Connecting Home theater and dvd player....?

Question

I just bought a Yamaha home theater system and a sony dvd player and i am trying to connect this to my LCD tv the best possible way....it is connected but it is not sounding like it should in different modes.....i am trying to get quality sound when watching my tv and also a dvd...i do have a digital cable dvr box to throw in here so my question is....what is the best way to hook this up? I do have 1 hdmi cable and 1 optical cable

Answer 1

The most common way to do this is:

1: Connect the DVD player to the TV using HDMI.

2: Connect the DVD player to the home theater using optical audio.

Note: This requires you to change your TV and receiver to use the proper input.

Then there's this way:  IF your TV can break out the digital audio signal from the HDMI connection and has a digital audio output, you can connect the DVD player to your TV with HDMI, then connect the TV to your receiver using optical audio.  However, only some newer TVs have this feature - so check your manual.

Connecting other devices - Satellite box, DVR, game console, etc. - basically uses the same methods as above.

When dealing with multiple devices, it's best to sit down and draw out the wiring diagram on paper, just to make sure you have enough inputs and cables before you start.

There are 2 basic philosophies for connecting your devices:

1: Receiver-centric.  Everything goes into the receiver.  This makes the receiver your A/V switch as well.  This may reduce the number of wires running into your TV, but also means your receiver must be on to use anything - even if you're using something that doesn't necessarily take advantage of your surround speakers.

2: TV-centric.  Everything goes into the TV, with the exception of the surround sound connections.  Those would still go into the receiver as normal.  This means you can still listen to your devices with the TV's speakers which I've found is more spouse-friendly (at least for my spouse...)  However this means that it's an extra step to use the receiver.

Depending on what devices you have, and how many inputs your TV and receiver have, you'll probably end up with something that's a combination of the two.

My setup is mainly TV-centric.  Everything in my living room is connected to the TV directly.  I then connected those devices that are surround sound capable to the receiver.  This means that we must choose the video input (on the TV) and audio input (on the receiver) separately - but only if we want to use the receiver.  We normally only use it for movies and games.

Answer 2

The best way to hook it up is to run the HDMI cable direct to your TV and the fiber optic cable to your receiver. However if you need the switching abilities run everything to your receiver and a single HDMI cable to the TV.

If your DVR has HDMI output and your TV has only one HDMI input you will have to use the switching in your receiver. If your DVR has only component output you don't have a problem. Run the component output of the DVR to your TV and either coax or fiber optic to your receiver for sound.