Lifestyle v20 can't get the surround sound system to work with new 4K television

[docmellow]

We purchased an Insignia 4k television and have our Lifestyle V20 hooked up to it for the sound, but we cannot get the surround sound to work.  The sound only comes out of the center front speaker.  We the audio hooked up to the audio out with an A/V cable and have switched it between the audio out and the headphone jack on the television, but cannot get the surround sound to work.  Should we get an optical cable and converter to the RCA jacks to get the surround sound to work.  

We love the lifestyle system, but I am considering getting a new system to get the surround sound to work but would rather not do so if I can get the Lifestyle system to work.  

Please help.  Thanks.

[Xyz987]

That Bose is at least 10 years old.  It might be problematic finding a good way to connect it to your new TV that will work. It also depends on what your are trying to do.

Where do you have your cable or satellite TV connected?  Is it connected to the Bose or TV?  Most new TV's use HDMI ARC between the TV and sound system for a two-way communication of both sound and video.

Personally, I prefer to connect cable box, DVD, CD, etc to my TV using HDMI in.  Then all I need is a way to send sound from TV to Bose.  That can be HDMI, optical, RCA, etc.

You also need to go into the TV sound settings and turn-off the TV internal speakers and turn-on the TV's sound out to HDMI/optical if that's what you are using.

[Shekhar11077]

I am not able to get Dolby 5.1 sound from my v20 system. The display unit always say pcm 2.0. I have connected Roku hdmi dongle to the media Centre CBL/SAT input and expected Bose v20 to extract 5.1 Dolby sound from HDMI. I have made sure Roku is outputting Dolby and I selected Netflix movie which is 5.1. 
can anybody confirm if this Bose lifestyle v20 system can extract Dolby sound from HDMI input source or I need to extract it outside (by TV or any other hdmi audio splitter) and connect it through the optical audio inputs? 
unfortunately my TV, Roku or projector none of them have optical out.

[rickatk]

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@Shekhar11077 wrote:

I am not able to get Dolby 5.1 sound from my v20 system. The display unit always say pcm 2.0. I have connected Roku hdmi dongle to the media Centre CBL/SAT input and expected Bose v20 to extract 5.1 Dolby sound from HDMI. I have made sure Roku is outputting Dolby and I selected Netflix movie which is 5.1. 
can anybody confirm if this Bose lifestyle v20 system can extract Dolby sound from HDMI input source or I need to extract it outside (by TV or any other hdmi audio splitter) and connect it through the optical audio inputs? 
unfortunately my TV, Roku or projector none of them have optical out.

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@docmellow 

@Shekhar11077 your V20 system is twenty years old! It only has composite connections. DD5.1 decoding is not possible using this system. Time to upgrade. I suggest at least a Bose TV speaker and sub. 

As @Xyz987 states, plug all your devices into your new TV and connect to new Bose speaker using ARC.

Don’t waste your money on twenty year old technology or HDMI splitters etc.

[Shekhar11077]

Thanks for the response. Bose lifestyle v20 do support Dolby Dts. Can you suggest how do I made connections to get 5.1 surround sound? From all the post I read, it looks like I have to feed audio using optical input and use hdmi input only for video, is that correct? My Roku dongle does support Dolby dts but doesn’t have optical out though. Thanks in advance.

[rickatk]

@Shekhar11077 

Apologies, my search pulled up a different model I see you have the  V20 2007 -2010. If this is correct have you tried putting connecting all your devices including the Roku to the Bose console and then run 1 HDMI cable for video to the TV?

As suggested by @Xyz987  alternatively plug in all your devices into your TV and run an optical cable from the TV to one of the device inputs on the Bose V20. Set the TV speakers to external or whatever the TV setting is called. 

[NeonsNight]

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@Shekhar11077 wrote:

I am not able to get Dolby 5.1 sound from my v20 system. The display unit always say pcm 2.0. I have connected Roku hdmi dongle to the media Centre CBL/SAT input and expected Bose v20 to extract 5.1 Dolby sound from HDMI. I have made sure Roku is outputting Dolby and I selected Netflix movie which is 5.1. 
can anybody confirm if this Bose lifestyle v20 system can extract Dolby sound from HDMI input source or I need to extract it outside (by TV or any other hdmi audio splitter) and connect it through the optical audio inputs? 
unfortunately my TV, Roku or projector none of them have optical out.

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PCM 2.0 means that the system is either getting a stereo signal or a surround sound format it can not decode. I go over what you should do in this guide. It will also help you if you wish to use your V20 with a modern HDTV. 

I hope that this helps solve your problem. Let us know what you ended up doing 🙂