Home Theater Setup Help

Hello all, I am in need of some help in trying to figure all this out. I am trying to hook up my home theater and this is what I have:

1 cable box - has optical, HDMI and SVideo inputs, coaxil input
1 TV - has optical, HDMI and SVideo inputs, coaxil input
1 DVD Player - has HDMI and SVideo inputs
1 Surround Sound Receiver- has optical, HDMI and SVideo inputs

2 HDMI cables
1 Optical cable
SVideo cables
1 coaxil cable

I was told to run everything through the surround sound receiver. How can I accomplish this, what cables do I use for what? I had it setup but was lacking 1 HDMI cable to make it all work without having to use svideo for the DVD player to TV and having to manually change the input on the remote for that but we have moved and it was 8 months ago that I tore it down and am now just getting back to setting it back up again. All my tape labels fell off and I can't remember how everything was hooked up plus I would like to hook it up so that everything runs through the receiver, if thats right, so that I don't manually have to change things out when we use the DVD player.....Any help is appreicated!

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za3bour

Yes the surround should be the center point. I think you should hook the cable box to surround using optical (so you can get surround sound) and you should hook the TV to the surround through HD cable.I believe the surround has only one HD slot so you will have to hook the DVD to the surround using SVideo other wise if it has two hd slots then you can hook the DVD to it using HD.

I hope that I'm right, I don't have cable I have a satellite dish instead but it does have optical as well.

earweed

You need to specify input or output (or both) and how many inputs of each you have. Basically run from the cable box to the surround sound and from the DVD to the surround sound and then run from the surround sound to the TV. You'll then have 2 channels to worry about on the surround sound and 1 channel on the TV. Your cable box will be used to change your TV stations.
You may need more cables.

za3bour

earweed wrote: »

You need to specify input or output (or both) and how many inputs of each you have. Basically run from the cable box to the surround sound and from the DVD to the surround sound and then run from the surround sound to the TV. You'll then have 2 channels to worry about on the surround sound and 1 channel on the TV. Your cable box will be used to change your TV stations.
You may need more cables.

Why the extra cables ? wouldn't three be enough ? I think he would need more if he doesn't have optical in both surround/cable ?

joey74055

earweed wrote: »

You need to specify input or output (or both) and how many inputs of each you have. Basically run from the cable box to the surround sound and from the DVD to the surround sound and then run from the surround sound to the TV. You'll then have 2 channels to worry about on the surround sound and 1 channel on the TV. Your cable box will be used to change your TV stations.
You may need more cables.

Hi, I have several HDMI (3 or 4) input/outputs on the surround receiver, 1 HDMI input/output on the cable box, 1 HDMI input/output on the DVD player and 2 or 3 HDMI input/outputs on the TV. I have 1 optical input/output on the TV, 1 optical input/output on the cable box and 1 optical input/output on the surround receiver. I have 2 HDMI cables and 1 optical cable.

Lemonade727

I know this is a late reply but I just stumbled upon it so if you're still having setup issues maybe this would help out.

The HDMI ports on your cable box and dvd player are going to be OUTPUTS. So you would connect those 2 devices to your surround sound receiver's HDMI INPUTS. Then you would simply connect the HDMI OUTPUT from the receiver to the HDMI INPUT of your TV, so basically as earweed stated. This is the easiest setup, so simply purchasing another HDMI cable will give you this result and since HDMI carries audio AND video, this would be all that you would need.

If you're trying to accomplish this without purchasing another cable then things would change a little bit depending on your receiver (you would need to post the model of receiver you have so I can help confirm).

You would keep the DVD player connected to the receiver through HDMI and the receiver connected to the TV through HDMI, but you would connect the cable box to your receiver through an S-Video cable for video and optical for audio. THIS ONLY APPLIES IF YOUR RECEIVER SUPPORTS ANALOG -> DIGITAL CONVERSION TO OUTPUT OVER HDMI. If that is not the case then you would have the S-Video cable going from your cable box directly to your TV, and then have the optical cable connecting the cable box to the receiver.

joey74055

Thank you very much for the help! I have gotten it figured out now. Again, thank you all!

tpatt100

I have an older receiver so all my HDMI go to my television and I use fiber optic for audio to my receiver. I want to upgrade my receiver eventually.