I am goin nuts trying to get my theater set up and i think its because I am unclear on the basics of the compinents.
First off this is what I have:
I have coax cable in my attic which is split because I have both cable and Sattelite. the coax runs from my attic to a splitter and into the back of my Sat. receiver then from my receiver to my TV. (no cable box... just the TV receiving it.)
Also, I have my new Stereo receiver and a computer (with Svideo out) and thats all right now.
Now, what I am confused on is all the different video hook-ups. Coax, S-Video, and Composite. I would like to have the best video quality I can get, so I assume I should be using S-video or Composite. So I run the S-Video from my Sat Receiver to my TV and disconnect the Coax and I lose my picture... why is that? Same thing happens if I use Composite instead of Coax...
Also... I ran the digital (optical) cable from the rear of my Sat Receiver to the rear of my Stereo Receiver and I get no sound... But if I connect the Red and White cable (RCA ???) then I get sound... but I assume that its not digital? So why cant I get the digital to work?
I think the bottom line here is that I dont understand the theory behind connecting the components together. It seems to me that if I were to only use digital audio and composite video... I would only need those cables... And I should not be using the coax or the RCA cables... am I wrong with this?
Also... the rear of my stereo has like 6 S-Video and Composite inputs... I guess I connect all my components to those then run the S-video OUT to my TV and its suppose to give me the best quality picture??? does that mean I can then disconnect the coax cable from the back of my TV? and does it also mean that I now switch between video inputs on my stereo rather than my TV inputs?
damn im confused!!!
If someone could please run down for me the basics of setting something like this up I would be GREATLY appreciative... Any links you could give to pictures or articles would also be awesome!
I thank you in advance for your help.
hello
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you sound really confused. i'm no expert and i might have understood you wrong, but here's what i understand from what you've said. lets start with the connections.
it looks to me like you're using three cables from your sat reciever to your TV. one for video (either composite or s-video), and the other two are read and black ones for sound.
S-video is preferable to composite video in terms of picture quality, and component video is preferable to S-video. i'm assuming you have a single RCA looking plug for video which is usually a yellow plug, but it doesn't matter much what colour it is. that would be composite video. use the s-video one if you can.
"So I run the S-Video from my Sat Receiver to my TV and disconnect the Coax and I lose my picture... why is that? Same thing happens if I use Composite instead of Coax..."
the coaxial cable usually carries a wide range of signal including audio and it should go to your reciever or your TV, and composite and s-video only carry picture signals. this means the coaxial cable carries the full signal of audio and video on different frequencies and this is usually decoded by your satellite receiver. the coax should be the input of your sat receiver and it should be there in order for things to work. from your sat reciever if you have s-video or composite outputs you can run those to your TV. if not, you should have a coaxial running from your sat reciever to your TV. if you have s-video and two audio channels you could probably use that provided you turn your TV mode to take the signal from your s-video connection instead f the normal channels tuned on the TV itself.
"Also... I ran the digital (optical) cable from the rear of my Sat Receiver to the rear of my Stereo Receiver and I get no sound... But if I connect the Red and White cable (RCA ???) then I get sound... but I assume that its not digital? So why cant I get the digital to work?"
the digital input of your "stereo" is usually for a bitstream signal that will in turn be decoded into multi-channel signals, and i don't think that's what your sat reciever is giving to your stereo.
the red and white cable is RCA and it carries sound from your sat reciever to your TV or stereo. the digital cable does not carry the sound signal, it carries a full signal which your stereo might not understand. what you can do is take the audio (red and white) RCAs and feed them to inputs on the back of your stereo and play the sound off there. this means you'll need to have the stereo on whenever you watch TV.
the other method is of course to run the audio RCAs into your TV, and if your TV has outputs, run another set of audio cables to your stereo. this way the TV will have sound, and you can turn on the stereo to complement the TV when you watch movies.
"It seems to me that if I were to only use digital audio and composite video... I would only need those cables... And I should not be using the coax or the RCA cables... am I wrong with this? "
you haven't said what the coax is for. some equipment have both coaxial and optical output in digital form as an option to feed signal to other components in your system. if you use the digital output, you're not gonna get sound out of that unless you put it through a DAC, or a digital to analog converter. the DAC may be found in your stereo or you might have to get a separate decoder. simply put, the digital audio signal will not replace analog just like that because the digital signal still needs to be converted back to analog RCAs.
lastly, the inputs on the back of your stereo are for video switching and you could use them if yout TV had only one input and you had a few devices like maybe a VCR, a DVD player and a sat reciever s-video input. the stereo will toggle the inputs and output to your tv just one signal from one component. if you have multiple outputs like a TV and a projector then you would use those (if you had them).
real the manuals carefully especially the stereo one, and it should give you all the info you need to hook it up nicely.
i think your stereo is actually an AV reciever, because stereo amplifiers usually refer to audio amps with a pair of speaker terminals.