Firestick & Ethernet

Firestick & Ethernet: a reader asks…

I have a firestick with the Amazon Ethernet adapter,  that is directly connect to my router what do I need or do to connect to my blue ray so i can get surround sound with my firestick.my blue ray player the following outputs HDMI output no input! A Ethernet output and a USB wireless connection port. I want to be able to still use Ethernet rather than wireless can this be achieved!!!

It would have been most helpful if you’d given me the brand and model number of your blu-ray disc player (and your TV or projector). As it is I’ll have to do some guessing. First off, you should know that a Firestick works best with either just a television, or with a complete home theater system (that’s made up of a receiver and multiple component input devices). What it sounds like you have is a ‘one-trick-pony’ surround sound system tied to a blu-ray disc player. I can only guess that your blu-ray player has a digital audio input port.

Second, the whole business about Ethernet versus wireless (to your router) doesn’t make any difference in terms of getting your Firestick to work with your surround sound speakers. But to answer your last question, you need to connect an Ethernet cable from the Firestick’s Ethernet Adapter to your router in order to get wired versus wireless internet access (to the Firestick). I should say this is the least of your concerns and for most people, wireless works just fine. The Ethernet port on your blu-ray player won’t help you, that’s also a port designed to connect to your router.

Since your blu-ray disc player doesn’t have any HDMI input ports, the only way to get audio from the Firestick to the surround sound speakers is to use an audio extractor box between the Firestick and the TV’s HDMI input, and then run a digital audio cable (optical or coaxial) from the extractor box to the digital audio input port on the blu-ray player (if it has one). Here are the three pieces of equipment you could use:

1. Audio Extractor box such as this one for $20 https://www.amazon.com/Tunteil-Extractor-Support-Toslink-Converter/dp/B073TRXV9F
2. Either:
   1. Optical (aka SPDIF aka TosLink) cable such as this one for $5-7 https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Digital-Optical-Audio-Toslink/dp/B00NH11H38 or
   2. Coaxial cable such as this one for $6-10 https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Digital-Audio-Coaxial-Cable/dp/B01D5H8UTW
3. A short HDMI cable such as this one for $6-8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014I8UAPE/

The choice of optical versus coaxial depends on what type of digital audio input port your blu-ray player has. The extractor box I suggested above has both types. Assuming your blu-ray player has one or the other…

• Plug the Firestick into the extractor box’s HDMI Input port
• Plug the HDMI cable from the extractor box’s HDMI Out port to an available HDMI In port on your TV
• Plug the digital audio cable from the port on the extractor box to a matching IN port on your blu-ray player

You’ll probably have to power-cycle your equipment so that the Firestick, extractor box, TV and blu-ray player all exchange the necessary HDCP signaling (circuitry that purports to prevent piracy but usually just causes hiccups when folks try to legally play their content).