Vizio sound bar won't recognize sound - AC3 output dectected

Hi all,

I’ve recently purchased a Vizio VSB200 sound bar. I’ve connected my WD HD unit to my sound bar via the optical cable, went into setting and switch my sound output to Digital output. 

My Vizio sound bar then gave me an error code where it says no PCM audio output detected. So I would assume that my WD HD unit only output AC3 for digital sound? 

Did I miss something here because the WD HD manual says that the unit is compatible with PCM digital sound. 

What should I do? 

Any help or suggestion would greatly appreciate! 

Thank you in advance!

Your problem is related to the poorly chosen names given to the sound output options in the menu. Where it says “digital” it should say instead “bitstream” or “passthrough”. If you set it to “digital” and play a movie with an AC3 or DTS track you’ll get exactly that on your optical out, so your Vizio bar will give an error. You need to set it to “stereo”, that will decode the audio and send it as stereo PCM.

If you want to get out Dolby Digital 2-channel, how do you do?