change the digital output to PCm or DOLBy 5.1, is it possible the television ONly wants an output during the "tv" setting? Because that doesn't make any sense...

 

[boosted1g]

Never seen a tv that has different output source settings for each input (on receivers this is common but not on TV's)

 

[boosted1g]

What is input5 connected to?

Any digital source with HDMI should give you the options.

Your TV could be incapable of outputting analog stereo audio via optical

 

[Rawnblade1213]

That's possible, but what is the output optical on the tv for then?

 

[boosted1g]

The optical output can output 5.1 surround sound.

If you have a source (like a dvd player) that has the data for 5.1 audio it can output that data to an external receiver/sound bar.

Now most TVs have the ability to output stereo (2.0) over that optical output, it appears your TV lacks the ability to do so.

 

[Rawnblade1213]

The optical output can output 5.1 surround sound.

If you have a source (like a dvd player) that has the data for 5.1 audio it can output that data to an external receiver/sound bar.

Now most TVs have the ability to output stereo (2.0) over that optical output, it appears your TV lacks the ability to do so.

It also as PCM, I've tried both the 5.1 and the PCM and neither work...