Optical output for sound bar

Check your
audio settings, and make sure "Optical Audio" isn't set to "Off".

If that still doesn't work, try checking the physical connection between the sound bar and your Xbox, and make sure the optical connectors are secured. Also make sure the optical cable isn't bent in any way; since optical audio uses light to transmit signals,
extremely sharp bends in the cable can potentially block the light inside the wire and break the signal.

As WhiteyBlack2 says you can use the optical output. I have a sound bar running off mine and it works fine.

Hi,

I'll address each of your points in turn:

Q) You were able to hear system sounds before you included the sound bar.

A) Correct

Q) You cannot hear system sounds with the sound bar included in your set-up.

A) Under certain conditions, correct. These are the conditions:

- When the Sound Bar is connected directly to the Xbox 360 via digital optical, I cannot hear system sounds when using Digital Stereo

- When the Sound Bar connects to my TV via HDMI, and my TV outputs audio to the Sound Bar via digital optical, I cannot hear system sounds, regardless of Xbox's output format. This is because my HDTV outputs only linear PCM when the audio source is HDMI

Q) You are now unable to hear system sounds even directly connected to your TV

A) Correct -- see above for further details

Q) Are you able to hear other sounds in games or movies?

A) Yes -- I watched an AVI movie on my Xbox 360 when using digital optical through my TV, and I didn't notice any issues with the audio.

Q) Is there any configuration of your set-up that allows you to hear the system sounds?

A) There are two situations where I can hear the system sounds:

- When the Xbox 360 connects directly to the Sound Bar, the the output audio format is Dolby Digital

- When the Xbox 360 connects to my HDTV, and then the HDTV outputs analog audio to the Sound Bar

Hello again, in addition to TV exchanges and audio settings, what kind of HDMI cable are you using?

And I don't know if that's the case, but you've tried to connect the sound bar through the tv's optical output, if your soundbar has an optical input (S/PDIF)

Is your sound bar stereo or surround? Many sound bars take a surround input and produce a quasi surround effect through their speaker array. Being that it takes an optical input I'd say that's probably the case. You should output the highest quality audio
to your sound bar that it can support.

Digital Stereo and Dolby Digital output in different formats, PCM for Digital Stereo and AC3 for Dolby Digital. Your sound bar might just not be able to handle the PCM stream for some reason. You should confer with your sound bar's manual to make sure that
it fully supports whatever you throw at it.

It sounds like Dolby Digital works just fine with it so I'd suggest just sticking with that. There's a good chance that it will sound better and it definitely wouldn't hurt.