Help hooking up Home theater system!!

[prostuff1]

Well, my dad finally went out and bought a HTS. It is this one and while i know it is not great it is better then nothing. The problem i am having is hooking everything up. The direction for this thing are really confusing me, and this is the first time i have been confused by electronics so it is kinda frustrating.

OK, so i have that HTiB. I want to hook up a Hitachi 42 in widescreen HD TV that has 2 compontent and 3 composite inputs on the back. I also want to hook up our HD satellite reciver (second one down on the page) that uses component, a DVD/VCR combo (the DVD side uses compontent and the VCR side uses composite), and the reciever.

I was using component cables to go from the DVD to the TV for the video and i had red and white audio cables for the sound. For the VCR part i was using coax cable (i dont think it was the right way but it was what worked). Then from the satellite reciever to the tv i used component cables again along with red and white audio cables.

Now what i was wondering was how to hook all this up and make it work correctly? I figured i should hook up the DVD player using the component to the TV like i usually do but use the digital coaxial from the back of the DVD player to go to the Digital coaxial on the back of the reciever. then for the satellite dish i should again hook up the dish to the TV using the component like i had it last time, but then us the digital optical out to connect to the reciever. For the VCR part of this i am not quite sure; do i just go ahead and connect it to the TV and not wory about the reciever? or does the one coaxial out on the DVD/VCR player take car of all audio?

I have done some reading and what i thought you had to so was run everything through the reciever, but i have come to relize that my HD TV had a higher bandwidth and the reciever probably cant handle it? And there are connection on the back of the TV that say Hi-Fi audio and i thought that was for the going to the reciever but it seems as if there is no place to plug that in on the reciever. It said in the manual that the Hi-Fi audio was supposed to go to the stero system amplifier and i thought that the HTS was that.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading it! I raelly appreciate it. I am going to a local TV shop tomorrow and talk to them about the setup also, but if anyone hear has some input that would be great, i want to get this thing set up as soon as possible.

What i think i have to go get is a digital coaxial cable for the DVD player and a digital audio optical cable for the satellite dish. I hope that is all i need, but i will probably end up picking up some more stuff.

Thanks for any help you can give me, it is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[e²Studios]

I have a HK 7300 and i run everything through it. The only thing that isnt run through it is the HDMI cable from my Pioneer Elite series DVD player, the audio on that is running to the HK as my TV has the speakers disabled. I have the 51" Hitachi Directors series HDTV, good choice, hitachi makes some great products

I would recommend that at least the audio goes directly to the receiver if not everything.

If you have any specific questions feel free to im or pm me, i love home theater building

Ed

 

[khisayruou]

Let me see if I can decrypt your message and help you out.
I think this is probably the easiest way. If your cables are not able to
do this, then just post back. There are a few more ways to get
this done, specifically the VCR hookup.

Sat. Receiver (component out) >> hdtv (component in - 1)
Sat. Receiver (optical out) >> onkyo (optical in)

DVD player (component out) >> hdtv (component in - 2)
DVD player (coaxial out) >> onkyo (coaxial in)

VCR (composite video out) >> hdtv (composite video in)
VCR (red, white audio out) >> onkyo (red, white audio in)

 

[Flynnstone]

...snip

yes what he said.
Some of these systems are WAY too confusing to setup or even use. I helped a neighbor setup a new system. He bought all Sony. We got it working, but not sure if it was the best it could be. Wasn't obvious if the screen was in 16:9 or 4:3 mode. Couldn't figure out how to get the receiver/dvd into DTS mode. Confusing. P.S. He was music/roadie type in a prior life and I'm an electrical engineer. I hate to thing of the average Joe hooking that thing up.

I have an Onkyo receiver, Hitachi HDTV and an Panasonic DVD. Piece of cake to setup. See previous poster.
One perhaps confusing detail. The receiver setup will ask if each speaker is "large" or small". What this means is that small speakers can't do low frequencies. So the receiver will route the low frequency information for that speaker to the sub woofer. If you like music dvds, I recommend making your from speakers Large. Assuming that you have replaced the fronts with large speakers. Old decent speakers should be fine.

 

[prostuff1]

I have a HK 7300 and i run everything through it. The only thing that isnt run through it is the HDMI cable from my Pioneer Elite series DVD player, the audio on that is running to the HK as my TV has the speakers disabled. I have the 51" Hitachi Directors series HDTV, good choice, hitachi makes some great products

I would recommend that at least the audio goes directly to the receiver if not everything.

If you have any specific questions feel free to im or pm me, i love home theater building

Ed

Thanks for the help. I would run everything through the reciever but there are no component hookup and i dont want to use composite on the DVD and HD satellite reciever.

Let me see if I can decrypt your message and help you out.
I think this is probably the easiest way. If your cables are not able to
do this, then just post back. There are a few more ways to get
this done, specifically the VCR hookup.

Sat. Receiver (component out) >> hdtv (component in - 1)
Sat. Receiver (optical out) >> onkyo (optical in)

DVD player (component out) >> hdtv (component in - 2)
DVD player (coaxial out) >> onkyo (coaxial in)

VCR (composite video out) >> hdtv (composite video in)
VCR (red, white audio out) >> onkyo (red, white audio in)

Thanks much for directions. I figured that was the way i was going to half to hook it up in the end becasue i could not run all of it through the reciever without losing so video quality. now i have to go to the Radio Shack and get me some digital audio coxial cable and some digital audio optical cable to hook the DVD and HD reciever up to the onkyo.

Thanks everyone for there help, should have it finished in about two hours. Have to snow blow te driveway first so i can get out to go to town.