Help! Please. Volume control MIA after cable box swap...

[Buzz]

TWC, now Spectrum, insisted that we swap cable boxes (and remotes). Doing so introduced the following conundrum:

Using the same Dell U3011 monitor, HDMI cable, and funkalicious wall wart powered external speaker ensemble, the ability to control the volume via the remote has vaporized. The older, smaller cable box worked just spiffy; changing channels, and upping, downing, and muting volume worked as one would expect when pushing the buttons on the older, smaller remote. It simply controlled the output from the little cable box, which was actually more of a cable to analog converter with coax and HDMI outputs.

The new equipment provides a whole bunch more controls and features for the video side of the equation, but the formerly available audio controls are nowhere to be found, no matter which buttons are pressed. All it seems to provide is an uncontrollable/unmutable line level audio signal to the external device, which does not have a remote. All audio changes have to be made manually on the device's buttons.

The new box has a full size remote that is capable of being paired w/ most TV's, but since this setup is a straight up computer monitor, it doesn't have any TV'esque controls or remote pairing capability. Spectrum's techs have been clueless as to how to access audio controlability thru the HDMI out port; they expect it to be controlled at the other end of the HDMI cable, features that our setup is not equipped for.

Soooo, is there any way to fiddle w/ the settings of the cable box to allow the HDMI audio to be controlled by the remote w/o pairing it to a non-existent TV?

The other option is maybe using the audio out direct from the cable box, of which it has two choices; standard white/red RCA analog audio out jacks, and an orange RCA coax/digital audio out jack. That means testing them to make sure they work as hoped; again, Spectrum techs have been unable to confirm how/if the jacks work IRL.

Soooo #2, are the digital and analog RCA outs likely to work similarly? Or is one more likely to be controllable by the remote as desired? and if so, which one? and would some sort of D/A converter be needed if it's the orange coax/digital jack? The speaker thingy has a standard 3.5mm aux input jack as well as a USB cable input for connecting to computers... not sure what sort of adapter would be applicable for USB, but obviously an analog Y cable is the easiest patch; if it will work. But it would sure be nice if there was a way to just make the HDMI audio work thru the remote.

Thanks.
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[dk62]

For Motorola cable boxes, you need to set up the remote to control sound output, the default on the remote is to control the TV side. Also, the boxes have variable output through analog but not through either digital (HDMI or optical/coax).

[NewtonMP2100]

.....when I had cable hated the fact that TWC basically forced you to upgrade boxes every 6 months....they would upgrade schedule, software, etc. and they would not work right on the old boxes....so every 6 months had to take them in and upgrade and they would work fine until the next time TWC made a change......

[Buzz]

dk62 wrote:
For Motorola cable boxes, you need to set up the remote to control sound output, the default on the remote is to control the TV side. Also, the boxes have variable output through analog but not through either digital (HDMI or optical/coax).

The latter is exactly what I found... no control via HDMI, so if what you're saying is accurate, then a Y cable from the analog RCA outs to a 3.5mm plug oughta do the trick?
Thanks.
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and Newt, it was the old school cable to analog box that worked... when they finally forced the migration it killed the controllable audio.
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