Does my cable box need to be hooked up with an HDMI cable to hook up my surround sound with an HDMI cable?

Question

My digital cable box is hooked up with 3 audio wires and a red and a white wire (no HDMI cable). I want to hook up my 5.1 surround sound with the supplied HDMI cable to the TV but when I do that there is no picture or sound when watching TV (works with DVD). Does the cable box need to be hooked up via HDMI as well for the surround sound to work with my TV?

Answer 1

As stated above, you don't' have to have an HDMI cable unless you just want to eliminate wires. You could use standard Red/white cable or an optical cable. the problem is that you need to send the signal from your surround sound amplifier to your digital cable box. There should be an OUT marked on the back of your amplifier and an IN on the back of your cable box.

Answer 2

Actually, I believe whatever type cables you are using have to be connected from the Surround Sound TO the Cable Box. That is because your tv is playing what is being supplied by that box, and the channel your TV is on is not a working channel. That is why you are getting no sound and pic for your surround sound.

You do not necessarily need an HDMI cable for surround sound to work properly,. But at the least, you do need the Red and White (both for steroe) RCA cables.

Good luck!

Adding one more thing: I just read the answer directly after mine. You were misinformed. The OUT audio will be on your cable box, and the IN audio will be on your surround sound system.

Answer 3

Well SINCE your DVD works with your amp, the problem you must be having is the 2nd HDMI input on your amp is not automatically set to the TV button on your amp....

It must be set for some other input button....

I'd try all the buttons first with the cable box and the TV turned on ....

Oh wait, maybe you THINK the 5 wire component cable system from your amp to the TV set will pick up the HDMI from the cable box and convert it ....

No it won't.....Component connections on your amp do not cross the signal over to the HDMI connections because HDMI is a digital only signal, and the Component (5 wire) inputs only output TO  the Component output because it's a NON-DIGITAL SIGNAL....

The same applies with the 3 wire RCA Composite signals....

So, you have to go HDMI from your cable box to the amp and HDMI from the amp to the TV set to see a picture and hear it on your amp....