I have a Sony SDP-E800 and everything works on it with the exception of the digital 3 optical input. It does not accept any optical signal which it is supposed to route to the digital 3 output. I have used the outputs of a Sony LD player, a Sony DVD player and a Toshiba HD-DVD player as optical sources and the E800 will not pass the optical signals from any of the three to the E800's digital 3 output. I have checked the Service Manual for the E800 and found that the digital optical inputs 1, 2 and 3 are all processed the same according to the schematic. With the exception of the digital 3 input being bad, am I missing something here? If there is no solution, I will have to go a different way to route the optical signal.

FYI:
I have one of the Hitachi AVC08U's that rixrex was selling and was going to direct its optical output into the E800's digital 3 input. I discovered the above problem in testing.

Will it accept a digital signal at that input & do anything else with it? In other words, is routing to the "digital 3 output" the only thing it fails to do?

What are other alternatives to SDP-E800 other than stand alone RF demodulators? Are there any other processors like SDP-800? Is there one with more than one RF input?

The routing of the digital 3 input is what seems to not work. In checking the service manual, you can see that the digital 1, 2 and 3 optical inputs go into IC's 101, 102 and 103 respectively. I maybe in error here after looking at the manual further. The manual recommends that only the signal from a CD player can be input info digital 3. I tried that with a Sony CD player and did not get any music. I now suspect that either the digital 3 input is faulty or the digital out from my Sony CD player is faulty.

I will do some more experimenting.

I'm wondering if the optical receiver assembly may be dead, or not properly connected (cold solder joint?). In that case, no digital signal would be picked up, & no matter what you tried to do with the signal going into "Digital 3", route it elsewhere, listen to it, or what, it just wouldn't happen.

Probably the manual is worded the way it is to discourage you from trying to feed a non-PCM signal (such as dts) in, then routing it to a DAT or minidisc recorder, & having sample-rate conversion, ATRAC encoding, or whatever the next step in that process may be generate an unlistenable noise.

Well, I took the optical output from my Toshiba HD-DVD player and fed it into the E800's digital 3 input. I then played a CD and, again, no sound is output out of digital 3 output. At this point, I believe that the digital 3 input on the E800 is dead in some way.

This is not a game stopper for me. My original idea was to feed the optical out from my Hitachi AVC08U into digital 3. I will have to figure an alternative way to route the Hitachi's optical out into my Sony receiver. I currently do not have an HDTV; but, I am working on the A/V routing map.

I may have to bite the bullet and buy an optical and coax switcher. One that I have found is an Audio Authority model 1177A 4:1 Digital Audio AutoSelector. Has anyone had any experience with one of these?

Update:

I did some experimenting with the E800 digital 3 input.

Test equipment:
Sony MDP-600 LD player with optical and line level sound outputs.
Sony SDP-E800.
Sony STR-DE935 AV receiver with an unused audio input.

Procedure:
1) I connected the L/R line level outputs of the E800 to a spare audio line level input on my AVR.
I played an LD with digital sound on the MDP-600.
I fed the optical output of the MDP-600 into the digital 3 input on the E800 and pressed the digital 3 button on the E800.
Glorius sound came from the speakers!!!!

2) I then connected the L/R line level output of the MDP-600 into the analog line level inputs on the E800.
I then selected the analog button on the E800.
I played the LD and, again, wondrous sound came from the speakers!!!

Conclusion:
The SDP-E800 can act as an audio optical to an audio line level converter.
It can also route the audio line level signal applied to its analog inputs to its analog line level outputs.

Knowing the above and using a small A/V switcher, you could connect up to 4 LD players into the E800 and
be able to switch between them as you wish.

FYI:
I will be using a Sony SB-V55A as an A/V switcher. Unfortunately, the V55A switcher was discontinued
some years ago and may be difficult to obtain. (I like the V55A as it has an automatic shutoff after no video signal for 10 minutes.) You can use any other
switcher of your choice.

An FYI:

I finally figured out what the SDP-E800 digital 3 optical input could be used for. It seems that any 2 channel or 5.1 optical signal sent into ihe digital 3 jack is decoded by the E800 and the audio is then sent to the E800's 5.1 line level outputs. I think that Sony wants you to connect a Super Audio CD player into the digital 3 jack and then the E800 could decode the digital audio for you. I know that this is an observation of mine and may not be right; but, it is definitely 'food for thought'. (I will be on the lookout on E-bay for an SACD player now).