I was given an RCA surround sound for an early Christmas present. The DVD player is progressive scan. I guess I am a noob to all this audio. I have the red, white, yellow RCA cables hooked up to the DVD, VCR, cable box, and the receiver. Now, without going into great lengths, not all of the componest have the componet jacks, digital coaxial, or the optical. Does it matter if the VCR uses RCA cables while the DVD uses the coxial?
Also, I have the RCA, component and coaxil jacks on the DVD player. Which one should I use? From the surround sound manual, I need a digital hookup with the DVD and receiver.
all you have to worry about really is from component to receiver first.. for DVD- definitely go optical for audio if you can; if not use the co-ax port, and if not there then suffer the desolation of RCA (white and red) use the green, blue and red cables if you can to hook up to your receiver from the DVD player and make sure the receiver is set up that way under the "DVD" settings then from receiver to TV.. use component cables if you can, your audio won't need to go to the TV though, the receiver handles that From TV to receiver.. depends.. are you using Cable box? satilite? if so , your cable box and satilite receiver should have optical or co-ax, if not.. use red and white. VCRs don't have any other optino than red,yellow, white to my knowledge.. but I don't know everything. MOST of them don't so just use them, that also means you'll have to run a yellow to the TV for the TV to pick up that signal. but that's not that hard.
I guess what the question your asking is whether it's ok to mix cables depending on the component.. just treat each component as a different map.. and make the best cable choice that the component (dvd player.. ect.), TV, and receiver can handle and pick there...