Digital tv question

[Matt Sopher]

I'm new to the forum having just purchased a 2008 Rockwood 8281SS and I know I'm not the first to ask this question. Is there any way to hook up a digital ready tv with a Concertone zx500 w/o using a converter box? I can get digital reception on the tv but of course I can't get surround sound or a signal for the DVD, etc.

[hotrodj125]

We have a new 320RS and am not able to get the TV to work on surround sound, does anyone know how to get this to work? I've tried different cable hookups between the tv and the theatre system, but nothing works...

[Oakman]

I was never able to get our digital TV to play through the surrond sound on the 2008 Wildcat that we previously owned either. I tried everything I could think of and it just never happened. I think once a year, every year, I would spend a whole day trying, only to give up in frustration.

[Jabawaky]

Hey it has to do with the way they ran the audio cables for the RCA option plugins had the problems on 3 wildcats we sold. They run from the option RCA's video to tv and then the audio to stereo you have to pull the stereo run the audio back to tv the run second audio out RCA' for tv Down to stereo that should help.

[KyDan]

Originally Posted by Matt Sopher

I'm new to the forum having just purchased a 2008 Rockwood 8281SS and I know I'm not the first to ask this question. Is there any way to hook up a digital ready tv with a Concertone zx500 w/o using a converter box? I can get digital reception on the tv but of course I can't get surround sound or a signal for the DVD, etc.

Hey Matt, I don't know if you can get surround sound but you should
be able to get stereo sound.
I'm not familiar with the Concertone ZX500 but some of the older units
had a built in analog tuner.
Forget that part.
You now use the digital tuner in your new TV and feed audio out from the
TV to audio in on the concertone.
That should give you at least stereo sound which ain't bad in a small
space like an RV!

My Westinghouse digital TV has no audio out jacks!! Really, what were
they thinking?!?! So I use a little adapter cable that actually came with
an older digital camera.
It fits the earphone jack on the TV and it has RCA plugs on the other end.
I plug that into my Jensen (Similar to Concertone) and get stereo sound
out the main cabin and/or bedroom speakers.
I must do this if the roof AC is on since the TV has tiny little speakers
and you can't hear it over the AC.

Your TV most likely has audio out RCA jacks and so you just need
to plug that into your Concertone-- either via the wall outlet/input
next to the concertone (if you have one of those) or pull the unit out
of the wall and plug into the rear jacks on the back of the Concertone.

Good Luck!!

[Herk7769]

OK, I do have some help for you guys.
There are several different issues here so bear with me.
ALL have been dealt with in previous threads, but I will try to go through it all again.

The ZX-500 has a built in ANALOG TV tuner. The TV tuner on this unit WILL NO LONGER WORK as all over the air signals are now digital.

There are two ways to make it work

The over the air antenna output from the wall plate must be connected directly to your Digital TV (and not the ZX-500).

If you do NOT have a digital TV, you will need a converter box between the output of the wall plate and your analog television or the ZX-500.
(If you can no longer find a converter box I still have a new one I can sell you)

Getting surround sound audio OUT of the TV to the Concertone.
This one is tricky as some of you have found out.

Surround sound is a LINE LEVEL encoded signal that does not come out of the earphone jack. You can get "stereo" out of the earphone jack and can connect it to the iPod/MP3 player input on most Concertones. You will never get surround sound this way. I do not believe the earlier Concertones have a "theater" setting to make a stereo use the 5.1 speaker setup. I think the later ones do. "Theater" is NOT Surround Sound. It just uses all 5 speakers and the subwoofer.

If your TV, (like mine), has RCA audio outputs, you can connect these to the RCA input jacks of the Concertone. THESE outputs are line level and if the "over the air" broadcast contains surround sound encoding you will get true surround sound out of the Concertone. You will also get true surround sound out of a DVD player connected to the TV since the RCA output jacks will pass through that information.

So, you have a "cheaper" or "newer" TV without RCA output jacks.
Are you screwed?
If NO line level output jacks on your TV, you are limited to the earphone trick.

However, look for a fiber optic/TosLink port on the back of the TV.

This is a digital (not analog like the RCA jacks) output found on newer TVs. Since the ZX-700 and earlier units do not have a fiber input, you will need to convert the digital output to an analog RCA signal to be used by the Concertones.

KanexPro Digital to Analog Audio Converter AUD2ACV B&H Photo
will do this for you but will NOT pass the surround sound encoding (2 channel only).

Looking for the link afraid to lose post.
Found it:
Sewell Digital to Analog 5.1 DTS/AC-3 Decoder Surround Sound (Toslink/Coax to RCA) - SW-29767, $68.95

will do surround sound pass through and is the way to go if you have a surround sound capable Concertone or Touch Audio unit.

The Fiber Optic/TosLink port looks like this:

[hotrodj125]

YEP, I finally got the TV to work on the surround sound, got a fiber-optic audio cable on ebay and hooked it up and with some playing with the systems, finally got it to work, and works good.

[KyDan]

Awesome!

We love a happy ending!
And thanks for the follow up.
We too often don't get to hear "the rest of the story".

[TURBS]

Success!